Friday, January 18, 2008

The beginning of the end of free speech online?

The government is here to help and protect us (well, not me since I am not Japanese, so who cares) yet again by regulating the Internet.

Where the report classifies the content of Web services, however, serious concerns arise. Under the title of "kozensei" ("content that has openness"), for example, a wide range of currently unregulated services become eligible for forced content correction or removal. Blogs, Web pages, and bulletin- board services such as popular Japanese forum 2-Channel all appear to fall in this group.

[A Japanese blogger]: "This is a country where people have been detained for days just for distributing flyers," he says. "If citizens are robbed of their freedom on the Internet, then there is a risk that they will lose their capacity to make political choices." Full story here.

It's ok, it is for security. Besides other countries like China do it too, so nobody can criticize Japan.

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