Laws and mechanisms originally meant to enforce copyright, protect children and fight online crime are abused to silence or intimidate political critics.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
The problem with copyright enforcement is that when the parameters aren't incredibly well defined, it means big corporations, who have deeper pockets and better lawyers, can bully people.
History is rife with examples of governments taking actions to 'protect' their citizens from harm by controlling access to information and inhibiting freedom of expression and other freedoms outlined in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We must make sure, collectively, that the Internet avoids a similar fate.
If you don't move to protect copyright, if you don't move to protect our children, it's not going to sit well.
For years, members of Congress have heard from constituents who want them to protect the nation from crime, terrorism and intellectual property violation. They have not faced equally robust demands that online rights and freedoms be preserved.
The prime goal of censorship is to promote ignorance, whether it is done via lying and bowdlerized school texts or by attacking individual books.
There's a popular saying that the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Desire and innovation will trump policy, the argument goes, as clever programmers circumvent controls.
In making policy designed with copyright in mind, you end up making decisions about whether other important technologies, such as privacy-enhancing or file-search technologies, should be encouraged or discouraged. A collision is happening between creativity and protecting IP.
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
The Internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it.