Erik Ringmar is Professor at the National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.

A Blogger's Manifesto

Free Speech and Censorship in the Age of the Internet

By Erik Ringmar

Wimbledon Publishing Company

Copyright © 2007 Erik Ringmar
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84331-288-8

Contents

Acknowledgements, vii,
1 'Watch It Buddy, I'm Blogging This', 1,
2 FAQ, 17,
3 Free Speech and Censorship at the LSE, 35,
4 Bloggers @ Uni.Edu, 53,
5 Bloggers @ Work, 71,
6 A Republic of Bloggers, 93,
7 Secrets of the Heart, 111,
8 A Blogger's Manifesto, 129,
Bibliography, 145,

CHAPTER 1

'Watch It Buddy, I'm Blogging This'

'Hello world! This is Erik speaking. Is anybody out there?' It was 9 January 2006, and I was writing the first post in my very first blog. I had downloaded the software a few minutes earlier and now I was already up and running. Forget the Footnotes seemed like an appropriate name for it. Academics always add footnotes to give authority to their ramblings, but in my blog I was going to ramble without such props. 'Testing, 1, 2, 3, 4.' Well, I thought, the sky is not falling in, the computer is emitting no smoke. I'll just write and see what happens. I cleared my throat, dried my fingertips on my trousers, and started typing.

A funny thing happened at work today. One of the more pompous of my colleagues – Oxbridge education, plummy accent, egg on waistcoat – was giving a particularly tedious talk. Suddenly he drew something on the blackboard. An impromptu map, I think, but at this stage I was no repeatedly and added to the map. For each addition the picture began to look more and more like a penis. After a while there was no doubt. There it was: a perfectly formed manhood in all its fully erect glory. Testicles, pubic hair and everything. I began laughing. First a little snicker, then a louder guffaw. Heads turned in my direction. I reported my observation to the person next to me who made a disgusted face. How dared I! Not funny. Not funny at all.

It was childish of course. Very childish. Both to laugh about it at the time and to blog about it later. 'I can't write that', I thought, 'my colleague is too easily recognizable.' Then again the joke was mainly on me, not on him. If I chose to be childish in public, it was my decision. Besides, this is a free country, right? I can say what I like. And I did.

Emboldened, I unleashed my childish wit on my boss, the big cheese himself, the Director of the university where I worked. I made up a story about Sir Howard Davies, a few choir boys and the Catholic Church. None of it was true of course – it obviously wasn't true – but just to be on the safe side I added an official, but faked, denial. It was, however, pretty funny. Brits are famous for their sense of humour. Sir Howard Davies is a Brit, ain't he? He can live with it.

After these posts I was exhausted. I didn't know there was so much childishness in me and now it was all over my blog, in public and for everyone to see. For better or worse, I had spoken. From the laptop on top of my bed in my home in north London I had spoken to hundreds of millions of people scattered throughout the world. Except that I hadn't really. My blog at this point was getting a mere dozen visitors per day – my family mainly and the occasional student.

Unfazed by the low visitor number, I felt that I had acquired new powers. The power to hurt and upset people and the power to make a fool of myself. But also the power to tell truths, to colleagues, the corruption of bosses, the vile habits of family and friends. I'm going to turn myself into a blogging machine, I thought, reporting everything I see straight into cyberspace. The mighty will tremble, the powerless will take heart. 'Watch it buddy, I'm blogging this!'

Of course I knew there were limits to what I could say. There are always limits to what one can say. Legal limits, limits set by embarrassment, by fear or by an old-fashioned sense of decency. How exactly these limits should be defined, however, I did not know. Normally when you present something in public, there are editors who answer such questions for you, but in my blog I was my own editor. I had no experience, no policy, no guidelines. I, together with millions of other bloggers who simultaneously had taken up the habit, was flying by the seat of my pants.

Helicopters overhead

These questions became urgent a few weeks later when a Danish newspaper, Jyllandsposten, published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in various, shall we say, less than flattering contexts. The Danes, not unreasonably, insisted on their right to publish whatever they damn well pleased. But some Muslims declared themselves offended and took the opportunity to rant about the perfidy of the infidel West. The Danish embassy was set ablaze in Damascus, large demonstrations were held in Lebanon, and Danish products were boycotted throughout the Middle East.

The question was whose side the rest of us were on. Were we in favour of freedom of expression or did we believe in the obligation not to offend? It was a classic case of liberalism versus multiculturalism, the European Enlightenment versus political correctness.

Some newspapers in Germany and France reprinted the cartoons. British newspapers didn't, obviously so as not to complicate relations with the country's sizeable Muslim population. Still some Muslims in the UK were most irate. Demonstrations were held outside the Danish embassy in London on 3 February 2006, where young men, dressed as suicide bombers, issued direct threats. 'Behead the one who insults the Prophet', 'Europe you will pay, your 9/11 is on the way.'

As a newbie blogger I decided to be more courageous than the British papers. I was going to stand up for the Danes. A quick Google search and a 'save picture as ...' – command and I had the offensive cartoons on my site. I had no desire to offend the Muslims, and I'm all for common decency, but death threats against those who publish cartoons was a step too far. If death threats are issued against us, our rights are taken away. If our rights are taken away, we must fight for them. This was not the time for decency. Suddenly, I had the obligation to publish those offensive cartoons. Someone had to stand up for freedom of expression. It might as well be me.

Well, these were the arguments I used when talking it over with my wife. As a non-blogger with her feet more securely planted on the ground, she pleaded with me. 'Why, oh, why? Our neighbourhood is predominantly Muslim. People around here are nice and friendly with each other.' 'What if our neighbours find out? What's the point of offending these good people?'

One night trucks loaded with explosives were racing through my head. Scimitar-wielding madmen were beheading my children. I woke up in a cold sweat. Somewhere high above our house there was a helicopter. Its persistent chop, chop, chop told me that the police was looking for someone. Of course, those irate young men who demonstrated outside the Danish embassy! I had read about the police chase and now they were in my neighbourhood. What better place to hide for a scimitar-wielding madman than in my Muslim part of the town?

I took the cartoons off the blog. Of course mv wife was right. an aggressive visual language which wasn't mine. It was a defeat to be sure, but it was a defeat of no significance. The only casualty was my image of myself as a defender of Western civilization. Someone else had to stand up for the freedom of expression. Someone with a bigger blog and...