The UK Press Complaints Commission, a regulatory body for the newspaper and magazine industry, has called for a “voluntary code of conduct” for blogs similar to the one adhered to by the mainstream press.

Claiming that blogs offer “no means of redress” and have “no professional standards”, PCC director Tim Toulmin claimed that the Internet was “how the newspaper industry would look like if it was unchecked”.

Under the PCC-suggested system, all bloggers would adhere to “self-imposed regulation”; despite this, Toulmin claims that he is not in favour of “regulating the internet”:

“We’re not in favour of regulating the internet. The flow of information should not be regulated by any government.” — BBC News

Toulmin also described the terms “free speech” and “free press” as “relative”, citing libel laws and data protection as examples of two justified encroachments on free speech. Self regulation, Toulmin claims, can be similarly justified.

The PCC’s comments come at a time when divisions between the mainstream press and bloggers are becoming increasingly blurred. In August, for example, blogger Josh Wolf was imprisoned for failing to hand over unpublished video footage in laws designed to apply to mainstream reporters.

Such attempts to “rein in” the hitherto anarchistic atmosphere of online publishing have met with strong protests from many online bloggers, and the tensions between regulated and unregulated media are unlikely to come to a head any time soon — particularly considering the passionate reactions such attempts have created thus far.