The cost of freedom

British blogs have taken a blow proving that freedom of speech is not as free as people lead us to believe.

Tim Ireland and Craig Murray both discovered this after there bloggerhead site was given the boot after posts were created, in which both men, spoke out against Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, the man currently trying to buy Liverpool F.C.

Bloggerheads are also hosts to blogs run by Conservative MP Boris Johnson and Labour councillor Bob Piper as well as other and as a result, their sites were also shut down even though they had not taken part in the posts.

The post itself refered to Alisher as a bully saying "who wants that kind of person in control of their football club?"

The question I feel tempted to ask is why blogs are punished for libel allegations, wether they are true or not, when the same thing happens everyday in newspapers, magazines and most other publications? Looking at it from both sides, newspapers do have legal processes to follow in the UK so obviously one would expect the same process for british bloggers unless it is clearly stated as a personal opinion, unless of course it is un-acceptable.

In my opinion, although I suppose i'm slightly biased, after looking at the facts from both sides of the story, I feel it is a harsh decision to pull the plug on one of UK's most popular political websites all because of one or two people's mistake.