Eshin Direct

My linking policy and my readership has come under fire today. I guess I knew that this would be an inevitable consequence of linking to certain sites. The fear that there might be a push of a certain “negative” audience to other sites is a concern for some website administrators. It is a concern for me too.

Certain sites with content that I find questionable are linked to my site. My opinion of their audience demographic isn’t that high. I might be wrong about that, but sites that gear themselves to the objectivation of women isn’t skewed to attracting an audience that I might necessarily approve of.

Yet I link to these sites because they courteously link back to my site. This might be simple diplomacy, but it’s much deeper than that. It’s about the freedom of thought and choice.

The onus is on them to prove to my audience that they are worth existing on the Internet and have a valid view point on life. If not then they won’t go back to those sites. Of course, they may or may not care about this especially given my small audience. But that’s the way that it works. My opinion is that I can’t wholly approve of these sites. Maybe others will share that opinion or not. But I’d rather let them be the judge of that.

In any case, it works both ways. The flow of an audience from these sites might introduce some different ideas to people that have meaning for them, or even change their perspective about the rights and wrongs about certain issues. It may sound like ego to want to have the world listen to my ideas, and unethical to link and to be linked from certain sites, but it gets my message out there. I have to have faith that people are responsible enough to decide on what is valid and not valid out there.

Tags: linking policy, Surfer Rants