In a special edition, World Service programme Digital Planet looked at
the role of blogging, censorship and citizen journalism in a special
edition. In particular it considered bloggers in Vietnam, Cuba and China.
"There are about 18 to 20 million web users registered in Vietnam, of
which two to three million are blogging everyday," said Giang Nguyen,
head of the BBC's Vietnamese service.
"Vietnam has an army of bloggers that exchange information and views,
and they discuss all sorts of topics online from mundane stuff to
politics," he added.
The Vietnamese are well connected and the government is keen on the web.
"The government's contribution to the internet's development is huge,"
said Mr Nguyen.
"Broadband internet is popular in Vietnam and internet cafes provide
very cheap internet access".
Americo Martins, Americas editor for the BBC's World Service, said blogs
were becoming important in Cuba despite the poor communications
infrastructure.
"You really have a hard time getting a decent connection and very few
people have access to computers.
"I went to Cuba last year and had a really hard time trying to connect
to the internet.
The poor technical infrastructure has made Cubans masters in creating
workarounds for their problems.
"Students sell their internet access to their neighbours and they also
do the same in public offices," said Mr Martins.
"A good number of Cubans have access to the internet, usually using
illegal tricks and it is becoming more popular," he added.
Blogging is also booming in China, which now has the biggest net using
population in the world.
"Just over one quarter of the population goes online in one form or
another and about 150 million blog or follow blogs," said Shirong Chen,
editor of the BBC's Chinese service.
"People are not only blogging for their personal journeys but they blog
on political, sensitive stuff as well.
"You can discover all sorts of topics and tips in the Chinese
blogosphere," he said.
Block and censor
Despite the popularity of blogging, many net users face restrictions on
what they can do and say online.
China has plans to put filters on new PCs made that will limit access to
pornographic or violent content.
Many suspect that this is another way to keep people away from sensitive
or dissenting political material.
"The Chinese authorities have become more sophisticated in their
blocking of internet activities," said Mr Chen.
"The Chinese have teams of people to ensure that the sensitive stuff
does not get published and they are now asking PC makers to install
software to block access to certain sites that could very well include
some blogs.
"The software will probably be able to block specific web addresses and
phrases as they will be written into the source code.
"They do not just block stuff or ask the internet service providers to
take stuff offline, which they have done during the week of the
Tiananmen Square anniversary, the Chinese started to block Twitter,
Flickr and some blogs," said Mr Chen.
"In fact one blogger noticed that his blog was blocked by his friends
texting him and asking why they couldn't read it.
"Bloggers are themselves becoming more sophisticated and are trying to
avoid the censors and the technical filters by using dot or a hyphen
in-between the phrases," he added.
"In China and Vietnam you have a system that tries to control
politically what is mentioned there but people have access to
technology," said Mr Martins.
"In Cuba it is a completely different story, you have very few people
blogging to start with, this gives the security people an advantage of
knowing more or less who they are, so they go for physical intimidation
sometimes.
"Some of them are arrested or they try to discredit the bloggers by
saying they receive money from the US.
"In theory you could blog about anything and lots of people do until the
government really starts putting pressure on some of these people," he said.
The best known blogger in Cuba is a woman called Yoani Sanchez who blogs
about her daily life on a website called "Generation Y".
"Sanchez doesn't have access to a blog herself but has to e-mail the
text to friends abroad and it's them who publish the blog for her in
Spanish and translate it into several different languages," said Mr Martins.
"This aspect of a personal account is very powerful in a place like
Cuba, she became a personality because she blogs about her daily life
and that's what annoys the government.
" They assume that technology and the internet is part of the economy,
so they overlooked the whole control of the internet "
Giang Nguyen
"The daily routine of Cubans is exposed to the press of the world, their
lack of choice and lack of things to buy, she became a celebrity by
exposing this and showing how difficult life is in Cuba."
Ms Sanchez was chosen in 2008 by Time magazine as one of the most
influential people in the world, despite the fact that she is
influential abroad and is only well known to the police, the State and
the forces that control the internet in Cuba.
"The Vietnamese government have learnt a lot from the Chinese Communist
Party in how to control the media," said Mr Nguyen.
"The government has overlooked the past 10 years because the premise of
the Vietnamese reform, is that we have just opened up the economy.
"They assume that technology and the internet is part of the economy, so
they overlooked the whole control of the internet," he said.
Blogging from the State
Many popular political bloggers in Vietnam, such as "ChangeWeNeed" and
"Osin", are thought to have high-level sources inside government who
leak political scandals.
Who or how many people are behind the "ChangeWeNeed" blog remains a
secret but they claim to have met with Vietnamese military leaders.
The other well known blog is called "Green River" which has identified
all the politicians and government officials who drive expensive cars.
"That blogger has named everybody and the government has not made any
move to deny it," explained Mr Nguyen.
"It seems they are very well placed in the Communist system in Vietnam
and have access to info.
" Many bloggers are using their blogs as a political weapon to fight for
their own freedom and rights "
Shirong Chen
"Many bloggers work for the State and access the internet through the
government's own computers," he said.
In China, people are encouraged to write blogs sympathetic to the
government.
"These blogs partly come from those who do believe in the government
line but there are also reports of people whose job it is to plant blogs
in the blogosphere, to push the government lines," said Mr Chen.
"Some of the blogs are subtle, but some give the straightforward party line.
"Many bloggers are using their blogs as a political weapon to fight for
their own freedom and rights," he said.
Double life
In Vietnam, journalists have woken up to the potential of blogs.
"During daylight, some of the bloggers may work on government
newspapers, they produce the same articles praising the government for
doing very good things but at night they write their blogs which is
totally different," said Mr Nguyen.
Said Mr Martins: "Bloggers are becoming more influential and you have a
lot of blog journalists from the traditional media that just decided to
either give up everything or lead double lives."
"They are becoming more influential because they offer a different point
of view and information that the traditional media doesn't provide," he
said.
Digital Planet is broadcast on BBC World Service on Tuesday at 1232 GMT
and repeated at 1632 GMT, 2032 GMT and on Wednesday at 0032 GMT.
You can listen or download the Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/8102803.stm
Published: 2009/06/18 12:24:36 GMT
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