The beginning of the end of online freedom
Almost all of the most alarmist predictions made over the last few years are coming true. Little seems to have been too extreme or exaggerated.
Next stop: “We don’t like that free software vendor, one of our “consultants” has advised us it that its offerings might potentially violate patents held by a respected member of our business community, so we’re afraid that their website will have to be blocked….”
Don’t even bother trying to persuade me that this won’t happen. Yes it will. Business and government are combining to restrict our choice, compromise our privacy and civil liberties and will attempt to force us to pay for as much of our online activity as they are able. The perpetrators are the new digital authoritarians, turning technology that they didn’t create, champion or (in the case of the majority of politicians) understand, against the general public.
Government and many politicians fear the Internet because it enables the general population to have conversations and to access knowledge that those supposedly serving us don’t control. Remember Tony Blair’s moaning about the Internet and how it had made the population much harder to govern? It was prophetic.
I just want to write a string of expletives, but what’s the point?
UPDATE: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au
UPDATE 2: French record labels sue, um, SourceForge
Tags: authoritarianism, censorship, Internet, liberty, privacy