This week, non-profit journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders announced the “Press Freedom Index, its list of countries in which journalists are most threatened. It found that bloggers and other online media are just as threatened as traditional journalists by governments who look to stifle the information they publish. According to the organization, some 26 bloggers and online journalists have been jailed worldwide since September of 2006.

Before the web, it was relatively easy for governments to control the information their citizens consumed. A paper could be shut down, and a journalist tried and convicted for speaking his or her mind. But the reach of the Internet and the accessibility to media-creating tools is making oppressive governments nervous, as is the pervasiveness of the web.

n countries like Croatia, Nicaragua and Ghana (among others) felt their freedom of expression less compromised than that of their U.S. counterparts.

comfortable speaking your mind online?