The stand against China will rightly be lauded. But western states also imperil internet freedom
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In the past several years, internet censorship has spread rapidly throughout a range of political systems. According to the Open Net Initiative, a consortium of academics and computer scientists who track censorship trends, the number of countries that censor the internet has gone from a handful a decade ago to almost 40 today – and the censorship club’s fastest growing membership segment consists of democracies. […]
YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking services have become powerful tools for opposition parties, political dissidents and whistleblowers around the world. But their power may be constrained, even in democracies, as intermediary liability is seized upon as the easy way to fight crime, porn, defamation and intellectual property piracy. […]
So, for that matter, can incumbent politicians in many democracies, who would rather not have to face internet-organised grassroots citizens’ movements empowered by YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and whatever innovations might come after them. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/jan/13/google-china-western-internet-freedom