Why blogging could be bad for your health

There are two schools of thought when it comes to the topic of blogging and the rise of web sites with often highly opinionated views. While many think that the rise of Internet publishing is the best thing since sliced bread, others have warned of anarchy and violence if things are left the way they are.

Richard Sambrook, CEO of BBC World and a former news director of the BBC, used the term "do-it-yourself journalism" to describe blogging. The Internet, he explained, had reduced the costs of entry to the world of journalism to all but zero. Anybody with a half-decent command of English (and many without) can now reach out and present their views to an almost infinite audience.

However, the problem is that with such freedom brings with it the risk of anarchy. A totally unregulated Internet will mean that people will say things that will one day get other people angry. Angry people retaliate and, in extreme situations, this anger can start from mere flame wars (people bad-mouthing others on bulletin boards and chatrooms), progress to physical violence in the real world and, in extreme cases, lead to these wannabe journalists being murdered.

Far-fetched? Not at all. Speaking in May this year, Sambrook had just come from a meeting of the International News Safety Institute, which had identified this very lack of regulation and responsibility as a key reason why so many "journalists" were being murdered each year in the Philippines. Basically, these writers were saying things (both true and otherwise) which others objected to for various reasons and thus the easiest way to shut these dissenting voices up was to have them killed.

Sambrook said he did not think that all Internet bloggers should automatically be afforded the entire gamut of rights and privileges that members of traditional media enjoy, but that some regulatory framework would have to be developed to ensure that these writers are responsible for their actions and are protected where appropriate.

One month later, the ICT Ministry's Cyber-Inspectors, champions of virtue, righteousness and protectors of the public from the vile sins of pornography and gambling, decided to close down two web sites critical of the government _ thaiinsider.com and fm9225.com _ in a blatant display of state censorship. Both were quickly reinstated by highly-paid solicitors citing Thailand's constitutional right to free speech. No violence ensued, just a lot of free publicity and sympathy for those web sites and the powers-that-be sweeping debris and fall-out under the carpet.

On the surface, this appeared to be a triumph of free speech over control and conservatism, but only on the surface. Look beyond this and it soon became clear that the only reason both web sites survived was because of their political and business power-bases rather than winning the argument on merit on a fair and level playing field. It was a case of power-politics as usual, albeit in cyberspace, and not the vindication of the Internet as the new medium it was made out to be.

Still, both provide a valuable alternative view of the situation in Thailand, albeit one that must be taken with a grain of salt. Or two.

While the two have made headlines, they are far from united in their quest for journalistic truth. Indeed, it could perhaps be said that the two are the voices of their backers; that they exist to voice the views and opinions of their pay-masters, nothing more, nothing less. But back to the argument at hand, that of the value of traditional media.

Traditional media answers to the truth and tries to filter out lies and propaganda from fact. The recent series on the smart ID card project was a case in point. Both sides exaggerated, flamed, accused and twisted the case in point, which was that the card failed four points of the Terms of Reference: Java compliance, PKI security, the ability to securely add and remove applets without affecting other applets and the requirement to have 32KB of memory available for Java Applets and their data.

Proponents of the card conveniently forgot the word "available" and say that the card does have 32KB of memory. Yes, it does. In fact it has 66KB of memory, but, as delivered, only 28KB of memory is available to Java Applets and their data.

Opponents of the card have likened it to measures of control used by a certain dictatorial regime that fell half a century ago, while others have exaggerated the security risk that comes with having public-key encryption functions of the card running on the host PC. While this is a problem in terms of non-compliance with Java Card standards, it is not a critical security flaw _ a public key is, by its very definition, public and manipulating it off-card is not a problem.

Were the smart ID card project news published on either of these two anti-government web sites, perhaps these particular anti-card sentiments and others would have made it to "print" (or rather, to the home page).

Were they published through overtly pro-government channels, the proponents' claims of compliance without presenting any supporting facts while conveniently mis-representing quotes from the Terms of Reference would have been the order of the day.

Technologists would love to believe in the romantic notion of the Internet being a free and fair medium of expression for everyone. The case above would tend to suggest otherwise.

Freedom without responsibility serves only to present a biased view of the world with little regard for journalistic values of truth and integrity. True, there are left-wing and right-wing papers each with a bias, but while they would gladly exercise their bias, outright deception through the presentation of half-truths would not make it to print. This is partly because of the checks and balances in a system that has been honed for many decades, but moreso because of the need to uphold the reputation of the newspaper.

The biggest challenge for media in the digital age is thus hardly technological. To paraphrase Sambrook, while anyone can set up a blog with next to zero outlay, the costs of building up trust and respect remain as high as ever. Newspapers and traditional media will be faced with the question of how to transfer this ethereal goodwill to cyberspace.

Time-Warner tried and failed with AOL. Microsoft's partnership with NBC has yet to gel. Yet it is a challenge that Thailand's media may have to face up to out of necessity if we are to transform and survive in the current political and economic climate.