Boing Boing, Violet Blue, and archival ethics in the new media world
Sometime last year, Xeni Jardin, the co-editor of the popular blog Boing Boing, erased sex columnist Violet Blue from the site’s archives. Removed from public view on the two-million unique-visitors-a-month megablog were all Jardin’s posts regarding her former friend, as well as all of Blue’s comments on the site. Readers were not notified of the changes. Last week, the disappearance of the posts was noticed for the first time. The move outraged Boing Boing readers—and launched a massive, public controversy on the ethics of archiving in the new media era.