Censoring the Net

Google has announced that it is going to censor and restrict its news website in China. This Google blog entry explains some of their reasoning behind it. But basically it boils down to the fact that if they didn't then the Chinese government would probably block them. (link)

This got me thinking about censorship. Its an interesting debate. Freedom of thought is an ideal that flows freely on the net except when censorship such as the "Great Firewall of China" intervenes and blocks sites that contain certain "antipolitical" viewpoints. Is censorship necessarily a bad thing? When is it right to block a website, and when is it right to allow access? What, if any, information should be censored? Surely the two extremes are:

1. to block any website outside of the country and to close down any sites within the country that are "disreputable"
2. to allow unmetered access to any website
   

The former viewpoint allows information to be controlled, people see only limited information and make false assumptions. So if all a government showed was its troops restoring peace and order in Iraq and being friendly with the local citizens, then its people would think that they were doing a great service. The grim, harsh realities of war are swept aside, ignored and remain unknown. On each side of a war, there are heros, and there are villians. Take the recent abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American led forces as an example.

But unmetered access to any website also has serious problems. Anyone can hear, see or read anything. That might sound like a great idea, but consider the amount of junk that is floating around on the net - porn is rife. Disinformation (wrong information) is left unchecked. Anyone can read what they like, even if its not true (just imagine if the Iraqi information minister (the register article) had a website!) But then I agree that censoring the net for political gain is a slightly different kettle of fish.

I believe the key is this: To what extent do we analyse and criticise the information we read on the net? It is important to make judgements about the information we read. If the western world is going to continue to allow unmetered access to any website, then people need to be discerning about the information that is read. Just cause you read something on a website, it doesn't mean its true. It must be assessed, genuinely and thoroughly criticised, dismissed, deleted if wrong?! Call me a purist, but information can hang around for a long time on the net so lets make sure its right!

The great irony of this post is that some of you might think its full of bad information and want to get rid of it! Leave your comments!