The announcement of the 19-year-old's death, in May 2001, left blog visitors reeling. They wanted to send condolences and searched for her obituary. Some even hoped to attend the girl's funeral.
But if losing Kaycee was difficult for devoted readers, realizing she wasn't theirs to lose proved even harder. You see, Kaycee Nicole never existed. She was made up, a hoax, an emotional deception. Or, as blog pioneer Rebecca Blood described the girl's story, it was "the first big blowup in the blogosphere."
When Blood began her own blog in April 1999, she said there were only about 50 others on the Web. Most blogs were link-driven, opportunities to direct readers to interesting Web pages or articles, and chances to provide commentary. All were created by people with the ability to write HTML code, the language required to build Web pages.
That technology know-how requirement disappeared in the summer of 1999, with the advent of free tools to automate the process. Suddenly anyone with Internet access could go to Web sites like Blogger.com, call themselves a "blogger" and invite conversation. This freedom inspired an explosion of personal journals, said Blood, the San Francisco-based author of The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog.
Today, Technorati, a search engine that monitors the blogosphere, is tracking 21.3 million - and growing by the minute - weblogs. That's 21.3 million opportunities for would-be Kaycees to fool readers. And for blog visitors, the question is: What can you trust?
The advice from Blood, who followed the fallout after "Kaycee's death," is simple. "The rule right now is to take everything with a grain of salt," she said in a phone call this week. "Right now, [the blogosphere is] in its adolescence, maybe just its childhood. . . It hasn't matured, and we haven't matured."
Efforts to boost blogger trustworthiness are on the rise. Ethical guidelines are aplenty for journalists, or people who'd like to try their hand at online journalism. Never plagiarize. Always identify sources. Correct misinformation and admit conflicts of interest. Commentary and advocacy writing should be presented as such, but still must stick to the facts. These are just some codes of conduct promoted by Blood and organizations such as the Media Bloggers Association, CyberJournalist.net and Reporters without Borders.
But for the majority of bloggers, these rules hold little weight. People are eager to rant, share works of fiction, boast about their pets and exchange favorite recipes.
"That's the beauty of the blog - it's a vehicle for self-expression," wrote Amanda Lenhart, of Washington's Pew Internet & American Life Project, in a recent e-mail. "Blogs make standing up on your own soap box or posting your thoughts, ideas and stories extremely easy."
And in some cases, Lenhart - a senior research specialist - said anonymity is not only OK, it's preferred.
"I don't think anyone would ever tell a teenage girl [or boy] to blog using her [his] real name and location," she wrote, after pointing out that a November 2004 survey indicated 19 percent of American teens maintain blogs and 38 percent read them.
The right to anonymity, or pseudonymity, for all ages is guarded by Paul Opsahl, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation - a San Francisco nonprofit committed to "defending freedom in the digital world."
Opsahl, reached by phone, was quick to rattle off a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which held that an "author's decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment."
Furthermore, he added that hiding one's identity - as long as his or her actions are law abiding - can prove beneficial. Citing a U.S. District Court decision, he said, "This ability to speak one's mind without the burden of the other party knowing all the facts about one's identity can foster open communication and robust debate."
Writing under a fake name or identity, in fact, is nothing new, Opsahl added. The Federalist Papers, a series of late 18th century articles encouraging the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, were written under the pseudonym of "Publius."
Just a few weeks ago, The New York Times ran a story about a new novel, Gary Benchley, Rock Star, by Paul Ford, who had secretly played the part of of the earnest rocker for an online magazine. And an Assistant U.S. Attorney, David Lat, recently outed himself as the author of "Underneath Their Robes," a popular blog about the lives of federal judges and their clerks. Lat had sold himself as a female, even going so far as to post a picture. But he came clean when he wanted credit for all the work he'd done.
"People will lie about who they are. . .It happens all the time in real life," pointed out Blood, who still believes most individuals are well-meaning. "Dishonesty is not unique to the Web. It is the human condition."
But with time, experience and the help of technological advances to manage identities, she said, folks entering the blogosphere will grow up and become more savvy.
Meantime, she encouraged "transparency," calling it "the key to gaining and maintaining credibility on the Web." And she warned bloggers to be aware that when dishonestly "soliciting human emotion," they are destined to get in over their heads.
"People become invested in your stories and your persona," Blood said. "And eventually you have to come clean or kill yourself off."
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Contact Jessica Ravitz at jravitz@sltrib.com or 801-257-8776. Send comments about this article to religioneditor@ sltrib.com.
