Blogging from East to West

The BBC has an interesting piece on bloggers. Excerpts:

Now blogs feature everything from cant on cars, opinions on opera, to rants from the politically righteous East and West.

But not everyone is free to say what they think.

Reporters Sans Frontières campaigns for the rights of journalists in China, where the ability to turn a nice phrase in criticism can be frowned on from a height.

In fact, the list of things you cannot talk about in China is almost as long as the things you can, as Cai Chongguo, a Chinese dissident, explains...

Julien Pain, of Reporters Sans Frontières, says: "Blogging is a very, very important tool in terms of freedom of expression.

"Even if you don't know html or how to set up your own website, using a blog without any technical skill you can become a publisher.

"That's why it is so interesting. It is a kind of a revolution now.

"In a country like Iran people couldn't express themselves and now they can, because they are using blogs to tell the world about what they are living and their conditions."

But bloggers are not just getting under the skin of authoritarian regimes.

In the West, particularly in America, they are also making waves among traditional journalists....

Read the entire piece here.