Leading a team of international academics, researchers at Harvard Law School have issued a warning calling attention to what they say is a spike in online censorship around the globe.
The Citizen Lab, a group of students and faculty from Harvard Law School, Toronto University and Cambridge and Oxford universities in England have been awarded a $3 million grant to see what information is being blocked online and who’s blocking it.
“The ability to really withhold information no longer exists,” Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told government representatives earlier this week. Speaking during an Internet forum in Portugal, Gates all but told officials to leave the Internet alone, saying no matter what governments do, information people want to get out always will find a way online.
A 56-year-old Canadian man could have avoided jail time on child pornography charges this week, but chose instead to defend his actions on the grounds that laws against child pornography amount to government censorship.
Just because pornography is the first stop on the censorship express doesn't mean the industry should be jumping aboard of its own free will, or worse, handing over members of its own community for forced transport to gulags of silence.
In response to increased government censorship threats, the “Big Three” television networks, along with a motley assortment of special-interest groups, have partnered to form TV Watch to lobby against government control of TV programming.
