Why Information Must Flow Freely Without Censorship, Even On the Internet
Governments around the world have been putting forth efforts to stop the free and easy flow of information on the internet. Most of these governments are responding out of fear. The internet has been an easy way to voice dissatisfaction with the government and is what many dissatisfied citizens use it for. However, many people now believe that trying to slow the flow or edit the internet will only set society back, especially given the speed that technology is moving forward.
“An informed society is one where citizens have the resources, education and skills to access and participate in the free flow of reliable and pertinent information. They do this through a diverse range of platforms and media organizations that empower them to make considered decisions about their economic, social and political lives. And we take it as a given that in a knowledge economy and an age of networked intelligence, better-informed societies are more successful.
But this is a time of information turmoil. Many traditional media organizations are struggling. Scores of newspapers have gone out of business in the United States alone in the last decade. Magazines, radio, non-fiction book publishing and even television are all in various stages of upheaval. The media of the industrial age is changing.
Allowed to flourish, new media technologies offer the promise for societies to be better informed, more open and more successful than their industrial age counterparts. People in many parts of the world have unprecedented access to data, information and knowledge. They can inform themselves through collaboration like never before. People by the millions can contribute useful knowledge for everyone to share (as in the case of Wikipedia). Observers of street violence can document it and inform the world as citizens did during the 2007 post-election riots in Kenya.”
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2 Responses to Why Information Must Flow Freely Without Censorship, Even On the Internet
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It is not a time of turmoil simply because traditional media is struggling and government censorship. You miss a lot and I do not have time today to delve into depth on the matter so let me just make a few points. Traditional media cannot justify the costs of paper, logistics and brick and mortal establishments in our new electronic age. Information flows faster and cheaper than anyone ever anticipated. However, the Internet was built without any mechanisms that took into consideration what many of our privacy laws intended or how some types of information were meant to be used (and this does not mean that all unintended uses are bad but the effects have been surprising in many cases). Whether citizens that are ‘better informed’ are more successful really depends on where they are getting their information from in the first place and how they are utilizing it to reach their goals.
Many of the governments that actively censor online information are the same ones that continue to excessively oppress traditional media so it is not surprising that they work overtime with electronic blocks and mandatory unpublishing of information they deem unsavory (China is big offender here but there are others all along the scale to different degrees including the US). The EU is floating the Right to be Forgotten legislation.
Destitute American
January 28, 2013 at 5:24 pm
Getting to be long here but what I hate is websites like this one that just write “Headlines” but no story of substance. The ‘blurb’ of a fake article on here does not even point out why information must flow freely.
Destitute American
January 28, 2013 at 5:28 pm