Malicious bloggers under scrutiny in new report

The European Parliament’s Culture Committee is looking into what it says are the growing dangers of a blogger culture on the Internet that has the potential to hide the real intentions of their sites. “I blog, therefore I am” is the mantra of a new generation of bloggers who express their thoughts and views on the Internet. But a report approved by the committee outlined that a minority of bloggers have malicious motives or hidden agendas. It called for a voluntary code to identify the interests of the authors, clarification of their legal status and an ombudsman to guarantee media freedom. The report, drafted by Estonian Socialist Marianne Mikko, also warns against the concentration of media in the hands of a few companies and said that the media is vital to safeguarding democracy. The report called for social and legal guarantees to journalists and editors. “The media remains a powerful tool, which should not be treated solely in economic terms,” Mikko said. It also stressed the importance of protecting media pluralism and multilingualism. The report will go to the full parliament for debate. For those who do not blog, a “blog” is short for Web log. Blogs are publicly available web pages, with personal views and links expressing the opinions and observations of a particular person, usually on a specific topic or theme and are usually updated regularly reflecting the personality of the author. Speaking about her report, Mikko told the parliament’s news service that, “The blogosphere has so far been a haven of good intentions and relatively honest dealing. However, with blogs becoming commonplace, less principled people will want to use them”. She said “We do not see the bloggers as a threat. They are in position, however, to considerably pollute cyberspace. We already have too much spam, misinformation and malicious intent in cyberspace.” She added, “I think the public is still very trusting towards blogs, it is still seen as sincere. And it should remain sincere. For that we need a quality mark, a disclosure of who is really writing and why.” Belgian MEP Ivo Belet (who acted as an advisor on the report for the Industry committee) said “weblogs and user-generated content contribute in a lively and fresh way to a colourful and many-sided media landscape. They should not be restrained.” The centre right EPP-ED member did concede however that some legal issues such as privacy and the right of reply need to be addressed. German Liberal Jorgo Chatzimarkakis acted as advisor for the Economic and Monetary committee. He said that “bloggers cannot automatically be considered a threat, but imagine pressure groups, professional interests or any other groups using blogs to pass on their message. Blogs are powerful tools, they can represent an advance form of lobbyism, which in turn can be seen as a threat.” He said “any blogger representing or expressing more than their personal view should be affected by this report.”