Are Governments Denying Internet Access To Their Political Opponents? (technologyreview.com)

"Keeping your enemies offline can cripple their chances of overthrowing you," reports the MIT Technology Review. Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes their article: Whether or not your ethnic group has political power is a crucial factor determining your access to the Internet, according to a new analysis. The effect varies from country to country, and is much less pronounced in democratic nations. But the study, published today in Science, suggests that besides censorship, another way national governments prevent opposing groups from organizing online is by denying them Internet access in the first place, says Nils Weidmann, a professor of political science at the University of Konstanz in Germany.
Researchers used a geolocation database to create a map showing subnetwork activity for a large volume of internet traffic, then compared it with geographic data for the world's ethnic groups. "They concluded that excluded groups had significantly lower access compared to the groups in power, and that this can't be explained by other economic or geographic factors (like living in rural vs. urban areas)... 'You don't have to censor if the opposition doesn't get access at all.' "

Comments

Not like here

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in America, the superior country, we would NEVER have the government censor the internet of opinions we don't like. Instead, we simply have our good buddies/donors Facebook and Twitter do it for us.

This is Hillary's Agenda

[knorthern knight]

In "the good ole days before the internet", the MSM (Main Stream Media) controlled the news. The government needed a dozen people on their rolodex, and embarressing stories could be shut down. E.g. John F Kennedy was screwing women all over the place, and Bill Clinton would almost be a saint in comparison. But the MSM kept quiet, and it wasn't until much later that JFK's philandering became known.

Bill Clinton realized by 1995, that the internet had the potential to democratize the news and bypass the gatekeepers. "Moreover, it allows an extraordinary amount of unregulated data and information to be located in one area and available to all," http://www.breitbart.com/big-j...

In 1998, his worst fears came true. Clinton's MSM buddies at Newsweek spiked (i.e. killed) a bombshell of a story about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. But a lowly store clerk with a modem (i.e. Matt Drudge) published the story on his site. Hillary was whining about there not being any "gatekeepers" on the internet http://www.freerepublic.com/fo...

Fast-forward to the current election campaign, and the Democrats are openly talking about shutting down the Breitbart website http://dailycaller.com/2016/08...

Do you really want Hillary in charge?