So, well. Bloggers have been called everything from idiots to monkeys to liars to dissenters. And still neither the government nor the old media get it, do they? For those not privileged with little birds or underground sources of information, bloggers who tend to rage against the Machine get their news from old media.
That’s right. We look at what Malaysian journalists and such spew on the pages of our dailies and then we try to exercise brains a little to think about what you’re writing. Don’t you geddit?
Bloggers talk about food, friends, and yes, politics too. But most of what you’d find on the internet is reactionary rather than new. Salacious gossip and info? That’s left to certain websites which, it has been revealed, obtained their information from government sources (legitimately or otherwise).
The rest? The rest ask questions, hard questions that the government doesn’t like. The rest draw conclusions that the government doesn’t want to make public.
Because, come on, think about it: what “socio-political†bloggers write are what most people think anyway.
What about the politically-connected bloggers?
Nat gets arrested for no other reason that having a blog post comment which pointed to a website containing allegations. In moderating this comment, Nat noted that there was no evidence to determine such allegations’ veracity. Hence, the comment was truncated.
Raja Petra Kamaruddin was called in for questioning not because of what he wrote or the opinions he expressed but what a commenter wrote, which if you read his account of the questioning, was an admonishment for all Malaysians regardless of race to work together.
But, one got detained for practicing restraint and reason, the other got hauled in for someone else trying to promote good will amongst the competing ethnic groups on his blog.
If this isn’t skewed logic, what is?
In the meantime, bloggers everywhere have to endure petty name-calling. Monkey, goblok, liars, etc. So much effort to discredit people who simply don’t agree with you.