Something to lift the spirits!

Finally, some action today! After nothing but political rhetoric for the last few days, and boring financial news (as a result of Q4 earning reports from various companies), some interesting news today.

First, we have news of the US government mulling the compulsory registration of blogs. They're trying to force bloggers who criticise Congress and organise grassroot causes to register themselves similarly to various lobbies. However, this proposal will only affect American blogs that have more than 500 readers. Assuming that the number is per month, that means an average of about 17 readers per day. Heck, even my puny little blog has more readers than that. So, I guess that almost every American blog will need to be registered if the bill goes through.

Second, we have news of two prominent Malaysian bloggers being sued for defamation by NST. Yea, the excitement! We're finally going to get things tested in court if it ever gets that far. According to the IHT article, the bloggers are being sued for calling two people (former editors) Sporean agents. I don't see how this could be construed as defamatory.If someone called me a Sporean agent, I'd probably correct them but I don't think that I'd sue them for defamation. But then, I'm not that sensitive to these things. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

I highly doubt that either of these steps would shut bloggers up. People who end up blogging in the first place, would already be well aware of the fact that what they blog about is in the public domain. So, I don't think much will change.

Exciting news for bloggers n'est-ce pas?

* screenshot of IHT *