Many people in southern and East Africa are blogging to express their opinions on current issues in their countries, or to write about events and issues that are not being covered in the mainstream media.

Sometimes these opinions and issues are uncontroversial.
But many times, bloggers are operating in countries where freedom of speech is limited in one way or another, or where there are various kinds of human rights violations. In these situations blogging can be dangerous.

In some cases, the authorities might not like what you are saying and want to shut you down.
In other cases it could be personally harmful to reveal your identity – for fear of facing social stigmatisation and rejection or worse, or even a crackdown by the state (a gay blogger in Uganda, for example, or an HIV positive person who fears rejection).

In such cases, it is a good idea to blog anonymously, and to take measures to protect yourself, by hiding your identity.

A simple measure to protect your identity is to set up a blog under a false name or nickname. This should be fine for hiding your identity from casual readers.

But if there is a greater danger – for example, that officials in a country will use technical means to track down your identity, then you need to take more serious measures.
The dangers are real, for bloggers in countries with repressive governments. Bloggers have been arrested in China, Egypt and Morocco, just to name a few places. On example is the arrest of Nigerian blogger Jonathan Elendu, in October 2008 – apparently for publishing articles considered sensitive by the ruling class.

See http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/10/24/nigerian-blogger-arrested-for-s... for more details.