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."

Comments

practicality?

[CupBeEmpty]

I am truly, before anything else, a proponent of personal freedoms. I know that this is definitely something that is common in technology communities. I am really heartened by an article like this.

The only question is how much impact will a blog have on a repressive government like China (or worse N. Korea... if blogging is even possible there). Will the next Thomas Paine be a blogger?

Re:practicality?

[hcdejong]

It's already 'worse in North Korea'. Internet access is very restricted there, right now.
In NK, it's cellphones rather than the internet that are breaking the government's stranglehold on communications. The fact that it's China that's providing the tools, is ironic, to say the least.

Re:We need this here in Jesusland

[RLiegh]

macdaddy357 wrote:

This how to blog anonymously book is a great thing for free speech. We need it here in Jesusland, too. I sure do miss America.

From TFA:

"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.

That's routine in countries such as Iran and China; here the worst you can state is that you don't like the liberal slant of CNN.

Really, things here could be much worse; wake me up when we've got our own Falun Gong problem here.

Thought

[aitikin]

So now with this available to us all, what's to stop someone from anonymously posting something that's believable yet fake? Isn't it posible that someone could make something up that's so horrible it would make the "news" and then the "news" would carry the story and people would demand an investigation into it? Almost a Wag the Dog type thing? The only things someone would need is a hatred, an imagination (which is getting harder to come by, granted), and these methods. Am I way off with this? P.S. I think it's a great thing, I'm just paranoid about another stupid "Pre-emptive" strike just to find that those weapons of mass destruction we were looking for were actually oil refineries.

Kudos to Reporters Without Borders

[Sundroid]

These guys at Reporters Without Borders got guts -- on their website, they put the names and photos of the heads of states where there is no press freedom and call them "Predators of Press Freedom". Check it out at: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=1087

Re:Jesusland Needs Fewer Narrow Minded Americans

[Anonymous Coward]

Other countries might be worse off, but why should that make us complacent? Does that make bush less of a piece of crap? Should we not fight to rid the system of injustices and so forth?

"There is some alien planet out there where 99.99% of the population is imprisoned within pain amplifiers, and have their precious vital fluids harvested for use in a delicacy for the oppressing 0.001%! You should be ashamed, thinking YOU have things bad!"

Re:Jesusland Needs Fewer Narrow Minded Americans

[weighn]

Try traveling a little bit and see what REAL poverty and oppression looks like.

While you were busy travelling with your Jesus hating cohorts, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development produced this report :

Today nearly 36 million Americans live in a state of poverty - http://www.usccb.org/cchd/povertyusa/

Censorship? Whats that?!

[rale, the]

Reuters article quote:
"PARIS (Reuters) - A Paris-based media watchdog released a handbook on Thursday to help cyber-dissidents and bloggers avoid political censorship in countries as far apart as China, Iran, Vietnam and Cuba."

Xinhua article quote:
"BEIJING, Sept. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- A Paris-based media watchdog released a free guide Thursday to help bloggers and cyber-dissidents avoid political censorship in countries as far apart as Iran, Vietnam and Cuba."

Re:Ironic

[grimJester]

Freedom of speech is a basic human right to express one's opinions, not a blanket license to incite terror, hatred and bigotry.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the above sentence covers the difference between European and US freedom of speech completely. In the US, (at least in theory) all political speech is protected, even that which is considered dangerous incitement in Europe.

Re:Deaf ears?

[glesga_kiss]

essentially free [although lackluster] press.

A commercial media is not free media. Our media is more limited than you are aware; no big consipiracy, just the nature of the beast.