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'Hactavists' Get $3M for Internet Monitoring
raceface writes "The CBC is reporting that a group from the University of Toronto know as the Citizen Lab has received a $3 million grant. They intend to use the grant money to monitor and determine who is blocking information access on the internet." The grant, given to an international project that fights censorship, was given to the group by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a Chicago-based institution.
While I laud the initiative, I do(at the risk of getting negative karma) wonder why we're so fixated with Internet access as the sole metric for global freedom?
Is the press free all around the world? Do undertrials or accused enjoy fair trials everywhere? Does corporate money/advertising implicitly censor what we see in the media? Do citizens in democracies have access to all information that concerns them? Can the poor ever have equal chances to attend universities and schools?
I'm from India, a democracy and a market economy(mostly). I can say confidently that my answers to most of the above questions are "no". I'm guessing the same is true for countries around the world, including the US and the west.
So lets strive for unrestricted Internet access around the world, but lets also figure out what else comprises freedom for the non-/. folks out there.
The pointless is that fundamental to the idea of free speech and expression, is that no entity should be in charge of deciding what's worthwhile speech and what isn't. Ever. Some ideas ARE useless, and some DO have no value, but just you try and get 100 people in a room and have them agree over which ones are which.
In a truly free society, bad speech is answered with good speech, and those who hear both are empowered to pick for themselves. I can't argue against, for instance, neo-nazism, without first hearing what the neo-nazis have to say; and if we stifle them, their vile speech gets pushed underground, where it goes unrefuted.