LawEddie.com

As mentioned in my previous post, I will pen down my speech given during the ALSIC 2008.

To be frank, since the event was held few months ago,  I have misplaced the main speech paper and now could not able to allocate it. However, I still keep some points of the full speech in a note book, which I think are beneficial to my readers.

Listed below are some points in my speech:

1. Statistic:

Based on Technorati’s statistic, as at May 2007 the top blogging nations are - Japanese (37%), English (36%), Chinese (8%) and Italian (3%).

There are 3 billions websites in the world, 70 million web blogs, 120,000 new blog created per day and 10,800 blog being updated per hour.

Amongst the web blogs, the 4 main topics being written are entertainment, personal journal, education and health/fitness/pregnancy/parenting. (Not surprising law is not a popular topic at all, hahah!)

2. Two main ways where bloggers’ rights are effected:

In summary, I found that there are 2 main “weapons” used by government in different countries to “handle” bloggers:

1st, in the countries whereby the political atmosphere is more conservative, bloggers are always being prosecuted under the offence of “rebellious”, “threaten the national security”, “seditious”and son on. These can be commonly seen in China.

2nd, in a more liberal country, government chooses to take civil action against the bloggers, e.g. Singapore, Taiwan and US. For more cases, please see my previous post.

3. How to preserve bloggers’ right?

Blogosphere is just like a normal society or community, in order to preserve one’s right, others’ right or freedom must be limited. This is the basic rule of order. 

As such, it is crucial to have a comprehensive system or mechanism to preserve Blogger Ethic. I have found “A Bloggers’ Code of Ethics” and the “Standard set by the Media Bloggers Associations”

On another hand, the government shall review the current law to regulate and protect the bloggers’ rights. I have cited the US Communication Decency Act as an example.

A mere legislation without enforcement is vain. Therefore, it is important to have a disciplinary organisation to regulate the conduct of the bloggers and to impose appropriate sanction.

4. Some useful links for bloggers:

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): Legal Guide for Bloggers

Pro-bloggers Association (PBA)

Media Bloggers Associations (MBA)

I commented the delegates’ resolutions as the conclusion of my speech. The fair resolutoin is available in my previous post.