When regulating the news becomes censorship

Once widely accepted, the practice of licensing journalists is falling out of favour in many countries. The rise of citizen media has posed a challenge for governments to control the flow of news and to define who exactly is a journalist. Yet some governments, fearing the democratisation of media for the loss of power it poses to them, are using old rhetoric to solve a new "problem": What constitutes the news?

In Singapore, headlines cry out: " New censorship rule bans gay content in Singapore ."And in Jordan, an amendment to the Press and Publications Law just enabled the government to block hundreds of sites , among them Al Jazeera and the website of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Who is a journalist?

Today, if you ask the question "who is a journalist?" to a group of professionals, you will surely receive a variety of answers. Expand that group to include individuals from different regions of the world, and the answer gets even more complicated. Another question - what is the role of a journalist in society - does, and has historically, generated debate, perhaps even more so today given the wealth of platforms for news creation.

Post-World War II, many governments seeking to boost development through journalism chose a strategy that involved licensing journalists. In some places, such as Latin America (where nine countries still keep laws on the books requiring journalists to register), journalists have often preferred this system to the alternative - allowing publishers to dictate who can be a journalist.

In most of today's Middle East, licenses are required; and in some countries - such as Saudi Arabia - authorities go so far as to appoint editors to publications. Many African and Asian countries take a similar approach. In the past few years, US politicians have repeatedly floated the idea of a licensing regime.

A license to control

While the original idea to license may have been noble, in this era of high connectivity, new attempts to regulate news content are merely about control.

Over the past decade, many have found the internet a useful tool for circumventing licensing structures, as sites like WordPress and Blogger make it simple for anyone to operate a website. While in some countries online censorship has challenged this alternative, in many others, independent bloggers and journalists have thrived.

Now, a new form of control threatens the ecosphere of digital journalism. Whereas independent journalists and bloggers once circumvented licensing requirements by publishing on sites hosted outside of their countries, some governments - among them Jordan and Singapore - in an effort to rid the network of independent journalism are placing licensing requirements on news websites.

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When regulating the news becomes censorship