Blogging and Freedom Of Expression

Expressing one’s thoughts and views was earlier restricted to the family or a set of few close friends unless the person was a public speaker with good credentials or a celebrity to whom people would bother to listen to. Envelopes were in vogue those days with information sealed and addressed to a particular sender. The exceptions were writers and journalists who knew what they were writing. All this was before the advent of the internet and before personal computers had much more to do than just personal things.

When Internet took over, e-mails replaced letters in the twinkling of an eye. Nowadays it is very rare to come across people who take effort to write long lengthy letters and post it. The new phenomenon of “blogging” has come to spread opinions and information at speeds and magnitudes which were unknown earlier. It has taken off as a low-cost (rather free) way for individuals to publish online. It is just enough to own a personal computer or a laptop connected to internet to make your voice heard!

That brings us back to the issue of “expressing one’s thoughts” – the freedom of expression which virtually has no limits whatsoever. When attempting to publish blogs, people tend to narrate experiences from daily life which may indirectly point fingers. As long as the sensitivities of the issue and feelings of the people referred to are taken into consideration, there will not be any controversies. There have been several discussions on whether the content of such blogs have to be regulated or not. I personally feel doing so would be denying the right to freedom of expression. Especially when blogs are viewpoints of the writer and are a means to showcase the writer’s passion, regulation of content would be discouraging.

Let bloggers blog! And in peace! We do not require any attention!!