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Blogs, insults, and suicide

Reaction to the death of ad exec Paul Tilley runs the gamut, from those who blame bloggers to others who exonerate them, with a broader conversation on the ethics of online commentary.

Jon Skillings Editorial director
Jon Skillings is an editorial director at CNET, where he's worked since 2000. A born browser of dictionaries, he honed his language skills as a US Army linguist (Polish and German) before diving into editing for tech publications -- including at PC Week and the IDG News Service -- back when the web was just getting under way, and even a little before. For CNET, he's written on topics from GPS, AI and 5G to James Bond, aircraft, astronauts, brass instruments and music streaming services.
Expertise AI, tech, language, grammar, writing, editing Credentials
  • 30 years experience at tech and consumer publications, print and online. Five years in the US Army as a translator (German and Polish).
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Jon Skillings

The suicide of a 40-year-old ad agency executive has reignited the debate over the extent to which blog posts targeting a person can be held accountable in that person's death. Paul Tilley, creative director of DDB Chicago, who oversaw, among other things, Dell's "dude" ad campaign, had been the subject of harsh comments--including some posted anonymously--on the advertising blogs Agency Spy and AdScam.

Reaction to Tilley's death runs the gamut, from those who blame the bloggers to others who exonerate them, with a broader conversation on the ethics and rules of online commentary. In that, it gives a strong echo of the reaction to the suicide late last year of 13-year-old Megan Meier, who had been the subject of a MySpace.com hoax.

Read more at The New York Times: "After Suicide, Blog Insults Are Debated"