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Blogging as Press Freedom in Repressive Places
museumpeace writes "CNN is carrying an AP story from France on the release of guidelines to help bloggers working under threat of suppressive governments to get out their stories without getting caught. "Reporters Without Borders' 'Handbook for Blogger and Cyber-Dissidents" is partly financed by the French government and includes technical advice on how to remain anonymous online.' Makes me proud to be a developer of communication software."
...where is the guide on how to blog about something interesting? FUCK WHATEVER YOU HAD FOR BREAKFAST TODAY!
If you find this post offensive, don't read it! THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING! I am what I am because of how apes behave.
Why when the press was being stomped before, did governments-- those people in *charge* of protecting rights-- never do this? Why is it that because we have a web-related buzzword, governments finally get with their societal obligations?
Oh, sorry. Votes are proportional to interest.
Please excuse my liberal-minded rant; just a slip, won't happen again...
"We can write freely in blogs," writes Arash Sigarchi, an Iranian journalist who was nonetheless sentenced to 14 years in prison for posting several messages online that criticized the Iranian regime. I guess freedom has a different definition over there ...
"Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure"
I am not sure U.S is that much better with our journalists. We should rename TV to the propaganda box.
Nay, the blog is supposed to draw attention to the publisher's opinion (if he has any, that is, otherwise he's just one more attention whore in the intarweb), to allow him to express said opinion and have it noticed instead of just being a lost voice in the background noise.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Right, because the Gestapo is going to kick down my door if I say something mean about Bush.
...waits for his door to be broken down...
BUSH IS A CUM GUZZLING FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT. HIS IS A FUCKING TERRORIST SHIT FUCKER. BUSH, AND BY BUSH I MEAN THAT BIG FUCKING RANK ASS VAGINA THAT WE CALL MR FUCK-HEAD-PRESIDENT, IS RUINING THE GOVERNMENT AND THIS ENTIRE GOD DAMN MOTHER FUCING NATION. JESUS FUCKING THE SWEET VIRGIN MERRY IN HER TIGHT LITTLE VIRGIN ASS DO I FUCKING HATE BUSH! FOR THE REVOLUTION!
Oh wait, it didn't come. For fucks sake people, I hate Bush, I hate the PATRIOT Act, I don't really like our foreign policies or our domestic policies. That said, chill. The world is not over yet. I was down in DC during the height of the anti-war protests where people were wandering around with signs that make the above look down right pleasant. I was in Boston for the big protest in the commons. Free speech is alive and well. No one is going to throw you in jail for talking shit about Jesus. Hell, I fucking hate Jesus and no police have ever given me shit about it. I mean, I have a fucking bumper sticker that says "Jesus hates you, but everyone else thinks you're an asshole" on my car, yet the only time I have been pulled over is when I was doing 20+ over the speed limit.
Get out of your narrow little American world view and realize that there are places in the world that make "Jesusland" look like a fucking utopia. Hell, the US has even more liberal free speech laws compared to even Europe, and Europe is pretty damn liberal. Try wearing a swastika in Germany or France and see how long it takes for the police to drag you off the streets.
Nothing is more irritating then stupid Americans whose world view doesn't go any farther then 48 states. There is a lot to complain about when it comes to the US. I could make a laundry list of domestic and foreign policy issues I have with out incompetent leaders. Free speech oppression doesn't fall on that list. You think you live in Gestapo land? Try traveling a little bit and see what REAL poverty and oppression looks like. You have never seen poverty and you sure as shit have never seen oppression.
That the French government would fund this.. they're one of the many countries that will prosecute you for holocaust denial or supporting nazis. Freedom of speech is for all.
Would that freedom include crying 'fire' in a crowded theater too?
Freedom of speech is a basic human right to express one's opinions, not a blanket license to incite terror, hatred and bigotry. That is NOT what the freedom is meant for.
Well free trade may be the thing that really blows China open a little. People with a lot of technology and consumer comfort tend to be the ones that get pissed off about things like... repressive government. While people struggling to live are more worried about things like... food.
Wiki says http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression / "The right to freedom of expression is not considered unlimited"
If anything this will make it worse in North Korea, the government will see what is happening in places like China and make sure nobody but the elite of the elite even get internet access at all, let alone unfiltered access. China can't keep up a high level of policing as more and more people get internet access, the sheer numbers make it impossible. However propaganda is still valuable there. It seems that most people won't get upset if you tell them that the government is blocking something for your own good...
It's interesting to see how NK and China diverged. About 30 years ago they had very similiar styles of government, but China decided that in order to become prosperous it had to give up some control, but in the end China itself would be more powerful, whereas NK chose to keep it's people in the dark as much as possible. Interesting to compare the "success"(of course it depends on your definition of success in this case) of each government and it's plans
Monstar L
the only problem being that the US govt is funding a massive regime change in Iran, using many Iranian immigrants as enemy agents to stir up "dissent" over there.
