I do understand the need for everyone to earn a living.
Thus, I'm actually not so much against bloggers getting paid for what they write.
True, it makes them mercenaries, but so what, as long as they don't break any law.
I don't think a blogger shouldn't be allowed to earn a living by writing in favour of those who are willing to pay them to do so.
Whether what they write is true or otherwise is secondary.
I'm of the opinion that it's up for us to decide whether the writing is worth reading.
That's why I often times wrote that we should be careful with what we read.
The writer, if paid, was just earning a living.
If we decide that the writer was writing falsehood, we can just stop reading the bullshit.
And if we feel that we don't have the capacity to decide whether what was written is the truth or a lie, I suggest we read other things which are really worth our time.
We can read gardening blogs and learn how to plant chillies...for instance. That's better than reading political stuff which we are not sure to be true or just bullshit.
I think it's a simple enough concept.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you should noticed that I almost never used the reprehensible word "dedak" or even "the red bean army", associated to paid bloggers..
I don't like those words because I'm still okay with people getting paid for what they write.
Proper journalists are also paid for using their writing skills and talents to earn a living.
So, why can't others get paid too, right?
Of course the best are still those who write purely because of their ideals.
They are the true pejuang.
If their writing is good instead of raving and ranting like a lunatic, then they are the ones deserved to be read the most.
But not everyone can afford that. Ideals can be quite expensive and people need to eat and feed their spouse, children or dog or cat.
Really, I understand the need of some people to be mercenary bloggers, cyber troopers and what ever.
If you all find them so reprehensible, just don't read their writings, okay.
But try not be too harsh on them. They just cari makan.
Having said all that, I'm nonetheless do get disgusted whenever I read these kind of stories,
In Malaysia, another blackmailing blog exposed
To be paid or even asking to be paid are still tolerable, but to blackmail for payment is very wrong.
It's against the laws too.
I can still tolerate a blogger taking payment to whack someone, but for the blogger to then offer the victim to stop the attack for a higher payment is really disgusting.
These are the people who truly give bloggers a bad name.
I encountered these people once.
It was back during the run up to the last general election.
There was this group of supposedly Umno bloggers who approached the team of then Johor MB TS Abdul Ghani Othman.
Ghani's team at that time didn't have dedicated cyber war people.
The bloggers offered to help with the campaign of Johor Umno and Ghani in return of a fee of several million ringgit.
The Ghani's team declined the offer because they really didn't have a budget for it.
Anyway, the demanded fee was way too high considering that the bloggers were not even of the top notch variety.
Unfortunately, the bloggers didn't take the rejection very well and in retaliation started to post series of slanderous articles aimed at Ghani.
They kept a constant barrage of those posts until the very last few weeks before the 2013 general election.
My sources insisted that the bloggers were paid by another group of Umno people, backed by very powerful personalities who wanted to make sure that Ghani is out of Johor after the election.
But of course I have no hard evidence on this, so that I can't say for sure whether it's true or not.
Nonetheless, I was told that the very same group of bloggers could now be seen from time to time at Kota Iskandar.
Okay lah, that's their rezeki, but what they did by whacking and slandering people who declined their services was bad.
That's cyber gangsterism.
I heard of this kind of behaviour from time to time.
Blogger demanding money from politician by threatening character assassination.
I strongly advice the politicians who experienced this to report those bloggers to the police.
The same goes to business people or any individuals being threatened in such a manner by rotten bloggers and social media players.
My experience on this matter was mostly on the Umno and BN side.
That's because I am from this side of the political fence.
I do wonder if the opposition people experienced the same.
Are there any opposition blogger or writer who got nasty because their demand for money was rejected?
Are there opposition bloggers or writers who indulged in character assassination of their leaders who rebuffed their demands?
I strongly believe it's the same on their side.
There are a case or two which I suspected to be those of opposition bloggers or writers turning rogue because they were not paid or accorded the recognition they thought they deserved by their political masters.
DAP don't pay, turn to Umno. Later, if Umno don't pay, turn back to DAP.
Scary la those.
Well, I guess it's all the same on this or that side.
End of the day, it's for us to decide what we want to read.
My suggestion is, let the cari makan bloggers earn a living and don't be too hard on them, but try to read the genuine ones more.
Even that, do be selective because even the genuine ones can be just spewing a lot of rubbish. All emotional and crazy.
In fact, I find some of the paid bloggers to be better in the sense that they do a good job by being rational, research their material well, write beautifully, very creative etc.
If they make better sense, why not read their blogs too, right?
