Slashdot Mirror
A Horrifying Interactive Map of Global Internet Censorship
An anonymous reader writes "Imagine a world where the book burners had won. A world where information is filtered and must be approved by governments before it can be accessed by their citizens. A world where people are held down and kept in line by oppressive regimes that restrict the free flow of information and bombard citizens with government-approved messages. Now stop imagining, because this horrifying world already exists..."
Works for me. Maybe the servers are just choking under the load. Here's a screenshot : http://a.pomf.se/xcxzwr.png
United States is shown as:
VIOLATIONS OF USER RIGHTS 12/40
FREEDOM ON THE NET 17/100
OBSTACLES TO ACCESS 4/25
LIMITS ON CONTENT 1/35
But they don't say what these things are and which ones are violated. Without the context and citations the results are meaningless -- I could create the same thing in Paint.
"Imagine a world in which the book burners had won"
Please. "Horrifying"?
The OP pimps itself breathlessly as "This interactive map of global Internet censorship is the most important thing youâ(TM)ll see today" - yes, it's about as important (and surprising) as the sun coming up in the East.
The facts are that
a) the ubiquitous availability of information is a relatively new thing. Public libraries didn't even really exist until the latter 19th/E20th centuries. The internet is less than a generation old.
b) governments and power structures have controlled such information throughout the span of human history.
The panicked tone of the article implies that this is worse than ever, which is patently histrionic bullshit. Even in these heavily censored countries, these people have access to information that they NEVER would have had before.
I'm not even 100% convinced that the ideal of universal access to information is an unalloyed good. Certainly, from the POV of a midwestern, middle class educated individual I *assume* that the net result of having more information is beneficial - but I can certainly see that there are negative aspects to "everything open", such as people who clearly don't understand basic science drawing conclusions from unfiltered scientific data. Or statistics? How many people are easily manipulated by presentations of statistics that they don't even understand? Again, my gut tells me that the "net" is a benefit, but I can't say I'm certain.
Again, as a small-l liberal, I believe that information and communication is probably good in the long run; even the small trickles of illumination sneaking into those heavily censored places suggests to me that their ability to keep their people in ignorance will eventually expire. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually.
A glass 95% empty is still a crapton better than no glass at all.
-Styopa