From Computers and Writing Blog (Hypertext 3.0)

Internet Censorship

I was thinking about the ways that politics control the ways citizens use the internet, or media in general. The example of Singapore's government blocking internet access made me think about what is going on in Syria today. There is an article in BBC about how internet hackers found that the Syrian government was using American technology to block internet access. You can read about it here.

This is nothing new. It also happened in Egypt as well. I found a short video about the government's blocking of internet sites there as well.

I find it interesting that when governments want to keep their political affairs "private" they try to cut off people's access to the world. I don't think that we would have as much information about what is going on in Syria without the journalists on both sides providing the media with the photos, videos, articles, etc. The same goes for areas like the DR of Congo, and how the war that is being waged there is virtually going unnoticed. Which is not unlike what is going on in Zimbabwe. I am rethinking my long-held belief in how it is the media that spins stories. Maybe the government has more of a hand in what is shown to the public than I realized.