The comment feature on blogs and websites is an important innovation in online publishing—mainly because it allows interactivity between the writer and the reader. But do bloggers and readers take it for granted? What if it didn’t exist?

The editors of Engadget, a popular technology website, silenced the comment feature on its blogs on Tuesday, February 2, stating, “over the past few days the tone in comments has really gotten out of hand. What is normally a charged—but fun—environment for our users and editors has become mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations… and that’s just not acceptable.”

Flame wars and trolling on the Web are nothing new. And there are those who claim that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” whether to justify snark or simply to enlarge one’s presence on the Web. According to this perspective, there is no point in shutting down a comment system—even the flakiest or rudest comment still generates clicks, which in turn generates interest.

On the other hand, “sticks and stones” isn’t true. False, misleading, and/or defamatory stories placed online can and do hurt the reputations of the people they include and subjects they cover. And there is also the question of what value sarcasm and mean-spiritedness add to an online posting. Do they shed light on the subject matter, or are they simply invitations to join in the bullying?

If all blogs turned off their comment features, people would turn to Facebook, Twitter, and other online social media, as well as traditional channels of communication like newspaper editorials, to get across their points—and the average editorial page of a major newspaper is probably 75% snark generated by disappointed local readers.

Editors and moderators concern themselves, rightly, with the amount of snarky commentary generated by their articles, especially those generated by trolls who amuse themselves by looking to create controversy. If there is too much trolling and snark, these editors and moderators may take the action those behind Engadget did, and shut down commenting entirely. But in so doing, they may also be stifling the ability of readers to make positive or otherwise valuable commentary on their content—which is counterproductive to the whole point of having a blog!

Finding the right balance between interest and value is an editor’s paramount—and hardest —task. The most interesting content also needs the best eye-catching and interest-holding editorial treatment—while at the same time not allowing the publication to turn into a free-for-all. Otherwise, everyone will end up paying in pain for the hurtful words.

Due to the speed “to press,” bloggers hold an advantage by getting coverage of live events online, almost always ahead of other news reporters. But this advantage has led to some recent controversy regarding the effects this may have on the proceedings of the events themselves. Case in point—the ability to provide live trial coverage has recently become a matter of controversy in American courtrooms.

On January 14, the judge in a Florida capital murder trial banned several individuals—including a Florida Times-Union reporter using a laptop in the courtroom—from blogging about the trial specifically “for purposes of communicating with the outside world” on the grounds that the electronic media was causing a distraction. Some camera use was banned as well. The blog had drawn more than 1,300 readers before it was shut down. The following day, the judge modified the order to authorize the use of alternation of still photos and live blogging.

This still did not go over too well, as the following day, the Times-Union filed an emergency appeal with the First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee, which quashed the restrictions on January 20, writing “The matter is remanded with directions to allow petitioner’s reporter the use of a laptop computer in the courtroom unless the court finds a specific factual basis to conclude that such use cannot be accommodated without undue distraction or disruption.”

“Tweeting” trial coverage has also been controversial. In November 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land barred tweeting by the Columbus, Georgia newspaper Columbus Ledger-Enquirer as a form of “broadcasting” during a drug-trafficking case. He did allow for a media room in the courthouse near the entrance where journalists “could use their electronic reporting devices near but outside of the courtroom.” On the other hand, U.S. District Court Judge J. Thomas Martin ruled that a reporter for the Wichita Eagle could tweet updates about a criminal trial in another high-profile case involving alleged gang members.

The arguments against allowing live trial coverage seem to be that the coverage unfairly biases the public and that the use of electronic devices to provide live updates is distracting to the court personnel. But there is no consensus as to whether or not one can cover a trial by electronic means. It seems to come down to the individual views of the judge.

News organizations and their personnel, struggling to survive in the current economic and technological environments, are trying to meet their readers’ needs through speed and immediacy. There seems to be a growing trend toward permitting live coverage—provided it is done discreetly and accurately. Hopefully, the trend will continue, and the court system will come to embrace, rather than suppress, greater public access to its rulings. In the meantime, bloggers covering trials need to find out the presiding judge’s own rules on live updates before starting to blog—lest they get hit with prohibitions against blogging inside the courtroom.

A number of situations regarding the right to blog or comment freely have come up in the past few months. Some involve the terms of service of sponsoring companies, while others involve the courts and legal issues pertaining to blogging.

What is clear is that there is an emerging ethical and legal framework to blogging. Bloggers who engage in vulgarity, violate terms of service, leak confidential data, or publish defamatory or infringing information online do so at their own risk and forfeit their “right to privacy.” But so do those who complain about blogs.

Last November, Kurt Greenbaum, an editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, outed someone who had left what he considered a vulgar comment on the Post-Dispatch’s blog at STLtoday.com - in spite of the newspaper’s stated policy that it “will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information. In some cases, however, [it] may provide information to legal officials.” The outed commenter subsequently resigned from his job following an investigation. Greenbaum then wrote about the situation in a blog post titled “Post a vulgar comment while you’re at work, lose your job.”

In December, Condé Nast, publisher of GQ, Vogue, Teen Vogue, and Lucky magazines, filed a copyright infringement and violation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse suit against the blog FashionZag and unknown users of that blog for hacking into its computer system and publishing material belonging to Condé Nast on both it and on bayimg.com, an image-hosting site. Condé Nast was permitted to subpoena Google and AT&T, respectively, as hosts of the FashionZag blog and the IP address of the alleged hacker, to discover the identities of the bloggers and alleged hackers involved.

But although the federal Communications Decency Act provides that website owners are exempt from legal liability for defamatory material uploaded to their sites by users, it does not require that the owners remove the material. Many site owners will do this voluntarily, especially if the material violates their terms of service policies, but not always.

Martin Singer, the attorney for actress Demi Moore, wrote a letter to photographer Anthony Citrano demanding that he retract all blog and Twitter posts in which he claimed that a cover photo of Moore on W magazine’s December issue was altered in a non-flattering way.

In a recent lawsuit, although U.S. District Court Judge James Holderman (northern district of Illinois) had previously ruled that while authors had posted material appearing on Ripoff Report, a consumer advocacy website, that was deemed defamatory to the plaintiffs, the authors never removed the material from the site. The plaintiffs wrote to Ripoff Report, asking it to remove the material. Holderman wrote that he agreed with Ripoff Report’s argument that Ripoff Report itself can’t be required to remove the material as it was not a party to the case. The plaintiffs were left with no true recourse for the alleged damage to their reputations.

The aforementioned actions clearly indicate that blogging comes with journalistic responsibility to respect privacy and intellectual property rights and not to make defamatory statements. But to complain about a blog post may actually result in more people seeing the material that one wants removed- the ironic and opposite effect of the complainer’s intent. Controversy drives blog views. So go ahead and blog and complain – but do so at your own risk.