Wiki Weblog

Admin | January 18, 2012 | Comments Off

Wiki Weblog

Wiki Weblog

Keeping a diary or record of one's Peace Corps experience is a time-honored tradition, but in the modern era of online, instant communication, volunteers can sometimes run into problems. Peace Corps is first and foremost a political organization, and maintaining the image of diplomacy and cultural sensitivity is crucial to its continued existence. To this end, and because of a few notable blunders in the past, Peace Corps has had to establish formal rules for volunteers wishing to keep an online record of their experience.

Jason Pearce Causes a Stir

The first instance of a volunteer's online presence becoming a problem happened in 2002, when blogs (or "weblogs") were still a fairly new phenomenon. A Peace Corps Trainee sent to Guyana, Jason Pearce, established a blog to record his experience. Before he was finished with training, he was pulled aside and told that, due to some of the content on his blog, he would not be allowed to participate in Swearing-In.

Though he pleaded his case, the Country Director's decision was upheld and Mr. Pearce was asked to Early Terminate (ET). Based on this, and a 2007 incident involving a volunteer taking a solid stance on political issues in his country of service, Peace Corps has been forced to pay closer attention to the public online content created by volunteers.