This is about the Internet because the Internet has become the only medium that hasn't been stifled. The recent protests in Iran certainly show how a technical means like twitter, leads to political results.
The point is that the technical evolution of the Internet has so-far paced the growing urge of state to impose censorship. The technical questions and political questions currently are intermingled.
Imagine the present society without the Internet - with something like Al Gore's "Information Superhighway" or France's Minitel system.
I'm not saying it doesn't involve the Internet I'm just saying it's not about the Internet primarily. The Internet is a form of communication at its core and that makes it susceptible to other laws. That in turn makes this a societal thing. To give an example: I can think of several cases where misguided judges have extended rules that governed print media to also include web sites.
To put it another way, Internet censorship is a symptom but it isn’t the cancer. If you focus on trying to fight that one symptom you’ll eventually be over run because the cancer will continue to grow stronger in the background. Censorship in general is the cancer and that is what we should all be looking to kill here.
I think that the Internet sheds an interesting light on the practice of censorship, since for the first time in many people's lifetimes, a new and completely uncensored medium is going through the process of being methodically censored.
People can watch as censorship is put into place; they can see what is being censored and by whom, and they have the benefit of being able to directly compare the censored world to how the world was before/without censorship.
Comments
This is about the Internet because the Internet has become the only medium that hasn't been stifled. The recent protests in Iran certainly show how a technical means like twitter, leads to political results.
The point is that the technical evolution of the Internet has so-far paced the growing urge of state to impose censorship. The technical questions and political questions currently are intermingled.
Imagine the present society without the Internet - with something like Al Gore's "Information Superhighway" or France's Minitel system.
I'm not saying it doesn't involve the Internet I'm just saying it's not about the Internet primarily. The Internet is a form of communication at its core and that makes it susceptible to other laws. That in turn makes this a societal thing. To give an example: I can think of several cases where misguided judges have extended rules that governed print media to also include web sites.
To put it another way, Internet censorship is a symptom but it isn’t the cancer. If you focus on trying to fight that one symptom you’ll eventually be over run because the cancer will continue to grow stronger in the background. Censorship in general is the cancer and that is what we should all be looking to kill here.
I think that the Internet sheds an interesting light on the practice of censorship, since for the first time in many people's lifetimes, a new and completely uncensored medium is going through the process of being methodically censored.
People can watch as censorship is put into place; they can see what is being censored and by whom, and they have the benefit of being able to directly compare the censored world to how the world was before/without censorship.