Gawker
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bloggers in peril
Iranian Blogger Dies in Prison
Iranian blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi died in prison on Wednesday. He was in jail for insulting Iran's leaders. Authorities claim he committed suicide. That is probably a lie.
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By PareeneComment by sample032: I'll take my news without baseless speculation. 5 Responses | Other threads
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hillbillies of wasilla
The Deep, Meaningful Origins of Bristol Palin's Name
Sarah Palin says she hates bloggers. Then why does she keep giving us so much good material? In an interview released today she reveals the origins of Bristol's name. Hint: It involves a motel.
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By Owen ThomasComment by leonleonleon: I wanted to pursue my dreams. But they were too far away. Therefore, I had a baby. This is exactly the... 14 Responses | Other threads
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blogodrama
Liberal Blogosphere Proves Trivially Easy to Destroy
Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. After hackers took down SoapBlox, a one-man blog-hosting company which runs local political websites, a silenced liberal commentariat found out how true that was. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by ZukeZuke: Never heard of any of those 'popular' Soapblox sites. But then again, I'm not a flaming liberal either. 1 Responses | Other threads
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bloggers in peril
Blogs Beat Print in Free Speech Crackdowns!
Back in the day, bloggers who didn't do any reporting like Mickey Kaus and Jeff Jarvis and probably Glenn Reynolds used to spend a great deal of time talking about how the blogs (specifically their blogs) would soon supplant the "Main Stream Media" forever. Well, some years have passed, and the MSM is in dire straits, but blogs have not really made much of a dent in CNN and the New York Times' market share, eyeballs-wise, and the boundary-blurring has manifested itself mainly as old school publications getting a little more "webby" in tone and content. There is one metric, though, that has bloggers pulling ahead of their MSM counterparts: jail time! The Committee to Protect Journalists just released its 2008 prison census, and as you can see in the attached pie chart, internet people finally make up a greater share of the journo prison population than snooty newspaper jerks. Way to go, internet, and Burma! [CPJ]
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By PareeneComment by American Dreamer: this chart is totally useless because it doesn't indicate the total number of people covered by the pie chart (if... 4 Responses | Other threads
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the internet
Pro-Iranian Blogger Arrested By Iran For Blogging
This would be ironically funny as an Onion article, but in real life it's just awful: Hossein Derakhshan, pictured, is a Toronto-based Iranian blogger who has grown more pro-Iran over the past two years, supporting the country's nuclear program and its three-decade-old Islamic revolution in the press. The dual Iranian-Canadian citizen blogs in both English and Farsi and generally tries to help people understand his home country. PR win for Iran and its blogger-in-chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right? Actually no, because Derakhshan visited Israel last year for a blogging conference, and bogged there to "show the Iranians a more realistic image of this country," so he's been thrown in jail during a visit home, as a spy, reports The Media Line: More »
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By Ryan TateComment by Triborough: I hate to say it, but if you are writing about an oppressive regime and you have citizenship that country,... 11 Responses | Other threads
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bloggers in peril
Malaysian Blogger Freed!
