When the first bloggers started using the Internet as a medium for thinking out loud, they may not have been aware of the global phenomenon blogging was to become. And now there are professional blogs the world around that are considered to be the most trustworthy and unfettered source of news and opinion available. After all, there is that very personal element to most blogs - no matter who is holding the purse strings - and journalists, feckless, drunken creatures though we may sometimes be, have a strong code of ethics when it comes to putting our name and opinion on the line. Especially when the Internet past could haunt you forever.
Some are putting much more than that in jeopardy however. Reporters Without Borders has released its annual study of press freedom, and found that bloggers are now attracting the same level of censorship that was traditionally associated with print and television media.
Some of the countries named in the report will, sadly, be of no surprise to anyone. China has imprisoned 50 people in recent years for Internet posts, and Eritrea languishes at the bottom for overall press freedom, lower than North Korea and Turkmenistan (but only just). In all there are currently, according to the study, 64 people in jail due to web posting, 8 of them in Vietnam. Pictures such as that of jailed Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman seen above are now more common than ever.
The fact is that the West (which undoubtedly suffers from its own, often subtler, censorship) does not need to sit back smugly and condescendingly pity these countries. The 2008 Beijing Olympics are upon us and there have been mutterings and protests about our eagerness to court China as the next big economy whilst ignoring everything from the country's questionable human rights record and gagging of journalists to the flood of pirated merchandise that spills forth every year. However, the throng of voices has not been strong enough, and this is in part because of people like me, who are complacent in their luck and forget to add their own opinions.
Reading the reports on the study this morning I was alarmed at the extent to which freedom of information is curtailed and it really did remind me how fortunate I am to have an open medium in which to work and - to a certain extent - live. Maybe next time I have an opportunity to protest I shall remember this.
Alex is Deputy Editor of Shiny Shiny and is openly admitting to ignorance (but only for today).
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