Comment Quite self-defeating, really (Score 2) 109
The whole point of the Internet is that there are no more borders, and that there are no more cultural, racial, or economic distinctions. (This is assuming that you're on the Net .. there are huge cultural, racial, and economic factors that play into whether you can access the Internet or not, but that's a subject for another day.)
When a country like China moves to censor the Internet for its citizens, there are usually very specific reasons for it. In the case of China, you've got a totalitarian Communist regime that needs to keep its citizens away from news and information that has not been "sanitized" by the government. Truth is the greatest enemy of Communist oppression, and it is only by way of excessive censorship and filtering that China can keep its citizens from learning the truth via the Internet.
We've seen the same type of thing coming from the draconian content regulation of the leftist Australian government. A ban on "indecent material" may be laudable (if not ill-defined and unenforceable), but when you step in and censor gun-rights Web pages and basically anything that does not come from the anti-gun zealots, you're crossing a fine line between protecting your society and oppressing them. Fortunately, it appears that the tide may be turning and freedom-loving Australians are beginning to fight back.
The bottom line is this: technological solutions will never solve political problems. Political problems can only be solved by people. If China thinks that strong filtering can prevent its citizens from one day learning the truth, they are wrong. If Australia thinks that its filtering policies will stop gun advocates from learning the correct information about guns (such as crime rates that have not been doctored by the government), then they are wrong. And so the conclusion is this: either give your citizens complete access to the Internet, or none at all. There is no acceptable middle ground. (School libraries in the US would do well to learn this lesson, BTW.)
When a country like China moves to censor the Internet for its citizens, there are usually very specific reasons for it. In the case of China, you've got a totalitarian Communist regime that needs to keep its citizens away from news and information that has not been "sanitized" by the government. Truth is the greatest enemy of Communist oppression, and it is only by way of excessive censorship and filtering that China can keep its citizens from learning the truth via the Internet.
We've seen the same type of thing coming from the draconian content regulation of the leftist Australian government. A ban on "indecent material" may be laudable (if not ill-defined and unenforceable), but when you step in and censor gun-rights Web pages and basically anything that does not come from the anti-gun zealots, you're crossing a fine line between protecting your society and oppressing them. Fortunately, it appears that the tide may be turning and freedom-loving Australians are beginning to fight back.
The bottom line is this: technological solutions will never solve political problems. Political problems can only be solved by people. If China thinks that strong filtering can prevent its citizens from one day learning the truth, they are wrong. If Australia thinks that its filtering policies will stop gun advocates from learning the correct information about guns (such as crime rates that have not been doctored by the government), then they are wrong. And so the conclusion is this: either give your citizens complete access to the Internet, or none at all. There is no acceptable middle ground. (School libraries in the US would do well to learn this lesson, BTW.)
