Let them do what they want, be quite interesting if everyone stayed home, and said ehh we’ll sit this one out.

You conclusion is false. If they came to an agreement not to censor Olympia sites then they would have dropped some of their censorship. Any person that thought they would drop all censorship is a dolt.

The Olympics are coming up?

– point made!

While we thankfully have nowhere near China’s level of censorship, we do have a lot of issues.

First of all, that alt.* Usenet block that all the major ISPs are getting strongarmed into is a lot worse than it sounds. Usenet has 8 formal categories of groups, and then alt, which is basically the “everything else” category. As you might expect, there’s quite a lot of everything else – about 100,000 groups in all. Each group acts independently, so to put that in web terms, 100,000 entire forum sites are being blocked, due to the lawbreaking actions of 88. That’s not trivial by ANY standard. It’s true that there are hundreds of small Usenet-only services you can sign up for, including some that are very cheap, but the simple fact is, most people don’t realize this. Experienced Usenet users all have a favorite newsreader (program written specifically to access Usenet) and a dedicated server they use, but more casual users generally do not, and NEW users almost never do – and remember, if the only way you know of getting to the network is blocked, and you’ve never used it, you’ll never see the value of having access to it… and certainly won’t pay for a good feed.

Usenet was created pretty much with the sole intent to democratize the internet. This was especially important before the public web, but it still matters now. It costs absolutely nothing to start a group. If you have a topic, no matter how obscure, and can find even a handful of people that will announce they’d be interested in a group for it, one will be created, at 0 cost of money OR time for the person making the group, and other than the initial drive to get the group up and running, the creators don’t have to do ANYTHING to keep the group alive, so long as some activity remains. I know of one group that’s over 15 years old, likely doesn’t have a single original member. The group is literally older than the web, yet it’s still active. This is by no means a unique case. Modern forums may have far more features than a Usenet group, but they simply don’t have that kind of staying power… if the admins stop having the time or money to maintain their site, it dies… and if they never get the money in the first place, they can’t run their site.

The mandatory use of blocking software in schools and libraries is further censorship, and a lot more direct. Keep in mind that for many poor users, they may not have ‘net access outside of libraries and schools, as it’s one more bill they simply can’t afford to pay. No matter how much people want to think otherwise, blocking software doesn’t just stop porn, it blocks many, many things it shouldn’t, and in almost all cases, was written with a political agenda, as the programs have very, VERY few voluntary users. If you don’t believe this, head to the nearest censored library and try loading up major websites for a few random religions. I’m sure you can guess which 2 aren’t blocked.

With each passing bogus law, we’ve slid a bit further down that slippery slope, and what right now might be an amount of blocking that most people won’t encounter most of the time can rapidly spiral into our own Great Firewall. The precedents that are being set now are what politicians in the future can build on with politics that rely entirely on isolated moral outage and plain old FUD.

So yeah, compared to China, we really are the land of the free, but if we don’t fight the attacks on those freedoms that are occurring NOW, it’s going to be much, much worse if we wait until Great Firewall comparisons really do become valid.

Two really useful sites are eff.org (for actually fighting the laws, as well as staying current on whatever BS is currently being proprosed) and peacefire.org (for helping specific people get around censorware.) Groklaw and of course Techdirt are extremely useful for info as well.

As for China and the Olympic thing, this one can be filed in the “well, duh” section. The reporters also better make sure they stay in officially sanctioned areas when reporting on the games, so they don’t get into any “unfortunate accidents.”

@23 I couldn’t have said it better myself. Unless this country stands up and fights for what we should stand up for, we don’t stand a chance in the long run. We are already too close to the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us of and we have even liberal elitists even standing up for warrant less invasions of privacy.

Perhaps they are ethical right now, perhaps they might be ethical in 5, 10, maybe they will be ethical in 20 years. But how long before its expected, and the next president takes it an inch further, just another inch, inch, inch, inch. Back to the 1500’s.

seem to have it about right. In the US it is NGO groups that push for censoring, in china it is a governmental affair

I think when a country, ANY country, applies to be the host of the Olympic Games, they should be held to the same rules as every other past and future host.

Can you honestly tell me no one considered these problems years ago.

This is what the IOC gets for electing to hold the games in a country which censors their people.

Honestly, it is to the point I think national leaders and unfortunately, the great athletes, should reconsider whether they should even attend.

I have always looked forward to the Olympics, the competition, the comraderie, but this year I may boycott.

Guess what China, it is my RIGHT!

I think people alawys ingore one important thing here that the absolute majority of Chinese are thrilled to have Olympics in China.Any activites that tarnished the Chinese in this respect, like so called Tibet freedom, democracy or somthing a like, only can backfire among the Chinese. In addition, Sports is Sports, Polictics is Polictics, why should people connect the two and just make things complicated?

In addtion, some media and people keep saying that China government is taking advantage of this Olympics event to boost China image as a modern China,however, do they understand that the Chinese people wants to showcase the new and rapid chaning China to the world through this event as well? It is obvious to see that when the pro-Olympics demonstration in China and other places took place in the Olympics torch relay.

Please talk about the politics in the political arena!

Facing various accuse on human right, it understandable on such acions from Chines govenment. How can Olympic game be held well in such complex international circumstances.