PakLeaks: Did I miss the humour?

The PakLeaks blog was just a lame attempt at humour; it was downright insulting and based on lies about Twitterati.

I used to believe that blogs were a great way for people to express themselves. Old school bloggers have a way with words and express themselves in an interesting manner.

Unfortunately, a new generation of bloggers seems to think that the medium gives writers a license to go around making personal attacks just because it seems fun. I heard about a new blog called PakLeaks which seemed to be Pakistan’s equivalent of WikiLeaks.

The blog claimed to have 35,000 leaked direct messages or “DMs” from members of Pakistan’s Twitterati. It claimed that it is being hacked because of the nature of its work but will “prevail” – much like their namesake.

In a new twist the blog has apparently been “hacked.” It seems the trusty Wordpress format was not able to ward off the Pakistan Cyber Army as the blog was defaced. To me, it doesn't add up; why would hackers deface a blog when they could simply have locked the creators out or deleted the blog?

This “hacking” stunt could well be another poor attempt at humour or perhaps another way of gaining publicity.

PakLeaks is not funny

The “leaked DMs” are all fake (the PakLeaks editors seem to be inspired by fictitious cables about India) and are meant to be taken in fun. But I was not amused by the posts on this blog. Perhaps I don’t have a sense of humour or maybe I can’t fathom jokes made at the expense of others.

What were they thinking?

I get the feeling that the PakLeaks website just wanted to target the Twitterati. The editors of PakLeaks may think they are being provocative and “cool” by coming up with such horrible, twisted posts.  But the blog was getting too personal.

A few posts were downright insulting. There were a number of people who had been mentioned in these posts which, I feel, really hit below the belt.

If they had done this in the UK or US they would have been ripe targets for a lawsuit.

Insular insults

The blog shouldn’t even be called PakLeaks because it only targets people from Twitter. I have read satirical blogs on other newspapers and they poke fun at people but they never go beyond the limit. There is an art of making fun of people without making them look horrible. I don’ t think PakLeaks understood that.