Seemingly Orwellian moves by Western governments to crack down on the use of technology by citizens are being compared to repressive policies of regimes such as China.
After British Prime Minister David Cameron
floated the idea of restricting the use of services such as Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger to prevent riots, transit authorities in San Francisco late last week shut down mobile phone reception in several underground stations to block would-be demonstrators.
Politicians in Norway have discussed methods to limit online anonymity and combat web extremism in the wake of the recent massacre.
In Australia, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is
still intent on implementing his heavily criticised mandatory ISP filtering net censorship scheme despite public and political opposition.
Furthermore, state and federal attorneys-general are considering
new controls on Facebook to protect children. The government has also been discussing with ISPs a
data retention scheme that would involve internet providers storing detailed records of Australians' internet communications for law enforcement to access.
Authoritarian states are monitoring these developments closely, eager to see what kind of precedents will be set by Western officials as they wrestle with these evolving technologies,
argued Evgeny Morozov, author of
The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, in
The Wall Street Journal.
"They hope for at least partial vindication of their own repressive policies," he wrote. [...] [
Continued]
