A Comparative Study of Internet Censorship

An anonymous reader suggests we visit the home of the watchdog group Global Integrity for a breakdown of online censorship: "Using data from the Global Integrity Index, we put a US court's recent order to block access to anti-corruption site Wikileaks.org into context. In summary: This is unheard of in the West, and has only been seen in a handful of the most repressive regimes. Good thing it doesn't work very well... The whole event seems to encapsulate the constant criticism of governance in the United States: that the government has been captured by corporate interests, and that the world-leading rule of law and technocratic mechanisms in place can be hijacked to serve as tools for narrow, wealthy interests."

Re:Silly

[kaos07]

We can only hope.

Re:"World leading"?

[flyingsquid]

Why do US people believe their country is a leader in everything, when cold, hard numbers eminently suggest otherwise? Mass-hypnosis?

Because, obviously, the US is leader in free [CENSORED]. Concerning news and political discourse, I think if you compare our [CENSORED] to the [CENSORED] of any other [CENSORED], you will find that our [CENSORED] is head and shoulders above that of any other [CENSORED]. Admittedly, certain alarmist elements, such as the [CENSORED] and those of the [CENSORED] party may lead you to believe that our government engages in [CENSORED] but the reality is that intellectual debate and news reporting in this country are [CENSORED], [CENSORED], and most important of all [CENSORED]. Really, all of this concern is just alarmism. We have nothing to fear except [CENSORED].

Re:Silly

[MillionthMonkey]

If other western countries all jump off a cliff does that mean the US government should jump off the white house roof?

If all the other Western nations are jumping off a cliff, you'd think that would be a clue, hmmm, maybe there's a reason why they're jumping off that cliff.
But noooo, we have to be different and jump off the White House.

Re:Silly

[TuringTest]

On a related note, I'd like to attract your attention to the statistical inverse correlation between global warming and the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s [venganza.org]. You know this implies that either global warming kills pirates, or that pirates cause a descent in global temperature - and the lack of them leads to this raising.