Recently, the reality overseas seems to be that bloggers of whichever socio-political inclination often find themselves in court to face libel charges as the orbiting Internet planet comes under increasing scrutiny by governments unable (or reluctant) to really comprehend its full force as a public opinion maker.

Social media has quickly gained currency as an information channel and it should come as no surprise that authorities and businesses everywhere are increasingly seeking to subject bloggers to the scrutiny and legal action once solely reserved for the traditional press. It is a growing situation in which defamation and libel suits become a weapon of choice, as convictions and compensation are sought for stories that allegedly cause unfair reputational or financial damage.

While it is agreed that no such anti-blog momentum has been achieved so far locally, there has been a spate of cases in Asia, the US, the UK and elsewhere in Europe where the police, under one pretext or another, appear a lot more prone to use ambiguous computer crime law to target outspoken on-line commentators. But can one hold the two forms of publishing to the same standards? Are they separate but equal?

There is no denying that some blogs, even those covering the Maltese scene, have a similar or even bigger readership/following than some of the newspapers, radio and TV stations. However, while the equivalency or not of bloggers and journalists continues to be a source for debate everywhere, many countries seem to be taking the view that they are, for all intents and purposes, the same.

A US federal appeals court, for example, ordered a new trial for a self-professed "investigative" blogger in Montana who had been found guilty of defaming an investment firm. She successfully argued that she was entitled to the First Amendment protections automatically applied to journalists, under which comments are defamatory only if they are made with knowing or reckless disregard for the truth.

The court was unimpressed by the arguments of the company's lawyers - backed, inexplicably, by old-school journalists following the case - that this burden of proof should only be applied to the "institutional media". But the information world has changed forever and such legal or constitutional safeguards no longer depend on whether or not a defendant is a trained journalist or associated with "traditional" news organisations.

In the UK, a new defamation law passed in 2013 attempts to establish a higher threshold for libel and defamation cases. While bloggers and journalists alike accused the British government of stifling expression, the law makes it clear that defamation law can also apply to material published in on-line form, including blogs, social media and forums.

There still seems to be a rather grey area surrounding the blogging issue in Malta, and unfortunately many think more in terms of condemnation and, even worse, censorship when we really should be talking about the attraction of blogging as a way to enter into a debate on important political and economic developments beyond the confines of the traditional mass media. In this day and age, the best blogs can play just as vital a role in calling attention to important events and news as the hardest-hitting forms of conventional journalism, so efforts to stifle or crack down on bloggers through legal action should be viewed with the same scepticism and concern as when taken against the press or individual journalists.

Like the press itself, however, bloggers are fully capable of crossing the line and can't expect total immunity against defamation or libel suits. If they rightly demand similar protection as the mainstream media and truly aspire to be taken seriously, bloggers with a substantial following will have to make every effort to ensure the material they post is accurate and backed up by credible sources and data. In so doing, they would help elevate the standards of blogging and, in the process, convince more people to take blogs as a genuine media force.

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Papal slip of the tongue

It must have been a papal slip of the tongue. Otherwise, it would be horrendous to think anyone in authority today should be condoning such things.

According to worldwide reports, Pope Francis gave parents the go-ahead to smack children - if their dignity is preserved. His remarks, made during a weekly general audience in Rome, immediately provoked a social media outcry with many accusing the Argentinean pontiff of supporting violence. He was speaking on the role of fathers in the family.

The endorsement of such parental punishment was slammed by children's rights groups which described it as "disappointing for anyone with that sort of influence to make such a statement", "misplaced" and "a most unhelpful remark".

I think this howler should just go down the drain with that other recent papal slip of the tongue about Catholic families "breeding like rabbits".

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Summer birds

The news that the UK Sun was reportedly considering doing away with topless women on its "infamous" Page 3 brought a nostalgic smile to my lips. While some optimistic media commentators described it as  "The Sun moving into the 21st century", it ironically took me straight back to the very early 70s when our Malta News chose to have its own scantily-clad ladies on its pages, much to the chagrin of a shocked sequence of authorities, from bishops to some of our own bosses.

Before that "momentous" occasion, as teenage students many of us had secretly bought copies of both The Sun and its rival the Mirror to gape at their Page 3 beauties in between Maths and French lessons. I used to attend a private school where the teachers were mostly members of the clergy who did not take too kindly to the idea when one of us was caught eagerly leafing through the newspaper pages at below-desktop level.

As new-generation journalists, or posing as that, anyway, at the suddenly fast-selling Malta News, we stuck modestly to teeny-weeny bikinis and amiably called the wearers "Summer Birds". Many decades later, campaigners have rightly been pushing for such features to be scrapped, labelling them sexist, harmful to children and out-of-date. You can say that again.

At the time it was good, harmless fun, really, though there were occasions when mama did not know her adult daughter was to appear quasi-naked and came to our offices demanding an explanation. Data protection then was, of course, still an unconceived idea.

I wrote some of the captions, and reading them in 2015 is yet another source of incredulous amusement. Compare that innocence with the sledge-hammer, hard-core porn content on the Internet today.