Friday April 20, 2007
Of Fiji blogs
There has been a sudden proliferation of Fiji blogs of late. This sudden jump forward in Fiji’s web savvy is completely the fault of the current regime.
Whether rightly or wrongly, many feel freedom of speech has been curtailed since the December 5 take-over, and the geeky few who knew of blogs proceeded to set up anonymous little forts for themselves and their ideas. This would have gone completely unnoticed by the general public, had not the military suddenly taken offence at the content of a couple of these blogs … which inevitably lead to the mainstream media talking about it … and suddenly every Tom, Dick and curious Harry had been introduced to blogs.
Whilst I appreciate these bloggers making a stand for freedom of speech, many of them are not doing the concept any favours. Few have taken the concept of citizen journalism seriously, while others are only interested in feeding the rumour mill. Most are just rambling collections of hearsay, rumour and unabashed defamation and character assassination, and wouldn’t stand a chance of survival in any decent, law-abiding society.
Oh! for a few sensible political blogs, with proper research and real analysis; or barring that, some proper opinion/comment on the facts that the mainstream media is reporting.
Filed by Jachin Sheehy under Living-in-Fiji
