AI Gets One Right: Report on Human Rights and the Blogosphere

Ok, surfing around the Amnesty International website I came across this: Press Freedom Day: Human rights in the Blogosphere. It's good to know that between their idiotic Chomsky inpired anti-Americanisms that they have some concern about bloggers getting locked up in countries where real human rights abuses are commonplace. Here's an excerpt:

Anyone can start a blog, comment on one and, usually, say whatever they want. Blogs effectively sideline the normal publishing process: there is no editorial control; rarely even a pretence at balance or impartiality; and quite often, no respect for the rules of traditional media, such as fact-checking, confidentiality or adherence to the law.

I assume that by 'adherence to the law' they mean copyright violations and such and not following immoral speech regulations. Or am I giving them too much credit? Does AI support hate speech laws?

This is not necessarily always a bad thing. Human rights and freedom of speech activists in many countries use blogs in an attempt to get around censorship laws and other restrictions. Blogs also offer a degree of anonymity for users who are usually afforded the opportunity to post material without identifying themselves. People in Iran and China have used blogs to expose violations by their governments and provide the outside world with information that otherwise might not have been available.

'Not necessarily always a bad thing'?? Okee-dokey. And of course we're exposing human rights abuses by governments around the world. We also expose the lunacy of leftists who can't see the difference between a real human rights abuse and an ACLU case. We are the samizdata of the 21st century, baby!

Here is an example of the kind of work AI ought to be focusing on:

Bloggers in Iran set out ideas and advocate policies that are widely regarded to be a step ahead of current social, political and human rights debates. Bloggers' sites addressing women's rights in Iran provide a platform -- or tribune -- for pushing forward women's social, political and economic rights. The persistent pressure exerted by bloggers in the case of Afsaneh Norouzi, who was convicted of murdering a high-ranking security and intelligence official who had tried to rape her, played no small part in her recently being spared the death penalty and finally released from prison after more than seven years' detention.

And another case of a real human rights abuse:

Electronic civil disobedience is not without risk. In both Iran and China, the authorities have increasingly targeted bloggers to stifle dissent. Bloggers are sometimes arrested and sites discussing political or social issues shut down or redirected to entertainment forums. In one recent case highlighted by Reporters sans frontières, an Iranian blogger, Mohamad Reza Abdollahi, was sentenced on appeal to six months in prison and a fine of 1 million rials for supposedly insulting the country's leaders and making anti-government propaganda. Police subsequently arrested his wife, another blogger whom they accused of "defending her husband too openly". Najmeh Oumidparvar, who was four months pregnant, spent 24 days in detention before being released on 26 March.

Anyway, it's good to know that AI isn't all the way idiotic these days.

Here, though, is where we see the greatest piece of irony:

This is one downside; another is the amount of information presented as fact. Blogs are individual expressions of opinion. Where "facts" are cited, they should be treated with healthy scepticism. As long as the reader makes his or her own judgments about the information, the fact that blogs do not purport to provide a balanced view can be refreshing, as there is little risk of a hidden agenda or bias.

Blogs are in fact superior to the MSM and organizations like AI who hide their biases and proclaim neutrality. And like the MSM, AI does not even recognize its own anti-American bias. Instead, like many deceived by their ideologies, they believe they see the world 'as it really is'.

Posted by: Rusty at 04:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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