The Sad Case of Cameron Slater

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Most things in life eventually catch up on us. 

If you sit at a computer too long, don't exercise and watch your diet and are overweight, you're more likely to have a stroke —and that's what happened to Cameron Slater late last year. 

If you use your blog to unethically malign others, you're likely to be fined by the Human Rights Tribunal —and that's what happened to Cameron Slater this year when he was ordered to pay $70,000 compensation for the "extended assassination of businessman Matthew Blomfield's character.

Cameron, unable to defend himself because of the strokes and purportedly unable pay the $70,000  fine declared himself bankrupt in February. 

This might have led us to think that the days of the blog were over.  But no. The other shareholder in Social Media Consultants Ltd that owns Whaleoil is his wife and fellow blogger Juana Mary Atkins. 

She put the company into voluntary liquidation on Monday and set up a new site Wobh Ltd. The future of Whaleoil is still unclear but it continues to publish.

For the present, Whaleoil  which  was the vehicle for the offending attacks that resulted in the Commission fine, continues unpunished. It still spits out its daily venom about supposed Marxist jihadists, the conscription of jihadists at Christchurch mosques, the Left and big tech companies allegedly stifling free speech, shutting down criticism and debate,  and ridiculing the supposedly ridiculous claim that Jacinda Ardern deserves a Nobel Peace prize. 

To draw a parallel,  if guns as well as gun owners need to be registered, a strong case also exists for a blog as well as its owners to be held responsible for their action. 

Whaleoil should be closed down, and its possible surrogate Wobh put under close scrutiny.

It is too easy to declare bankruptcy and escape responsibility.

--ACW