your thoughts on internet censorship

[Matty]

i was just wondering what people's thoughts on this issue to might be. in my opinion this is already a reality and over the coming few years we are gonna see a hard crackdown on the internet through a closer regulation of the information thats out there and 'random' attacks on 'hazardous' smaller sites and their associated servers.

at the moment the internet has an abundance of interesting information on a variety of topics and plenty of stuff that completely disproves/goes against the grain of what is reported to be true in the conventional media. sure there is a lot of crazy stuff out there but these days an increasing number of intelligent people are able to disseminate a wide range of information from the web in order to formulate a more accurate world view/knowledge of world affairs than what is promoted through the media.

i think that all of these 'conspiracy' theories we are able to read about have a lot of people in positions of real power very angry. when people connect the dots it becomes increasingly obvious that the most far fetched conspiracy theory of them all is exactly what is ideologically promoted to us as real and true.

this is why its worrying when you read about vetting the information on the internet, authenticating sites than are proven to be 'trustworthy' sources, etc. the whole point of the internet is that its down to the individual to disseminate the information and by doing so gaining an insight into the bigger picture. you don't want agencies telling you what is to believed because it is only gonna be pointing to sites run by big media corporations or silly deliberate disinfo mongers.

if you look at the whole russia/georgia situation this has shown beyond all doubt how corrupt and manipulated the western media/politics is, just in case you forget about the iraq war. anyone who reads the internet can get a completely different and much more believable picture at how the situation there played out and who the real bad guys are. if there was any truth to what the media/politicians were telling you there would atleast be some light shed on opposing sides of the story.

i posted a comment on a youtube video the other day that was slightly anti-american, it never even appeared. normally comments pop up immediately after you post them. this struck me as very odd. i could rant for hours but i'm interested to see what people think about this. internet censorship is defintely coming but i'm confident it will ultimately be ineffective for the same reasons free speech on the net is flourishing today. however it'll certainly keep some of the 'conspiracy' theories further away from your average joe...