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The international press and online freedom group Reporters Without Borders has produced an updated version of its Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents

The handbook offers practical advice and techniques on how to create a blog, make entries and get the blog to show up in search engine results. It gives clear explanations about blogging for all those whose online freedom of expression is subject to restrictions, and it shows how to sidestep the censorship measures imposed by certain governments, with a practical example that demonstrates the use of the censorship circumvention software Tor.

Sadly, political bloggers, campaign activists, whistleblowers and investigative journalists, even in supposedly Western "free" societies like the United Kingdom, also need to make use of the techniques described in this document, which aims to help online dissidents and bloggers living under evil repressive police surveillance states:

The content of the document is clearer and more polished than the first 2005 version. There is plenty of good advice to new political or dissident bloggers, and even very experienced veterans will find some useful advice or links.

This handbook is, unfortunately still only available as an 80 page Adobe .pdf file, which may make it difficult to download and to distribute in areas of poor internet connectivity. It also makes it hard for search engines and bloggers to publicise it - see Cory Doctorow's 17 Tips For Getting Bloggers To Write About You.

You can download the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents 2008 (2.2 Mb - 80 pages .pdf) directly from Reporters Without Borders website

Alternatively, since the Reporters Without Borders website is subjected to Government censorship around the world, here is a mirrored copy of the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents here on Spy Blog (.pdf) and a much smaller Text Only version: Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents 2008 (.txt 122Kb)

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