They are the new estate, the watchdog of the watchdog, a revolutionary uncensored atmosphere in a world that is becoming more and more censored. But, would it be beneficial to force this revolutionary, uncensored atmosphere and its free users to abide by a universal blogging code of ethics limiting their content and their creativity? I think not.

The blogosphere – and the internet for that matter – is a unique space where anyone can participate, either by lurking- which is really not as creepy as it sounds- at blogs or by creating them. They are quick and easy to start and part of that reason is because there is little hassle for the individual. No one is limited an account because of what they know or what they don’t know or the information they want to write about.

As quick and easy as they are to start, blogs are even quicker and easier to edit. No longer do we have to wait days to see a retraction that few will see, the edits can be struck and changed almost immediately. The beauty of this, however, is not in the timing. The beauty is in the bloggers, the actual people who take the time to find both edits and posts that don’t quite meet up to standard.

As the so-called “fifth estate,” bloggers themselves are the best ethical and accuracy police out there and are aware of the power they hold, so why would the blogosphere even need a code of ethics? Just look at Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that was found in a recent study to be just as accurate as any encyclopedia, but not only because of the professionals.

“Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has always maintained that the service and its community are built around a self-policing and self-cleaning nature that is supposed to ensure its articles are accurate.”

With blogs, credibility is left up to the blogger and more importantly the reader who can take words at face value or disregard them all together. Okay, so this may not sound like a great idea, but when you give the reader the power, rather than the media, not only will you have more in-depth readers, you will have more discussion and analysis and that’s exactly what a blog – and traditional media for that matter – is meant to bring. Taking away the freedom of bloggers by forcing a code of ethics means a loss of freedom and therefore a loss in content, both good and bad.

Continuing on this note, it’s important to remember that blogs don’t only serve journalistic purposes – in fact, they probably serve more non-journalistic than journalistic purposes. Many people use blogs as a way to update friends or family on their lives or to just write. In this sense, forcing all bloggers to agree to an ethics code when they aren’t reporting the news seems useless and limiting to the average blogger.

Perhaps a better solution than regulating the entire blogosphere would be for those writing or reporting under certain organizations to agree to a code of ethics for that specific organization. This way, readers are even more enabled and aware of what they are reading and who they are receiving their information from. Healthcare Blogger has this sort of set up; writers must abide by a number of conditions to be eligible to write under the organization.

Forcing writers to agree to a code of ethics means they are becoming members of a group. Unfortunately, in cases where there are members, non-members tend to follow. This means a population is being left out, taking away the very core of why the blogosphere is the way it is – the freedom for anyone, code abiding member or not, to have a voice.