Keep The Internet Free

People often talk about their concerns for their liberty. And I'm not splitting people into 'right' or 'left' on this one. We all want liberty, we just disagree as to how it can be acheived.

I think that large numbers of us, ordinary people, feel our liberty slipping away. Myself included. Whether you call this threat 'the angry Left', 'Military-Industrial Complex', 'Socialism', 'the War on Terror', 'Islamic agenda' or 'Government-Corporate Hegemony', doesn't matter. Surely we can all agree, for example, that the Internet should remain free.

(Image: Big Brother is watching you already, but will he be able to lure you into his prison of 'protection'?)

Think about what media we have other than the internet. People constantly complain about bias and spin in mainstream corporate TV news and newspapers. The mistake is to label such bias as 'liberal' or 'conservative', in my view. I'd just call it all bullshxx. And worse than that, it's a distraction to the real stories and information we should be paying attention to.

Historically, freedoms were taken away starting with baby steps. Such a step is likely to be taken here in the UK, where internet sites are to be given age ratings as if they were DVDs.

Apparently, this is to protect children from the content out there that obviously is not 'for kids', basically porn and violence/gore. And I have sympathy for this cause.

The problem is, it will NEVER work. Protecting children from restricted content? Oh please. And, of course, it will form the basis for further regulation, monitoring, restriction and give Big Brother another way to control innocent citizens.

According to the BBC report, the 'Culture Secretary' (can't believe his job is necessary), Andy Burnham, who made these proposals, 'says people need help navigating the internet'. And that he wanted to "protect the public from unacceptable material". If you speak English, no matter where you live, you are not safe from this project, because "he also plans to negotiate with the US on drawing up international rules for English language websites."

I don't need to explain how angry all that left me.

I don't need your damn help navigating the internet, and you know as well as I do that 'unacceptable material' sounds pretty much like something out of the Chinese government. They consider information about the Tiananmen Square massacre to be 'unacceptable'.

This has ZERO to do with protecting children and everything to do with firing the opening shots in a war for the last avenue of free speech, the humble internets.

(Image: I have read about this before, but here is the evidence, 'Free' Google above, Chinese Google below; the search says 'Tiananmen', referring to Tiananmen Square, for which the protests and massacre of 1989 are the main historical event. Note the absence of the infamous 'Tank Man' images, only the presence of 'normal' photos. Imagine googling 'World Trade Center' and only finding information about the buildings, with maybe a reference to the 'demolition' of the towers. That's what it is like, in many ways.)

(Image: It's always about 'safety', but few bother to think about what will be done in the name of 'safety'.)

Every time government talks about 'freedom from' something, or 'protection' from something, you can safely bet it means, "We're going to compromise your freedom, in the name of safety".

Hmm, sounds quite familiar. Reminds me of a certain champion of liberty Thomas Jefferson:

"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety."

Maybe I'm making too much of this. But the internet is the last stand of free speech, as I see it; and if it falls to corporatisation and governments' control, then it could reach a point where we all regret not having listened to Alex Jones, whilst we could.