niks blog

I have been avidly blogging for the past several years. During that time, I have never had the need for implementing a blog disclaimer. As some of you may know, I also blog at my other website, NaanBrotNToast. Over the last few days, my wife and I have had to deal with an issue with one of her friends. Her friend, Angela Smith, requested that her name, her husband’s name, her daughter’s name, and all pictures of them be omitted from a post that had already been published. Furthermore, Google had already cached the post, so the situation was almost out of our hands.

My wife told me about the request and I asked her why Angela wanted us to omit the information. According to my wife, Angela did not really provide any meaningful reason other than the fact that she does not like her name on the web and wishes to protect her privacy.

Fair enough. However, that does not automatically constitute a reasonable request to remove her name from a post that has already been published. I refuse to accept that I should honor someone’s request to omit information about them in the eyes of privacy. As much as I value privacy, I also vehemently value my freedom of speech.

As such, I will now institute a disclaimer on this blog as well. I want everyone to know that I respect everyone’s privacy. However, I believe it is far more important to protect my intellectual thoughts and words. My disclaimer will probably not address every situation, but I aim to have it provide some guidance.

In short, I will NOT be removing/editing names unless a person’s direct well-being may be compromised negatively.

Long live Freedom of Speech!

My wife had the chance to talk to Angela via email and we discovered the true reasons why Angela had requested her name be removed. I will not go into further details, but the reason was acceptable to me. It should be noted that Angela is not the real name of my wife’s friend. And this is to protect her privacy.