Blocking sites = blocking progress. I’m American. It’s hard to imagine über-restricted Internet surfing. In the U.S. internet censorship does exist in workplaces, libraries, and schools but U.S. censorship is minimal compared to Chinese censorship. Censored sites in China include wikipedia.org, amnesty.org, nasa.gov, digg.com, bbc.co.uk, cnn.com, guardian.co.uk, facebook.com, flickr.com, tumblr.com, wordpress.com, youtube.com, and—WTF—even disney.com is censored (view data at Information is Beautiful). Sites are either completely blocked, or “unwanted” content is filtered out by keyword.
Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor. (Wikipedia: Censorship)
Google and China. Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil.” While often times in life a fine line exists—I can’t help but view internet censorship on the dark side. I hope that Google continues to act proactively against internet censorship in China, and the world. Unbiased information is fundamental to social and intellectual progress. People can handle the truth. Blocking sites means blocking progress. Attempting to “control” the Internet defies logic. Privacy and security are huge issues.
![censorship [remix]](http://img.virtualmusic.tv/flickr/censorship-remix-by-the-g-uk.png)
Image: flickr/the-g-uk
Counter-censorship technology. One could argue that censorship inhibits innovation. But censorship has forced people to invent counter-censorship technologies. Imagine what bright determined minds could be inventing without being held back by internet censorship.
More than a million people in China, including human rights activists and expatriates, are using special software to circumvent the nation’s complex online censorship system, known as the “Great Firewall.” This has created a booming market for software companies, which are capitalizing on the growing desire of China’s Internet users to fanqiang, or scale the wall, to visit Web sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. (The New York Times)
Proxy servers that route traffic outside of blocked networks are one viable solution as long as they are not blocked themselves—e.g. HideMyAss.com works in the U.S. See Mashable, Randomwire, GigaOM, and Wikipedia for anti-censorship resources and ideas.
Let’s not be clueless. In my opinion censoring information—whether by government, institution, workplace—is an ultimate form of disrespect. I take it personally. If the question is “why” then is the answer “fear?” Are censors afraid of people’s reaction to the truth? Here’s the bright side—think about traditional news mediums like television, radio, or newspaper, and realize that the Internet is by far the most democratic and unbiased information medium in history. That’s the whole point—internet media needs to echo reality. We’re moving in the right direction—bloggers and citizen journalists are multiplying. More people worldwide are gaining internet access. Northern Europe and North America currently have the highest per capita internet usage. Global access is accelerating.
