The Tim Ireland and Craig Murray case is a blow to blogging and democracy

For the past few weeks there’s been a lot talk about blogs being (mis)treated as traiytional media outlets when there are distinct differences.

Sadly, one of these differences is that most blogs do not have the legal and financial collatoral of big media establishments.

As a result they can be much easier to silence – as Craig Murray and Tim Ireland have found out.

The story is basically Craig Murray – former (and infamous) British ambassador to Uzbekistan – and poltiical blogger, Tim Ireland, wrote about their experience and views respectively of the Uzbekh oligarch Alisher Usmanov who is trying to buy Arsenal FC. Ellee Seymour notes that "lawyers letters followed which led to the webhost pulling the plug. "

Ellee also asserts:

"Newspapers are not shut down if they face libel allegations, (not in
the UK anyway) there is a legal process that is followed. Surely that
process applies to bloggers too. If the offending comments were not
libellous – and only a court can decide this – then Mr Usmanov’s
actions could be deemed illegal. He would have to pay damages. There
are all sorts of legal ramifications involved with this story."

In a way the real driver of blog independence – the power of individuals to articulate and publish free from editorial and commercial constraints – is its archilles heel.

That said, curtailing freedom of speech is pretty abhorant and the actions of Schillings (Usmanov’s lawyers) may be legally astute but utterly counter-democratic.

The way forward for society is advocacy, compromise and understanding. That’s real democracy in action and exemplifed by blogging,the internet and networked communities. Using heavy-handed legal tactics to break this system is abhorent and should be brought to light by bloggers everywhere just as Chicken Yoghurt is doing. Read their list of who’s blogging this scandal here.

Technorati tags: Craig Murray, Tim Ireland, Alisher Usmanov, democracy, media independence, blogging