Egypt cracks down on bloggers

Egypt government detained and beaten six bloggers for their anti-regime movement and protests through their blogs. Few bloggers were sexually assaulted too. You can read the full story here. The Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel continues to blog from prison, his blog here.  Any action against bloggers for expressing their opinions is condemnable. This is not the first time the bureaucrats and corporate honchos taking actions against bloggers. Earlier in India, the blogger vs IIPM fight raised the same question on our freedom of speech. Egypt government's action, IIPM controversy shows the decreasing trend in patience and accepting criticisms in this fast-paced world. Mr.Statesman, suing or arresting those who fielded views against you is utterly unproductive.

 

Blogging is an expression of freedom of speech, given to each and every citizen in a democratic country. However I analyse, I end up seeing the blog world is full of pros rather than cons. On technology front, blogging is the pinnacle of Web 2.0, which was conceptualized around user generated content. The old internet was based on providing information to users in a static and non-interactive way. The new Web 2.0 business model revolves around creating avenues and solutions for people to fill their content in web, which has proven to be highly successful. On creative aspect, Bloggers are multi-faceted personalities and blogging gives an avenue for them to exhibit their creativity. Lot of construction actions are happening in blogworld. In someways, the blogs listed as technorati's top 100 blogs seed a paradigm change in this world.

 

World has started listening to blog world discussions to understand the true mind of common people. Be it a controversy or appreciation, bloggers views are frequently quoted in all magazines. (Ex, DNA newspaper aggregation on blog views on hot topics). While listing a company profile, Google finance lists recent blog posts on those corporates too. Blog based business models and advertisement ideas are the talk of the wall street now. Metroblogging brings the bloggers in a city to a common platform and metbloggers differ from regular journalists and newspapers in reporting events happening in a city. Metblogs also serves as the original source of breaking news in cities. Wiki article on metblogs here.

 

Within short span of time, this little world has grown as a fifth pillar of democracy and it can be termed as true voice of common man in a country. With the expressed opinions and feelings in media, Statesmen should listen to criticisms and correct the mistakes in the system. Any kind of oppression on the freedom of speech (like egypt's ) should be condemned to the core.

 

Read more!