'Reporters Without Borders' have produced their annual list of "enemies of the internet".
What struck me was that in many ways the list is like that of countries who boycotted the Nobel Prize because the peace prize went to a Human Rights campaigner Liu Xiaobo.
The threats to the freedoms that we in the West used to think were permanent features of mankind's future come in many guises .... some are from countries like these, but also from those at home as well. The recent attempts by US legislators to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act (STOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) show that there are pressures on the 'freedom of the net' coming from many sources.
We need to be on our guard, or the late 20th early 21st centuries will be seen as the watershed for what was achieved by the enlightenment, before the darkness started to come down again. The new barbarians are swarming outside the gates.
- Bahrain
- Belarus
- Burma
- China
- Cuba
- Iran
- North Korea
- Saudi Arabia
- Syria
- Turkmenistan
- Uzbekistan
- Vietnam
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| Censorship Is Always A Threat |
What struck me was that in many ways the list is like that of countries who boycotted the Nobel Prize because the peace prize went to a Human Rights campaigner Liu Xiaobo.
- Russia
- Kazakhstan
- Algeria
- Tunisia
- Saudi Arabia
- Pakistan
- Sri Lanka
- Iraq
- Iran
- Vietnam
- Afghanistan
- Venezuela
- Egypt
- Sudan
- Cuba
- Morocco
The threats to the freedoms that we in the West used to think were permanent features of mankind's future come in many guises .... some are from countries like these, but also from those at home as well. The recent attempts by US legislators to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act (STOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) show that there are pressures on the 'freedom of the net' coming from many sources.
We need to be on our guard, or the late 20th early 21st centuries will be seen as the watershed for what was achieved by the enlightenment, before the darkness started to come down again. The new barbarians are swarming outside the gates.
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