Blog Wars Over Amanda Knox Case Result in Police Investigation

Recent controversies over the Amanda Knox case taking place in Italy reveal some of the difficulties with opposing opinions on blogs, articles and posts. One writer has received a personal threat for his opinion about a very famous murder case.

There are two camps in the Amanda Knox case: those who believe that Amanda Knox was involved in the killing of Meredith Kercher and the other who sees her as an innocent person who is being maligned by the press and others. Amanda Knox is from the Seattle area, and it is reported that attacks on the blogger in this case may have come from supporters of her family and her position. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that a primary suspect has been named and quotes the blogger as saying the suspect has been involved in intimidation with the consent of Knox's stepfather Chris Mellas. Mellas himself hasn’t been charged and is not a suspect. Knox, along with her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, are currently murder defendants on trial in in Perugia for killing Meredith Kercher. Kercher and Knox shared an apartment while the two were studying in Italy. Reports say that the tactics used to threaten the blogger who took a position relative to Knox’s guilt included attempts to its disabled the website as well as what have been called veiled threats. This recent development continues the media frenzy and the angry blog war that has been going on ever since Knox's arrest on a murder charge and now during the trial. The angry exchanges have occurred from primarily the hometown of Knox herself, Seattle Washington. Issues like this are being discussed in various articles because more and more people are becoming concerned about safety issues as well as verbal abuse that takes place in forums, on blogs and on posts referencing writers. Some of these are trolls; some have agendas specific to an article being posted, in this case like the Knox trial. The Amanda Knox trial has become a media sensation with different sides taken on blogs and comments. Even 20/20 featured her in a segment that showed her as a sweet, innocent girl in February 2008 where she was quoted as saying: “I am innocent. I will be free.” Italian police, on the other hand, consider her a cold-blooded killer. Some bloggers wonder why a big-name media organization doesn’t make a show about the victim, Meredith Kercher, considering there has been too much sympathy and not enough for the victim. In the meantime now there are issues about how people are responding to all this, reflecting the ongoing concern about how much is too much when it comes to dialogue about stories, especially when they involved serious threats.