BBC News carries this report today:

“Since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog, says the University of Washington annual report.

In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006, it revealed.

More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran, said the report.”

The specific offenses? “Arrested bloggers exposed corruption in government, abuse of human rights or suppression of protests. They criticised [sic] public policies and took political figures to task.”

The article ends by saying, “The report predicted that the number of blogger arrests in 2008 would exceed the 36 seen in 2007 thanks to greater popularity of blogging as a medium, greater enforcement of net restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US.”

I find it amazing that twenty years ago, this article would have been virtually unintelligible. Blogging is certainly unique in that it has distributed the power of the press into the hands of the individual (at least with more accessibility than would have been possible before). However, the age-old principle is just wearing new clothes: information is an explosive commodity.