Blogging and freedom of expression

Blogging has taken off as a low-cost way for individuals to publish online. It's not surprising then that politics and campaigning draws a large number of commentators - from the amateur observer, to the seasoned insider and the marginalised. The internet can help to level the playing field and it can be particularly powerful where oppressive regimes limit citizen's views to demonstrate and stifle a free opposition.

The potential for the internet is perhaps at its greatest in those countries that restrict press and broadcasting freedoms. It has become a medium for citizens to express opinions more openly.

The internet is a tool to communicate within a country and also to ensure that unfiltered alternatives to state-controlled media seep out beyond the borders. Political reformers in Zimbabwe have used the internet to raise global awareness of the electoral crisis, thereby increasing pressure on the government of Robert Mugabe and the ruling ZanuPF party. Whereas political websites there have been able to generate grassroots campaigns, in other countries, net activists have been subjected to a government-led backlash.

In these places, blogging is not without risk. As authoritarian regimes wake up to the power of the internet, they are increasingly likely to widen to net of censorship to include the online. In Iran, the power of political bloggers, who unlike the press had been able to criticise the regime, is being systematically eroded by the introduction of stringent laws that ban political websites. In future, it is feared that Iran's bloggers will face the same harsh penalties experienced by dissident journalists.

Even in countries where censorship is not routinely practiced, there have been attempts to regulate political communications during elections. Sometimes this appears to encroach on individual rights to freedom of expression. Where legislation has been introduced in an attempt to make elections fairer, the result can be a stifling of the local blogsphere.

Whilst South Korea's 2002 general election was largely decided on the internet, it has introduced legislation to curb negative campaigning. The result has been less internet-based election activity, despite world leading levels of broadband penetration. In Japan too, internet campaigning was banned in 2005 because it was thought to marginalise older voters - the very demographic that forms the core support for the ruling party. Candidates' websites were held in stasis during the elections there and breaches penalised.

Such measures may have restricted freedom of expression in Korea and Japan, but in New Zealand, citizen activism has not declined despite the introduction of the Electoral Finance Act 2007 to regulate political activity including the internet; indeed, bloggers have threatened to deliberately flout the law which they say impinges on their rights.

The internet is now a key tool in the fight for freedom, democracy and basic human rights. Last year, 36 bloggers were arrested for using the internet to organize civil society, expose corruption or human rights abuses or to criticize governments and politicians.

Karishma Desai
Intern, eDemocracy Programme
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