Blogs: "the freest media the world has ever known" " (...) In the last few years, however, we have had a clean test, and it's weblogs. Weblogs are the freest media the world has ever known. Within the universe of internet users, the costs of setting up a weblog are minor, and perhaps more importantly, require no financial investment, only time, thus greatly weakening the "freedom of the press for those who can afford one" effect. Furthermore, there is no Weblog Central -- you do not need to incorporate your weblog, you do not need to register your weblog, you do not need to clear your posts with anyone. Weblogs are the best attempt we've seen to date of making freedom of speech and freedom of the press the same freedom, in Mike Godwin's famous phrase. (...) The one incoherent view is the belief that a free and diverse media will naturally tend towards equality. The development of weblogs in their first five years demonstrates that is not always true, and gives us reason to suspect it may never be true. Equality can only be guaranteed by limiting either diversity or freedom. The best thing that could come from the lesson of weblog popularity would be an abandoning of the idea that there will ever be an unconstrained but egalitarian media utopia, a realization ideally followed by a more pragmatic discussion between the "diverse and free" and "diverse and equal" camps. " Fonte: Clay Shirky's Writings About the Internet