Short answer: We’ve taken a huge step backwards in human evolution.

The Internet is arguably the single greatest invention of the modern world. Air travel and spaceflight are up there, but the ability to have close to instantaneous interaction with almost anyone nearly everywhere on Earth via the digital domain has fundamentally changed humanity. The globe has become smaller and the knowledge of what happens in faraway lands is immediate.

It is estimated that for every 60 seconds on the Internet there are 168 million emails sent, 694,445 Google search queries, 695,000+ Facebook status updates sent and 20,000+ new posts via the Tumblr blog service.

For governments to meddle in this communication could be, and has been, disastrous, oppressive and is a violation of basic rights.

Up until now for us in the West, we have been relatively unaffected by governmental restrictions on the Internet. That could change in a big way for those people using any Internet service based in the USA.

In the US Congress there is legislation pending to hold Internet service providers, domain registrars, and nearly any company in the Internet business liable for perceived copyright infringements. Called the Stop Online Piracy Act, this legislation seeks to prevent the illegal trafficking of intellectual property by shutting down the methods of dissemination. For example, if someone were to upload a video to YouTube that contains a snippet of a popular song, instead of just going after the individual, the website itself, YouTube, would be responsible and damages could be assessed by the copyright holders. It’s akin to outlawing banks for being part of the chain used by illegal drug dealers to move product. This legislation also heralds significant threats to individual freedom of speech. Jerry Brito from Time Magazine says, “Imagine if the UK created a blacklist of American newspapers that its courts found violated celebrities’ privacy? Or what if France blocked American sites it believed contained hate speech?” The Center for Democracy and Technology warned, “If SOPA [is] enacted, the US government must be prepared for other governments to follow suit, in service to whatever social policies they believe are important—whether restricting hate speech, insults to public officials, or political dissent.”

Unfortunately, this kind of outlawing and restricting the Internet is already alive and well in the world. The France based group Reporters Without Borders maintains a list of “Internet Enemies” that includes Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Most recently, Iran was cited for blocking access to a virtual embassy of the United States thereby restricting the flow of information. Iranians typing in the address, http://iran.usembassy.gov/, received a message in Farsi saying: “In accordance with computer crime laws, access to this website is not possible.”

The effect of governments meddling in the Internet is a potential apocalypse for not only free speech, but communication in general. History has shown that when the censorship ball starts rolling, everything in its way gets smashed to bits.

For more information: Reporters Without Borders:
http://en.rsf.org