Blogs taking on the Man

Democracy has improved from the rise of the internet and blogs from the amature demcracy. This can be seen in the salient vs victoria university case. Victoria university has tried to stop the student magazine from publishing information regarding fee rises next year. Salient went to court yesterday, stopping the magazine from being released on onday morning. The article has gone through the great network of ASPA and has reached the reading public of all the other major student magazines in the country.

The article is obviously important for victoria university students and it should be released to the victoria university students. Bloggers and internet websites have released the information and the magazine critic have released it online. Unfortunately critic has had to take its site down becuase it seems they have been embargoed aswell. The University's attempts to try and stop the information from being released has meant that the information has spread like wildfire across the blogosphere and many people will know the real details behind the plan.

This is the strenght of the blogosphere. The state and corperate information cannot censor information that is deemed sensitive becuase of its effects. Clinton was impeached as a result of one article on a early blog. Information these days is free flowing. Borders and big buisiness and the state can no longer stop information after its released to the public. If the try to embargo the information it spreads like wildfire.

THe fact of the matter is, the university is going to hurt its reputation through this. As Keith Ng the writer of the article has said, they have shot themselves in the foot and overreacted. They are going to be made out by the media, who will have there own vested interests in this case, to be heavy handed and against the freedom of speech. It is also going to cost them a whole lot more money, while the article has already been released to the public and those who want to know whats in it already know.