Deep Backward Point

Before I wade in to the Gabriella Pasqualotto story, I would like to say this: I like the Alternative Cricket Almanack, I think the writers have a great sense of humor and they’re generally top-notch. Also, I realize I’m late to this story.

Here’s the background: Alternative found an IPL cheerleader willing to blog about her experiences. She blogged about her experiences, including some remarks about certain cricketers. She was fired from her job.

Outrage ensued.

My question: why is anyone surprised? This is precisely what I expected the day I saw the first blog post. And the first blog post wasn’t even harmful. The question to ask yourself is this: if you blogged about people you worked with at your job, including details about their personal life, do you think you would get to keep your job? I think not.

Alternative claims that all the IPL administrators had to do was discreetly tell them to take the blog posts down, and that is what would have happened. I’m inclined to believe them, though in my experience when a blogger gets a take-down request like that, their first instinct is to blog about it. So I’m not sure the IPL would have taken that route– bloggers are not known to be discreet. Especially not ones that have been printing details about cheerleaders and cricketers at after-parties.