Time and time again, this issue on censorship is brought up. If it's not censorship of movies, then it's of information. What kind of information? The political kind, the kind that only harms the government and makes them look bad on election year.Lately, the local blogs have been swarming with political dissent and the government, with all their vaunted elections coming up, have decided to "bribe" the citizens by imposing measures, call it censorship if you will, to help weed out these dissent, and ultimately snuff it out, so that they won't breed online. Too late, the seeds of a silent revolution have already been planted.
I've always believed in freedom of speech, but at the user's discretion. Freedom of speech not to turn people into matyrs and enemies. It's bad enough as it is that the world is fighting on a religious front in the Middle East. Do we have to fight on the home front too? These parodies are only present in developed countries, notice that third world countries don't bother with these things. They're more concerned with shortage of food and water and surviving till the next day.
I've often read that the more you oppress a people, the more innovative they get trying to get out from under that iron fist. The easier it is for them to slip through your fingers and get away with it. As it is, the invisible rule is ever-present in this country. This makes our people very selfish and sadly self-centred, thereby leading to dissent with their own government - a vicious circle if you will with no end in sight.
Although other countries like America and perhaps the UK do certain amount of censorship, they do so with a bit of logic and wisdom, which seems to be lacking in these parts. There ar many degrees in which you can consider blogging to be a threat.
Take for example, if Osama Bin Laden decides to start blogging and podcasting, to instill all his fear and terror with his campaigns, ah then it's right to censor it, as that becomes a threat to everyone world-wide. But if you're just a student blogging your daily activities and perfecting your communication skills to garner world-wide attention, then leave them be, what harm could that be?
Are those blog entries really so dangerous that you need to censor or control blogging as a whole? Are they cowards not to allow bloggers or podcasters their freedom to personally broadcast their point of views? Are podcast just another means by which a company or government or media group spread their propaganda? If so, censorship is the last thing they should do.
Blogs have turned into our very own online version of a Speaker's Corner. And there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. If you censor everything, you might as well be blind, deaf and dumb.
