Is it true that the internet offers freedom of information, empowers people, and promotes greater democracy? Browse to any Malaysian anti-government websites, and there are bound to have postings about how some people have stopped depending on traditional newspapers and TV for their news and information. People have lost their confidence on these mass media outlets which they now claim spew out nothing but government propaganda, misinformation, and even outright lies. Instead, these people now depend on internet sources such as blogs, forums, and “independent” news portal for the truth.

It is widely believed that “liberation by knowledge” coming from the internet poses a grave danger to authoritarian governments, who unlike in the past prior to the internet, cannot censor, control, and manipulate the information on the web.

“Like the underground samizdat…the web has allowed free speech to avoid the reach of the most authoritarian regime,” says Lee Bollinger of the Columbia University.

“Bloggers are a form of 21^st century dissent,” so says Alec Ross, the senior adviser to Hilary Clinton.