Tuesday, 22 July 2008

Blog may send you to prison

Have you ever thought that writing blog can be found guilty? In Egypt, a blogger called Soliman (22-years old) had been prosecuted and sent to jail. He has used his blog to criticise the country's top Islamic institution, al-Azhar university and President Hosni Mubarak. The judges thought that the feeling expression of Soliman on the webog was insulting the government and the president, also inciting the sedition. Soliman was finally sent to jail for 4 years.

In this case, we may discover that for some of the countries, the blogosphere could be surveyed by the government invisibly. Blogger are not allowed to express everything, especially the topics which hit the polities and religious field. It is easily to find guilty if your blog cover the sensitive topics.



Within these few years, blog becomes part of our life. The main reason of the rapid growth of the blogosphere is the existence of the user-friendly blogging software and provider, e.g. Xanga, Blogger, Sina, etc. Through this software, blogger may express their ideas on the weblog more easily and frequently. Usually, blogger may use the blog to express the feeling on personal issue, daily life, business, sports, politics, etc.


In Hong Kong, most of the people own its personal blog, e.g. students, famous autistics, politician, journalist, even though the chief executive of Hong Kong also update his personal blog regularly.

Although blogging become more popular and people treat it as the alternative channel to the traditional journalism, however, the credibility of blog is one of the concerns for the audience. It cannot be denied that most of the blog are used to express things in a more personal way. The content of blog is lack of professional journalistic judgment and quality. So, blog may be considered as personal voice rather than reflection of fact.

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