Dissidents or secularist bloggers are still being gagged in Iran… but the clerics are blogging up a storm.
This started off as merely an amusing tidbit but I wonder what’s in store. The blogosphere is one of the last arenas of freedom of speech, and it seems that Iran’s hardline religious leaders have chosen it as their next battleground. So far they’ve only been concentrating on Iran, but the global nature of the Internet makes me wonder how far off we are from seeing attempts by Islamists to control worldwide blogging content. It’s something every blogger ought to be keeping a close watch on.
Sari Wrote:
the global nature of the Internet makes me wonder how far off we are from seeing attempts by Islamists to control worldwide blogging content.
!
How??
The same way they’re controlling free speech in other supposedly-democratic societies… like Denmark. I don’t really want to give any would-be terrorists ideas here… but the extremists have had a far too successful track record of shutting down all kinds of free speech pretty much whenever they’ve wanted to.
I don’t really want to give any would-be terrorists ideas here
I’m not sure Osama Bin Laden is a regular reader of your blog!. (Watch, Osama bin Laden will make the next comment)
In any case, the Jyllands-Posten did not retract a thing, and the publicity resulted in the cartoons being republished internationally, not supressed. Not censorship.
I suppose you could argue that the Iranian government will threaten individual bloggers (most likely other Iranians, not Anglo-Montrealers) with violence in Iran, which would be censorship. (And has already occurred). But I don’t think all bloggers need to worry. That’s paranoia.
I find this a very interesting and informative blog. It makes for excellent cave reading.