Essentially, does the speed of the net in today's communication change the very way we communicate?

I don't think speed is the key change in the way we communicate. It is the transcription of our conversational communication into the written word which the Internet enables us to do that changes things. We use to talk verbally and in face-to-face situations, but now we talk with our fingers tapping on keyboards and in virtual situations where distance does not matter. The speed is more or less the same, conversational speed, but the one key difference is that while our conversations used to be imperfectly recorded in our memories, they are now perfectly recorded in Internet transcripts.

You run your own blog and contribute to others as well, including Singapore Angle. Do you hold back on talking about certain topics or word your arguments carefully?

I think there are many kinds of blogs out there. Some are like diaries, other are like tabloids, and yet others are like magazines, travelogues, novels etc. Blogs are interesting because they bring together the different kinds of writing genres in the 'real' world and conversational communication. Readers can comment on posts and strike up a conversation with the writer, leaving behind transcripts that are easily reproducible and portable ('cut and paste').

So, on your question, it really depends on the blog that I write in, on what kind of writing genre it is. I have two blogs, one is academic and I post my academic writings for anyone who is interested in them, and the other is like a personal version of a "democracy wall", which refers to a specific wall in Beijing that became famous for wall posters expressing democratic ideals and criticisms at the end of the Mao era, but it also refers to the very classical Chinese tradition of putting up wall posters in the town center to make public socio-political commentary. This is where I put up reflections or essays on politics, society and culture, and even attempts at poetry or other experimental writing, that I would like to share with anyone interested.

I also blog in Singapore Angle, which is quite different from my other two blogs, as Singapore Angle is a non-partisan group blog whose members engage each other and readers in reasoned discourse on serious topics. My writing style there is therefore quite different than in my own "democracy wall" blog. In the latter, I do take up partisan positions backed up by reasoned arguments and analyses. I word my writing very carefully because of the writing genres I am engaged in, not because of self-censorship. And no, I do not hold back on talking about certain topics because of social or political taboos. When I do hold back, it is because I think my thoughts on that topic are not well developed yet or because I have little evidence or reason to back up my arguments.

What do you think of the Wee Shu Min case? I'm thinking if she said it quietly to her friends, nothing would have happened. In this case, it was the Internet, a public area where people read and take notice of what you say, that blew the issue up. It's a bit like racism, isn't it? One can be racist among racist and nobody would take notice. But broadcast it, combined with the fact that one is a public figure, or related to one, and that person can be in big trouble. Would you agree?

Sure, the problem with a lot of Internet users is the failure to appreciate the key difference that I pointed out in the beginning, that transcription means you leave behind a perfect, reproducible and portable record of what you said. The Internet is inevitably public, whether one likes it or not. When Martin Luther launched his protest against the Roman Church, he nailed his theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church for everyone to read, making his views public. Bloggers who posts on the Internet are doing the same, and they should know the consequences, such as inviting the full force of the authorities or public opinion. It is ridiculous to claim privacy or ignorance after the fact. One should either stand by one's argument and defend it or apologize and retract.

The spread of information over the net is also stupendous. Immediately almost. Do you take care in verifying information before writing or blogging about it?

Oh yes, most definitely. Not because I am an academic by vocation, but because I believe in the truth when it comes to political and social commentary.

Does sitting behind a computer, typing and sending out emails and blogging provide a sense of security for the person, in that it emboldens him or her to do things like send out emails to top people, like one's top boss, or the PM or President, which, ordinarily in real life, like say on a street, one would not do?

Only for those with a really bad sense of reality and those who play too many computer games. I guess it is easy for one to forget that there are real people with feelings and lives at the other end of the terminal and 'out there' whom our writing will affect and impact on. I try my best to remember that when I write using the Internet, whether it is an email or blogging. In fact, my wife complains that I take too long a time to compose my words, even for a simple email. That is because I picture the other person and imagine other people that may be implicated when I am writing as though I am actually in a face-to-face conversation. In this way, I ground myself in reality.

I suppose you are referring to the Li Hongyi case in this question. I would think that it is not sitting behind a computer that provided a sense of security and emboldened Li in sending the email to his top boss, but the fact that he believed, perhaps too absolutely, in the morality of what he is doing that emboldened him. The Internet did not make a difference in this case in this sense. Without the Internet, I believe Li would have done the same thing, probably with a written letter.

The Internet made two differences here. First, it made Li's email letter very easily accessible, reproducible and portable, thus turning the case into a spectacle ripe for the picking by public opinion. Second, if anything is really emboldened, it is public opinion: the Internet is the modern-day version of the printing presses, which allowed anyone who have the means to own one to print and distribute their views against the censoring and controlling authority, allowing contemporary Martin Luthers to nail their theses to their own blog-doors or modern-day Lu Xuns to post their commentaries to their own blog-walls. In such a situation, the elites of society and their scions naturally come under the intensified scrutiny of public opinion.