;-).
they send propoganda based programs through satellite (since that's what most tv viewers in Iran have) from the US, funded by taxpayer dollars.
the neocons on one end, keep pushing the US govt to start a "regime-change", then there's Israel who keeps saying Iran is developing nuclear weapons (never mind that they kept saying the same thing about Iraq before 2003). all the inspecters and IAEA reps that have been there all found only plans for a nuclear energy station.
there's an enormous campaign being waged against Iran, seeing as they're one of the few states in the middle east not under the control of the US and UK. they used to be though... if you remember, even just recently they tried to install the brutal and totalitarian regime of the shah (not ironically after the British empire got tired of them). they wanted the oil and natural resources of a soverign nation, so with the help of the CIA, they pulled off a coup d'etat.
frankly, every time i hear a story about "Iran suppressing and jailing journalists" i don't see a story about freedom of speech, i see them jailing enemy agents and spies. oh, how the US would benefit from doing the same to all those spies in America. and i mean the US people, the govt just overlooks it, cause most of the spies are from "favored" nations... you can probably guess which.
it must take a real braindead Iranian immigrant to want the US to take over to help propogandize their own people. it's like those colloborators in V... selling out the human race to the reptiles so they can be a little richer or have more power. (that sci fi reference thrown in cause we're geeks). there are plenty of real world examples of being a backstabbing judas but that's what history class is for
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
If anything this will make it worse in North Korea, the government will see what is happening in places like China and make sure nobody but the elite of the elite even get internet access at all, let alone unfiltered access.
The sad thing is that this may be true. While Thomas Paine may have had an easy time of printing leaflets against the rule of King George despite any crack downs by the government, internet access requires a lot more infrastructure in most cases. With more requirements for expensive infrastructure it becomes easier for the government to repress. I would like nothing more than watching the people of North Korea rise up and denounce Kim Jong-Il and that entire f-ed up government, but it seems unlikely without some kind of outside intervention. Maybe the US should park ships off the NK border and implement a little Wi-Max and drop laptops the way we dropped food in Afghanistan. But then again folks at home might have problems with their children getting killed airlifting internet access into North Korea.
Tell me, which America do you miss? Do you miss the America of the 17th century? The America of the 18th century? 19th century? 20th century? Or the America that existed for the brief period of time when Carter and Clinton were in office? Tell me which America you miss, I truly am interested.
The America described in that little document called the Constitution of the United States, the one that doesn't mention the words 'God', 'Creator' or 'Jesus' even once.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Well, they would also have to well....
a) have electricity unless we are planning to have them use them for only 2 hours
b) know how to use a device they have never seen before in their lives
c) be literate, a lot of North Korean kids are skipping school to go help their family forage for food. Obviously North Korea does't release reliable statistics on literacy, but my bet is that it's dropping, and of course, it's in the governments best interest to let it drop for all but the smartest of individuals(somebodys gotta build those bombs)
d) find a way to hide/dispose of the laptops in houses that don't even have enough plates/bowls for people to eat out of, let alone furniture. You could bury them, but that has the potential to harm already poor farmland, exasperating famine.....
The North Korean government hates it's people, but damn if it isn't good at what it does.....
Not to mention, provided you don't have you know, a concience, Kim Jong Il lives better than Bill Gates and anyone else on thie planet for that matter; he gets as many virgins as he wants, drives whatever he wants, drinks whatever he wants, hell even kills whoever he wants just for fun I bet..........
Monstar L
#2 Don't use google
#3 ditto Microsoft
"What's actually profane is a company that built its future on the freedom provided by the American system helping a repressive regime censor such ideas." - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1486268/p osts
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Blog on Freenet.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Things could be worse in the States, and the GP is a troll, but don't forget that if the President of the US declares you an enemy combatant, you can be imprisoned indefinitely without trial (pending Supreme Court review). So, the worst isn't that you don't like the liberal slant of CNN, but rather that you go to prison for life and never get to defend yourself.
This is ridiculous. That the US is once again trying to meddle in its affairs does not make the Iranian regime benign, or remotely popular with the masses. I have spoken with several exiled iranians; they hate the the ruling priests, and in equal measure they hate the US (for their previous disatrous interference which has screwed them over several times before), and have no faith whatsoever in American intentions or competence to fix anything at all (come to think of it, who does?). It's not a question of wanting the americans or the priests, but wanting a proper, peaceful, democratic iranian rule.
sudo ergo sum
You guys are ones to talk. Your media is well over to the left in what they choose to report, and how they report it. Even more so than most American reporting. Comes from living in socialist nanny states I suppose.
But American press isn't immune to this garbage either. There used to be journalistic standards (at least here)....simply report on the facts and leave opinions to the editorial column. That's well out the window now. Now everyone pushes their agenda, newspapers hold stories to release until it's politically useful, TV news exaggerates and is quick to point fingers at those not even responsable...provided it's useful politically. Or reporters simply let personal, political bias leak into their stories at every turn. "Good journalism" today means anything that is so sensational, so capable of grabbing ratings, that it doesn't even matter if it's true or not...or if anything beyond the barest of facts is true.