Global Voices maps violations of bloggers

Global Voices has launched a project to chart cases of bloggers and online writers who are threatened, arrested, killed or disappeared. Threatened Voices, which was set up by the Global Voices Advocacy programme, uses the extensive database of cases it has tracked since 2000 and compiles information from other press freedom organizations, including Committee to Protect Bloggers, Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Sans Frontieres and Amnesty International.

It is the first project of its kind to also take an open source approach, inviting the public to report violations of bloggers’ rights; each report is then reviewed by the Global Voices team before it is published and added to the database.

Website visitors can view cases globally by country or by type of violation on a map. There is also a timeline recording when each violation took place and a profile of each blogger.

Global Voices, an MDLF client, views the project as particularly important at a time when online journalists are pushing the boundaries of the censors in countries where free speech had previously been impossible using the traditional mediums. Yet this boldness with the web has meant that bloggers now represent 45% of all media workers imprisoned worldwide. The hope is that systematically tracking all the instances where bloggers’ rights have been violated will help to raise awareness of the severity of the situation.

Global Voices, a web-based global citizens’ media project, set up Global Voices Advocacy to build a worldwide anti-censorship network of bloggers and online activists dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and free access to information online.