This sounds more like an argument out of high school:
London, ON, family physician Dr Keith Thompson grew more and more irate as the site grew and so too did the number of comments made about him and his colleagues “” many of them positive, but also some that were untrue and damaging. In early April, after his requests for changes to the site’s owners were rebuffed (he’d asked them to eliminate anonymous ratings and com-ments) Dr Thomp””son began to create false entries to demonstrate the site’s susceptibility to subterfuge by unaccountable internet users. He emailed the site’s co-founder, John Swapceinski, to tell him what he was doing and to warn that he planned to encourage colleagues to follow suit.After a protracted exchange with Dr Thompson, Mr Swap-ceinski decided to take Hammurabi’s approach and get an eye for an eye. In a message published on the site’s public forum on April 7, he posted Dr Thompson’s name, city of residence, employer, email address and phone number, as well as excerpts from some of his emails.
(via Dr. RW)
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“but as a practical matter, when the site is relatively small, we have to make it as easy as possible for people to add the ratings because there isn’t enough content on the site otherwise.”
In other words, bad, misleading, and poorly worded content is better than no content. What is the sound of an infinite number of monkeys pounding away on an infinite number of keyboards?
Doctors can’t win for losing…
1. Boards test/certify/rate them.
2. Now, irate/upset patients who may be in denial of their conditions [w/c doctors only diligently diagnose for and name for them] can express their juvenile frustrations and libelous rants in the internet…its pervasive in medically related websites, blogs, etc.
When would doctors find salvation, and be able to get fun practicing medicine again?!?
The internet is not above libel laws and doctors are not public figures who have no legal recourse when publically libeled.
The lesson remains: SPAM away, colleagues!
Its hard to even make a case for libel, when the poster[s] are Anonymous?
Anyone who uses the internet as the primary tool to decide who should and should not take care of them deserves whatever they get.
Haven’t we all deleted span from our inbox telling us about “financial opportunities?”
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