28 January 2011
Opinion by KI-Media
Association with KI-Media is anathema
Yesterday, an anonymous reader pointed us to an article posted in a Khmer blog discussing about Cambodian leaders ordering the installation of a sign that offended Thailand, as well as their subsequent order to remove and smash that sign following Thailand’s demand.
Finding this “public” article quite interesting and since its author did not mention anything about NOT reproducing his article, we decided to reproduce it integrally on KI-Media with the proper credit given to its author. Apparently, the article was picked by a high ranking ruling party official who did not like the tone of that article at all, so the official decided to comment on it on his Facebook wall.
That comment spooked the article’s author who demanded that KI-Media removed his article from our website – which we gladly complied – and he went to pledge his allegiance to the government and all institutions that be in Cambodia. While we understand the author’s concerns for his own safety, what happened puzzled us immensely.
A movement to ban KI-Media from any free blogging host?
It turned out that, yesterday, KI-Media completed our mirror on WordPress.com – a free blog host similar to the one we currently use (blogspot.com). Coincidentally, WordPress is also the same host used by the author we described above.
It so happened also that last week, somebody in the Cambodian government ordered several ISPs in Cambodia to block all websites hosted by blogspot.com, most likely in a mistaken attempt to block KI-Media from being accessible in Cambodia. Unfortunately, blogspot is used by quite a larger number of Cambodians and its blocking caused a major public outcry. Subsequently, Cambodian government officials had to backtrack and deny that any blocking took place. An ISP executive went on to deny the blocking by his company even when his employees clearly stated otherwise to the press.
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