Guide for bloggers and cyberdissidents · Global Voices
Julien Pain

Reporters Without Borders will release a “Guide for bloggers and cyberdissidents” on the 22nd of September. It will be available on the RWB's website in five languages (English, French, Persian, Chinese and Arabic) and includes an article on “anonymous blogging” by Ethan Zuckerman which was developed on the Global Voices wiki . We will feature some excerpts from the guide this week and next, beginning with this short description:
Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution. Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they're tremendous tools of freedom of expression.
Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.
Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help bloggers, with handy tips and technical advice on how to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.