Raja Petra Kamarudin, a blogger in Malaysia, will be released from from government detainment today, after having been arrested on September 12th for no reason. Raja Petra is—you'll never guess!—"one of the most vocal critics of the current government," according go the Times. What was the critism that made the government mad enough to lock him up for two months? More » -
Steve Barnes
A Restaurateur's Revenge? Food Critic Beaten Up
Steve Barnes (pictured), the restaurant critic for the Albany Times-Union, was coming out of a restaurant with a friend last Friday night when, with no warning, two young men walked up nonchalantly and beat them up. "They said nothing, just punched us both repeatedly in the face." Barnes doesn't think he was targeted because he was gay, and he doesn't think he was targeted by the restaurant he just left—but he does think he was targeted: More »
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Comment by TheHonJudgeSmails: This is an appropriate level of risk to accompany what is otherwise possibly the easiest job in the world. 7 Responses | Other threads
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Gopalan Nair
Blogger Headed To Trial For Insulting Powers-That-Be
Back in June we told you about Gopalan Nair (pictured), a US citizen living in Singapore who was arrested for writing mean things about a judge on his blog. He accused the judge of "prostituting herself," and goaded the police by posting his address and phone number. His arrest was international news, but it appears that Singapore's authorities didn't learn their lesson: Nair now says he'll be going to trial next month, facing up to two years in jail. Who is this brave man standing up for free online speech in the face of an unyielding corrupt power structure? He's kind of a crank! But the charming, revolutionary type: More »
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Comment by meichun23: Comment 1: You don't get caned for chewing gum. You get fined, and thats only if you litter it. Otherwise,... 2 Responses | Other threads
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bloggers in peril
DA Sues to Learn Blogger's Identity
So this is fun. Back in January, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson sent a subpoena to Room Eight, a local politics blog. The subpoena demanded "identifying details of a Room Eight blogger who wrote under the name 'Republican Dissident,' as well as the authors of a dozen comments on his posts." Are you alarmed yet? Here's the kicker: the subpoena was sealed, with an all-caps warning threatening prosecution if the contents of it were revealed. Now, six months later, the DA's finally given up. And we can all read about how a random functionary on the Bronx Board of Elections got the DA's office—without the DA's knowledge, according to Johnson!—to threaten to expose and prosecute an anonymous blogger and a dozen anonymous commenters, just for criticizing her. So yes the forces of good and anonymous online criticism won out this time. But here's why it's still scary: More »
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By PareeneComment by Pussy Galore: Wait, let me get this straight. A woman (the pronoun in your item said, SHE) from the Bronx Board... more » | Other threads
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bloggers in peril
Blogger Shot in DC
Yikes. Media Consortium blogger Brian Beutler was shot in Washington DC last night, a block away from my old apartment. Or pretty much directly in front of Andrew Sullivan's apartment. He is expected to make a full recovery. And next time, thanks to the Supreme Court, he will be able to shoot back. [DCist, Photo] -
bloggers in peril
How Bloggers Defy Despots
One unmitigated good that's come of the lawlessness of the Internet is that it's allowed daring bloggers in third world countries to flout their authoritarian regimes (Kos and HuffPo just like to think they do the same). Egypt, China, Iran, and Pakistan have all jailed online diarists and tried to block the rest of the population from even accessing international media. All have failed for the same reason samizdat entered the lexicon in the cold war: dissidents are more enterprising than their persecutors. (At left, activists demanding the release of Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer, who was sentenced to four years in prison and then became a cause celebre). More »
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Comment by xmonkeydr: @VirusWithShoes: I think that you underestimate the extent to which even totalitarian governments need a large measure of acquiescence from... more » | Other threads
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bloggers in peril
International Blogger Arrests Skyrocketing
Good news for the Associated Press! "In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006," an annual report from the University of Washington reveals. The majority of arrests since 2003 have taken place in Iran, China, and Egypt, though the US of A gets a mention: "The report predicted that the number of blogger arrests in 2008 would exceed the 36 seen in 2007 thanks to greater popularity of blogging as a medium, greater enforcement of net restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US." Thats fine, fine company we're in, isn't it? Of course, the reported number could be deceptively low. More »
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By PareeneComment by ProblemWithCaring: One day we will read that 36 number with bemusement. I hope I am wealthy and insulated by then... more » | Other threads
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bloggers in peril
Censorship!
A young man in Saudi Arabia (he is delivering a kidney to his father—no joke!) reports that the site of Fouad al Farhan, the Saudi blogger jailed last year, is blocked. Along with Radar, Fleshbot, and Craigslist Casual Encounters. [Kidney and the Kingdom] -
bloggers in peril
Blogger Jailed in Singapore
Gopalan Nair, a US citizen and blogger, was arrested and charged in Singapore for insulting a judge. He accused the judge of prostituting herself in a vituperative email and blog post. Then he basically asked to be arrested: "In another post on his blog Saturday, Nair taunted authorities, saying he was in Singapore at a particular hotel, and also gave his phone number." So bilious! Also, kinda dumb! Anyway, we'll add Singapore to the list. [AFP]
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By PareeneComment by Shariahpants: He wasn't American until he became an American. He used to be Singaporean. Nobody gets sex in Singapore????? HELLOOOOO!!! more » | Other threads
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