I just caught up with the evening news and, as a blogger, I can’t help being more than a little troubled by this story. Three men today received jail sentences for provoking racial hatred on social media. Of course, racism should be shut down wherever it rears it’s ugly head, including online; yet I can’t help worrying that this will open a very troubling floodgate, and pretty soon we’ll all have to watch what we write on the web. Over the years I’ve written some pretty provocative things here on my blog, particularly criticising the Tories – might such criticism now be classed as a kind of cultural hatred? Thus while I’m glad to see racism isn’t being tolerated, as someone who values free speech I’m very worried where today’s news could lead.