To hate or love?

Rahman was lucky that he had a choice and he was wise to choose the right and hence he went on to collect an award that was because it was written. 

But do the bloggers have the same choice? You can hate at your peril if what is happening to Ajith. D is any indication. He opened a forum called I hate Shiv Sena in the Orkut and because of very sour comments Shiv Sena has taken him to the court and the Supreme court has allowed the case. I love Shiv Sena but does not mean I hate Ajith., It does not even mean i hate the Congress. What is after all the limits of freedom to love and hate?

"We cannot quash criminal proceedings. You are a computer student and you know how many people access internet portals. Hence, if someone files a criminal action on the basis of the content, then you will have to face the case. You have to go before the court and explain your conduct." - This is what Ajith a 19 years old lad was told by the court. 

When a speaker of the house Somnath,  in front of Television camera's that too in the Parliament calls all his MP's as incompetent and not fit to  be reelected, it is accepted just with an apology, but an Ajith can be dragged to court if he facilitates expression of similar sentiment. 

Earlier NDTV issued a legal notice to a blogger Chetan Kunte for "abusive free speech" for a post criticizing their coverage of the Mumbai attacks.[The blogger unconditionally withdrew his post, replacing it with legal undertaking and an admission that his post had been "defamatory and untrue" which resulted in several Indian bloggers criticizing NDTV for trying to silence critics.] The same channel, like the other channels however finds it fit to comment, criticize , ridicule and condemn whatever comes their way. CKUNTE's site now just has a few words with a mention of a hack. 

On the day a film is released millions switch these channels to get to know their review. some are very blunt, horrible, go at your risk etc. If these are fair and free speech, in spite affecting revenue of a market commodity- movie, why should words in blog be condemned?

Should I hate or love at the mercy of the court? 

How much freedom and right do a blogger have to comment on others and how much privacy is allowed as right in our system? 

Journalism is  “a discipline of collecting, verifying, analyzing and presenting information gathered regarding current events, including trends, issues and people" . Journalists are covered by certain ethics and have internal controls like editors and standards. For a Blogger collecting, analyzing and presenting comes easy with a mind and interest. However Verification being expensive and cumbersome may be and is for most a real impossibility. So it makes perfect sense to bring the bloggers also in to some kind of standards and ethics. However without any standards set, if freedom is given to any tom dick and harry to drag any of the bloggers to the court will only mean a freedom to the detractors of the blogging community to demean it, curtail and control it by proxy. 

Bloggers are not journalists but that was what till recently. Today most Journalists blog, but still do not want bloggers become Journalists. What happened on 26/11, every second of it was reported in Twitters and blogs, by the second but that was not condemned more than condemnation of the TV media. And why not, TV media is widely seen and has greater impact.  

I would have never known that some hate Shiv sena so openly till this case came in to limelight. Probably it is publicity for the hate and the perpetrator. However both CKUNTE and AJITH have lost their blog, for now. 

Bloggers should have ethics, their blogs should be worded aptly, edited and all comments moderated. Language in form of abuse etc can be avoided. However if an event or any other post is linked and then if that is analyzed where is the need for verification? [ ckunte referred wiki].

Readers are Intelligent and they know what to choose. Blogs are still perceived as biased and are viewed with skepticism and that explains their poor viewer ship compared to mainstream journalistic blogs. So why should any one bother. 

A California judge issued a preliminary ruling on Mar. 3  2005, that three bloggers who published leaked information about an unreleased Apple  product must divulge their confidential sources.If the ruling was final, it would have set a precedent certain to reverberate through the blogosphere because that means under the law bloggers aren't considered journalists. however in the final ruling the judge dodged the issue however ruled that "Unlike the whistleblower who discloses a health, safety or welfare hazard affecting all, or the government employee who reveals mismanagement or worse by our public officials, [the enthusiast sites] are doing nothing more than feeding the public's insatiable desire for information."

"The journalist's privilege is not absolute, For example, journalists cannot refuse to disclose information when it relates to a crime." "[The information about Apple's unreleased products] is stolen property, just as any physical item, such as a laptop computer containing the same information on its hard drive [or not] would be. The bottom line is there is no exception or exemption in either the [Uniform Trade Secrets Act] or the Penal Code for journalists--however defined--or anyone else."

In November 2006,Charles LeBlanc,  a blogger and a  rooming house resident who lives on social assistance in Fredericton, New Brunswick, received a court decision establishing his journalistic credentials, when a judge dismissed charges against Mr. LeBlanc of obstructing a police officer. 

When the trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice opened in the federal court of Washington in January 2007, 2% 0f the seats meant for journalists were reserved for bloggers. After two years of negotiations with judicial officials across the country, the Media Bloggers Association, a nonpartisan group with about 1,000 members working to extend the powers of the press to bloggers, has won credentials to rotate among his members. 

There are many instances when bloggers were summoned by courts in various countries. There is a case of a medical practitioner losing his case after it was found that he in his blog  had ridiculed the plaintiff's case and the plaintiff's lawyer, He had revealed the defense strategy and He had accused members of the jury of dozing. Then there is the case of dutch bloggers being summoned for filming under women’s skirts in a car park in order to warn the public of the intimate views afforded by see-through stairs. 

In Turkey, all blogspot and wordspress were banned because Digiturk, a subscription based digital TV platform that owns the rights to the live broadcasting of Turkish football league games, got this verdict from courts.Digiturk asked Blogger to take several blogs or blog entries down containing links to pirated transmissions of the live games. Blogger did nothing, Digiturk went to court and under Turkish intellectual property law, they managed to get Blogger banned completely, effectively banning millions of websites that have nothing to do with Turkish football or pirating.

