Regulators Mount Up: Censorware & the Ties that Bind

As a writer, non-profit PR specialist and lover of stirring the pot, there are few subjects that raise my ire like censorship.

Where large corporations and institutions had the budgets and staff to produce amazing traditional media campaigns, and record companies had the bucks to push pop stars like popsicles; basement bloggers, shoestring activists and self-publishing savants were quarantined to the internet.

Now that the webby democracy can be monetized and taken seriously, the Feds, RIAA and various corporate entities are flexing their authoritative muscles and technocrats are fighting back.

HD-DVD:
Digg is abuzz with comments on the HD-DVD hack’s cease-and-desist orders, and despite the fact that they are simply news aggregators and not original content publishers, lawsuits are sure to ensue. Faced with backlash from his community, Digg CEO Kevin Rose ordered moderators to stop removing hack-related articles after recognition that the code string was not going away.

THE BOYS OVERSEAS:
According to Stars and Stripes, the American Department of Defense will block access to MySpace, YouTube and a host of other sites in an effort to boost network efficiency. The new censorware will leave troops in Afghanistan and Iraq with little to no access to the popular sites. As for the effects on YouTube, the general public will receive limited access to user-generated videos of war, and soldiers will receive limited access to comments - all this because one of the best-funded institutions is worried about bandwidth issues. (There are currently over 6000 videos tagged as war-related footage)

LIBRARIANS UNITE:
Today, in protest of House Bill 1727, a bill that legislates censorware on public computers, many librarians in the State of Illinois have turned off the internet and turned on to a Day of Unity. While many argue that the bill unfairly tasks staff with babysitting minors through the search process, others simply argue that censorship of this kind is unconstitutional.

THE DANGER OF INFORMATION:
I remember being proud of myself while clutching my new copy of the Anarchist’s Cookbook in Vancouver’s Gastown. At the time, I felt a kinship to the Russians who coveted their secret copies of Doctor Zhivago. Today I think about the children in Bible belt towns who steal glances at their banned copies of Harry Potter in bathroom stalls across America. Most of us have never thrown a Molotov cocktail, conjured Satan or even corrupted any of our peers. In fact, most of us are better-educated, well-rounded critical thinkers BECAUSE of our exposure to a wide range of perspectives. Whether for moral reasons or monetary ones, at what point will traditionalists throw up their hands and realize that stopping the flow of undesirable info is not only impossible, but that it is an impediment to our development? Even after we think we’ve quelled the content we are threatened by, the unkillable human spirit and the Way Back machine will conjure it up time and time again.

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Regulators Mount Up: Censorware & the Ties that Bind

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