Malaysian Bloggers sued!
When I first opened Firefox yesterday morning and browsed to Screenshots, a post caught my eye. Jeff Ooi and RockyBru were sued by NSTP and a few other more prominent personalities.
Read about it also in the International Herald tribune.
Sdr. Lim also has his take on it.
I first started to read Screenshots about a year after I started blogging. It was then that I slowly learned that a blog is more than a online diary (which is a contradiction in terms btw) but was inteded, and still is being used today, as a alternative to the printed media. It was journalism by the people, for the people.
And it made sense, since the internet provided people with unfettered access to firsthand personal opinions, regulated and edited only by the bloggers good sense and maturity.
Jeff Ooi has been that kind of blogger. Humourous, serious, provocative and observant. He gave a very important reminder: The Internet does not operate in a legal vacuum. His posts reflect that, any claims against some one are pretty much substantiated, in a sense that it raises good questions without being insulting and demeaning. Jeff Ooi is a responsible blogger.
I find it very disturbing then that NSTP and the rest have taken legal action. I believe in due justice. I believe that the courts will clear Jeff and Ahiruddin (RockyBru). of wrong doing. The motivation for this is rather clear: Its purely an act of revenge. Jeff has written much about the NSTP and it hasn’t been in his good books: He once remarked that then Group Editor, Brenden Priera piece was so similiar to an article written by Detroit Free Press, Mitch Albom.
Whatever the case, it reminds me of something I read in the internetmonk. The resemblance is so striking, its juvenile. But it reminded me of something else too: Doing the right thing has never been popular.
