Friday, May 18, 2007

Death Pact

"A report released today by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) concludes that the scale, the scope, and the sophistication of state-based Internet filtering have all increased dramatically in recent years," according to the MIT Technology Review.

According to the report, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia remain the top blockers. Each nation filters not just pornography, but also a wide range of political, human-rights, religious, and cultural sites deemed subversive by those countries' governments.

Other countries are more selective in what they let citizens see or not see. Syria and Tunisia, for example, filter a great deal of political content, while Burma and Pakistan target websites that pertain to national-security issues.


Just as legal asymmetry between Western and totalitarian countries allows the latter cultures to subvert the former through "civil rights" while prohibiting similar activity within their own borders, they may eventually use the Internet to disseminate their preferred message while blocking dissenting messages. Just as churches are prohibited in Saudi Arabia while mosques are protected in the West, the Jihad may eventually be broadcast from certain countries and their reception in the West guaranteed as a "right" while anyone who mounts a reply will not only be blocked, but charged with "hate speech". Don't think it can happen? Well the censorship part is apparently happening already

7 Comments:

Blogger Habu said...

Not to be overweening but I just put up a Powerpoint of Dubai on the last thread that is not to be missed..it is UNreal what they've done and are doing...check it out

5/18/2007 07:33:00 PM  
Blogger Habu said...

A wee bit 'o Friday night fun with an audio this time..volume please..

police answering machine

5/18/2007 07:50:00 PM  
Blogger Habu said...

Internet challenges are just ramping up as we saw when the scales fell from our eyes after 9/11...AQ sending messages and recruiting. Host countries just cited in the thread chocking off their populations from entire segments of information, etc,etc.

Part of the irony of cutting off the population of China from information is that the Chinese Army has an entire division dedicated to breeching our civilian and military/intelligence nets. This is in keeping with their asymmetrical warfare doctrine they have blueprinted and are executing.

Lots of challenges out there for the "free" world. The next five years could be some of those defining years of an entire millennium.

I hate to sound paranoid but if they're out to get you, and there's plenty of "them" out there now it ain't paranoia.

5/18/2007 08:11:00 PM  
Blogger Utopia Parkway said...

More than half of the women in KSA are illiterate. I doubt the internet plays much of a part in their lives.

Isn't the mouse an unclean animal in Islam? Are they really allowed to spin its wheel with their finger?

I read (somewhere) that one of the main uses of cell phones in KSA was to transmit porn images.

Cell phones and the internet will allow the transmission of images that the govt's won't approve of, for any govt and any definition of "approve of."

5/18/2007 08:38:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe our exuberance over Reagan, Bush I, the fall of the Soviet Union, the Repub Congress at the end of the last century and Bush II’s two terms in the early days of the 21st C was misplaced, and all those silhouettes in conservative/ classically liberal core principles and courage were but shadows behind us late in the day. After the spiritual scourges and bloody purges of the last hundred years, leftist PC socialism, transnationalism, totalitarianism and moral inversion seem to be winning the day-- and blotting out the sun. If things keep trending as they’re going, soon there’ll be no shadows or light to cast them- only twilight. And Janis will have to be revised to “Freedom’s just another word.” Period.

To thwart Global Liberty Lessening by progressive internationalists, jihadi Islamists and nasty regimes, it looks like we’ll have to pin our hopes on a retired pol/ TV DA, the GOP whose big tent is ripped to shreds, and the American voter. Although the European voters aren’t doing so bad lately, their omnipotent bureaucrats are still glomming power and eradicating individual freedom and choice as fast as they can in the name of enforced fairness. Or forced fairyness (make believe). I confuse the two---

5/18/2007 08:54:00 PM  
Blogger Cas said...

Jane:
I cannot discount the power of the individual.
That has been the strength of the "West," ever since it was called the Western Roman Empire (as opposed to the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantium)
No one at the time thought that Europe could have endured the Renaissance or the Reformation, but it led to the defeat of the Ottomans, and the Enlightenment, without which the US Constitution could never have been created.
So, be of good cheer! It drives the Islamists crazy to know that we do not "Convert, Submit or Die"!!

5/19/2007 01:59:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

James,

Thanks- I needed that! Am personally optimistic—it’s all good and getting better up close- but with a couple of terms of a Hillary/Obama health-green-PC-&-pickpocket Presidency round the corner just as the world is getting uncomfortably small, more easily manipulated by tyrants, terrorists, media and bureaucrats, and potentially deadlier than ever, it’s difficult not to despair once a month or so. Will go pick the last of the peas to snap out of it :)

5/19/2007 04:11:00 PM  

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