What Are Blogs and Why Should I Build or Read Them

I always attach my name to anything I write online

, because I feel that it's important to stand behind what I say in public. But I also understand that anonymous speech is sometimes necessary. Corporate whistleblowers and political dissidents living under oppressive regimes have a right to be heard without getting fired or imprisoned.

For example, in 2004, a young Internet journalist from Tunisia, Zouhair Yohyaoui, wrote an entry on his popular TUNeZINE blog asking his readers to vote on whether Tunisia was a "republic, a kingdom, a zoo, or a prison." Soon after, six Tunisian secret policemen arrested him while he was in a cybercafe. Yahyaoui was held without charges and tortured until he revealed his blog password, after which the Tunisian government removed his blog from the Internet He was held in prison under appalling conditions, and died there in 2005.

That's one reason I like the idea of anonymous blogging. BlogSafer is a guide for blogging in conntries that frown on free speech. It offers guides for bloggers in Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, Malaysia, Zimbabwe, and other countries where bloggers must live in fear that they'll suffer the same fate as Zouhair Yahyaoui.

Does anonymous blogging have a potential for abuse? Sure it does But to me, the benefits of anonymous speech outweigh the dangers.

What Are Blogs and Why Should I Build or Read Them

By: kelvin

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