Book post response to Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering by Ronald J. Deibert.
Internet filtering is a touchy subject. On the surface, it feels wrong, Preventing people from seeing or reading about certain topics - especially while hiding that you are doing so - seems dishonest and even manipulative. This is particularly the case when the material being filtered is political in nature Many of the countries "featured" in Access Denied utilized their internet filtering for this purpose. I suppose the biggest question we need to ask ourselves is, is the internet something that should be filtered by the Powers That Be? Filtering on a personal or family level seems fine. Parents have the responsibility to raise their children in righteousness, and protecting their family from inappropriate material is an important part of that responsibility. But there is something immoral with governments deciding what should or should not be allowed to be viewed or posted by the people - be it internet or TV or print. I guess this is really a freedom of speech issue, when you get right down to it.
I agree that families should be responsible for filtering the content which comes into their homes. When governments are given the ability to filter content for the public we find ourselves in the same situation as China or other regulating governments and may lose access to some great services such as Google.
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