Larko pointed me to this global rating about freedom of press. It seems I live in a country where we have the de facto standard. Which is nice of course. But turning attention to the other end of the list is not fun reading.
List includes:
- Norway & Iceland - 1. place, with 0,75 points
Which probably means that as long as I stay here, I can keep up writing whatever I feel like. Darn, there go my international career!
- USA at place 48. with 14.5 points
A large amount of my readers are located there, as are many bloggers. I bet you guys will work to raise the US on the list. Particular events like these:
"There were slightly fewer press freedom violations in the United States (48th) and blogger Josh Wolf was freed after 224 days in prison. But the detention of Al-Jazeera’s Sudanese cameraman, Sami Al-Haj, since 13 June 2002 at the military base of Guantanamo and the murder of Chauncey Bailey in Oakland in August mean the United States is still unable to join the lead group."
will hopefully put your focus on working against censorship.
- It seems there are more freedom of press in Europe & Australia than anywhere else in the world
"Outside Europe - in which the top 14 countries are located - no region of the world has been spared censorship or violence towards journalists."
- China & Burma is almost at the bottom of the list, together with Iran, Eritrea and North Korea(No surprise there)
"We also regret that China (163rd) stagnates near the bottom of the index. With less than a year to go to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the reforms and the releases of imprisoned journalists so often promised by the authorities seem to be a vain hope.”
So do I. Hopefully, the Olympics may start a new trend, where China and Asia works toward human rights and freedom of press.
“We are concerned about the increase in cases of online censorship,” Reporters Without Borders said. “More and more governments have realised that the Internet can play a key role in the fight for democracy and they are establishing new methods of censoring it. The governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media.”
Online communities and blogging has become an increasingly important communication channel. Many blogs are inaccessible from China. And as blogging gain popularity, bloggers get the attention of censoring governments and presidents.
A company have the right to control the information that they distribute. It is called branding, PR, marketing and damage control. We accept this right, as well as the company's right to fire or remove the person who communicate publicly without the consent of the company.
Should not a country have the same right? Why should a company be able to fully control its public picture, and a country not? Or do we need to review the companies rights to do whatever they seem necessary to reach their targets? Are there limits to what a company should be allowed to do? And how do we treat the whistle blowers?
What are your thoughts? Is censorship ok?
UPDATE: Dave Lewis has an interesting
post about Yahoo and imprisonment of a Chinese journalist!
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