A Judge in Hague had fined a blogger 500 Euro's for ranting about a Vodofone call center employee in his blog. And this year A court in Al Zohor (west of Cairo) fined blogger Tamer Mabrouk(http://elhakika.blogspot.com) 2,500 Egyptian pounds (340 euros) on 20 January for allegedly libelling an Egyptian company, Trust Chemicals, in a blog entry accusing it of dumping hazardous waste in Lake Manzalah and the Suez Canal. The company filed its lawsuit last June. 

In Malaysia, this January, Blogger Augustine “Gus” Gan Liam Tee, a 47-year-old father of two, was one of 21 people who appeared in court on 23 January on charges of “illegal assembly” and “disobeying a police order to disperse” in connection with an anti-government demonstration on 11 November. Leading bloggers Raja Petra Kamarudin(Malaysia Today), Haris Ibrahim (People’s Parliament) and Bernard Khoo (Zorro Unmasked) were also among the accused, as were parliamentarians and the head of the Malaysian bar association.The defendants all pleaded not guilty and the defence called for the case to be dismissed as the right of assembly is guaranteed by article 10.1.b of the Malaysian constitution. The judge ordered each of them to pay bail of 1,500 ringgits (312 euros) and adjourned the case until 10 March. An appeal for donations to help pay the bail yielded a total of 43,500 ringgits (9,000 euros), much more than the sum required. It was decided to use the balance to start a fund for bloggers in case of more arrests.

A Well known blogger Hao Wu was arrested in China in 2006. Another Guo Quanwas arrested on  13th November by the Chinese authorities, for inciting subversion.  This stems from some of his blog posts where he exhorts the Chinese government to embrace democracy.  He is currently being held at an Nanjing prison. The Chinese government in cahoots with the search engine Google, has ensured that any search for his name in the Chinese language version yields no results, which led Guo on 4th Febrauary to state that he intended to sue Google. Since being fired from his job, as a philosophy professor at Nanjing University, Guo has been posting pro-democracy open letters on his blog.

Cuban authorities  blocked access from Cuba to the country's most-read blogger, Yoani Sanchez in March 2008. her blog had 1.2 million hits in February 2008. In December 2008, Police  prohibited her from attending an independent cyber-workshop and warned that her activities ran afoul of the law. She and her husband were summoned by Police. Another Havana blogger, Claudia Cadelo, was also called into a meeting with police, but failed to appear because she is in the hospital.

On 7 July 2008, a Russian blogger was sentenced to one year suspended jail after having been found guilty of "inciting hatred and enmity" for a comment left on a LiveJournal weblog. According to Kommersant newspaper, the young blogger Savva Terentiev was saying on the blog that "Those who become cops are scum," and calling for officers to be put on a bonfire. The owner of a website opposing the Kremlin-backed leadership of Russia's troubled Ingushetia region—scene of a recently failed separatist uprising—was shot and killed by law enforcement officials in August 2008. The Prosecutor General's Office in Moscow claims that the gun accidentally went off inside the car, and just happened to hit the blogger Yevloyev directly in his brain.

The Iranian judiciary confirmed in late December 2008, that a prominent Iranian-Canadian blogger is under arrest over remarks he allegedly made about key figures in the Shiite faith. 

The Indian government in the aftermath of the Mumbai bombings on July 11th, 2006 sent a circular dated July 13th to the nearly 150 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in India asking them to ban 20 websites/blogs. The ISPs of India, for all the talk of India's IT prowess, did not seem to possess the requisite technology to block only the sub-domains and "mistakenly" blocked entire domains like Blogspot.com, Typepad.com and Geocities.com.

Park Dae Sung, a well known blogger of South Korea was arrested this year and face a possible five year sentence  plus 27000 euros fine, on the grounds that his blogs affected foreign exchange markets and nation's credibility. He had predicted the fall of Lehmann brothers a week before it happened. He also predicted the current financial crisis.

A 26-year-old student and prominent blogger was arrested in Cairo in February 2009, while taking part in a peaceful march. Philip Rizk was taking part in a march to express solidarity with civilians affected by the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

A Saudi Christian blogger named Hamoud Bin Saleh who wrote about his conversion to Christ from Islam was arrested in January 2009,  and his blog was blocked.  A blogger Fouad al-Farhan arrested for his pro-reform opinions in Saudi Arabia was released without charge after being imprisoned for nearly five months, in April 2008.

THE LIST CAN GO ON AND ON. Unlike Journalists who have some strong and active world watch committees and help zones, the bloggers are mostly dependent on the Journalists for cover when in danger. But there are some visible trends were Journalists are grouping to outwit and corner the blog sphere and curtail and control the activities. 

In October 2007, by a 15-2 vote, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee backed an amended version of the so-called Free Flow of Information Act.  The  bill gave protection to federal cases, shielding anyone engaged in the practice of "journalism"--with a number of exceptions, naturally--from being forced to give up confidential information or provide testimony. The term "journalism" clearly would sweep up at least some bloggers because the bill defines it thusly: "the regular gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public."

However just last week a new definition for eligibility to protection has come from the House, as under, which clearly removes bloggers from being equal to journalists.   

The term "covered person" means a person who regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, or publishes news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public for a substantial portion of the person’s livelihood or for substantial financial gain and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person.

So Blogs have to some how be more cautious and mindful of there words and take note that they are not as free as perceived.

Continued......