It seems to come in phases, but this past week has once again highlighted the problems that blogging can cause in the workplace and the dilemmas it often causes for private companies. First of all there was the case of a former employee, who worked for the same holding company as me, that was dismissed for a post he made on Thought Leader where he lambastes the holding company and discloses sensitive information. Vincent has published his views on the matter and I’m not going to take sides as it’s pretty complex and there’s probably a lot more to it, but disclosing confidential information and doing it on a competitors platform is never going to look good.

Then there is the case of a well-known Egyptian blogger, Wael Abbas, who is making international news after his YouTube account was suspended and all his videos depicting alleged human-rights abuses in Egypt were removed.

Whilst these are two completely unrelated examples, it does emphasise the increasing disconnect between public and private interests in the free and open environment that the Net has nurtured. It’s also added additional fuel to the fire around the issue of confidentiality and to what extent something may or may not be in the public’s best interest.