Defining Censorship in the Digital Age
Modern censorship isn’t about stopping the flow of information, that would be impossible, it’s about making the barriers of access to it so high that users can’t easily find it. Censorship (High barriers, privilege-based production benefits) exists on a spectrum, opposite from peer collaboration (Low barriers, commons-based production benefits). It’s relationship to artistic and technological innovation is not clear (Metaphor dies without or with too much prudence and censorship) but the popular Western view is that it is one of the evils of the barbaric past. And then, as if we’re stuck in season 8 of an endless sitcom, the producers said, “Why don’t we do a censorship episode?”
It turns out Wikipedia took part in the coverup of journalist David Rohde’s capture by Talibani forces in Afghanistan. Conversely, China has agreed to delay implementation of Green Dam–software designed ostensibly to censor pornography but also used to censor political information deemed unacceptable by the Chinese government. And then, just when you think China and Wikipedia are enough to fill 44 minutes plus commercials, you find out that The Pirate Bay sold out. It’s an almost maddening, Bizzaro World of events. Wikipedia is supposed to be practically uncensorable, China is supposed to be the Final Boss of Censorship and The Pirate Bay wasn’t just a search engine for illegal movies, hacked software and who-knows-what-else, it was also a major proponent of radical intellectual property rights reform. If this keeps up, the Semantic Web will arrive by Friday.
What follows is the Ancient Greek interpreted version of this post, which will not display properly if you view this page from a system outside the Bizzaro Universe:
Bar bar bar bar bar bar bar. Bar bar, bar bar bar–bar bar bar–bar. Bar, bar bar; bar bar bar bar bar bar bar. Bar. Bar bar bar! Bar bar bar, bar bar, bar bar bar bar bar. Bar bar bar bar. Bar, bar bar bar bar bar bar bar bar. Bar bar bar bar. Bar bar, bar bar bar, bar bar bar bar bar. Bar bar bar bar-bar-bar-bar, bar bar bar bar bar bar bar.
Bar bar bar: Bar bar.