Suicide fuels debate on the web

 
Internet The suicide of Paul Tilley has reignited the debate about anonymous posts on the Internet.  
Paul Tilley's suicide is currently the subject of heated debate in the USA and Switzerland. On February 22, the 40-year-old creative director of the advertising agency DDB threw himself out of a window in Chicago. It is still unclear why the renowned creative threw himself out of a window. Relatives see the Internet as the reason for his death. The authors and ultimately the commentators of the industry blogs Agency Spy and Ad Scam, which are known for their biting nature, were responsible for the suicide because Tilley had been personally criticized on the web days before his death.
The smear campaign against Tilley began on February 19. In an article, Agency Spy published an internal email that the DDB manager had sent to his employees. In the article, the anonymous author criticized the creative director's management style, which triggered furious insults against Tilley. A short time later, the Ad-Scam weblog also took up the topic with its own article, which led to even more hostile posts against Paul Tilley. Three days later, the advertising manager took his own life.
The extent to which the offensive comments really influenced the decision to commit suicide will probably never be known. However, the case has reignited the debate about the legality of anonymous insults on the Internet. The most prominent participant in the debate is the advertiser Nina DiSesa, head of the New York office of the McCann Erickson agency. She has spoken out in a video entitled "Are bloggers dangerous?" and criticizes the reporting on the websites in question: "Weblogs can harm someone if they report meanly, brutally and above all anonymously about other people."
DiSesa not only speaks out in front of the camera, but also writes plain language on the weblogs themselves: "These hateful advertising blogs are apparently written by people who are bitter about the industry. People who contribute to these ugly blogs are losers. True, many people out there don't want to put their names to the horrible things they circulate about other people. But if someone doesn't have the guts to put their name under a comment, then they shouldn't be given the public platform to make such destructive comments about others." Criticism falls on deaf ears with the operators of Agency Spy. They justify their behavior in a post entitled "Nina DiSesa hates you, me and everyone who likes blogs". Anonymity is preferable because it is the only way to report critically on the industry and use insider knowledge.
The problem of anonymous abuse has also been the subject of intense debate in Switzerland since Tilley's suicide. On the Facts 2.0 news network, for example, a few dozen posts have been written on the subject - most of them anonymously. As in the USA, opinions on anonymous posts differ here in Germany. Everyone agrees that freedom on the Internet brings with it more responsibility. Especially when it comes to statements that refer to specific people and organizations.
Christian Lüscher