Censorship of New Media

New Media Technology is advancing rapidly . The use of multimedia platforms to distribute and share information is something to which many are accustomed to. It is inevitable, that in this new information society, a minority of users will abuse this privilege by publishing libellous or copyrighted material, albeit not always deliberately. General consensus of social norms and common sense by the majority of the online community means unsavoury or offensive material found on the Internet is ignored. I believe in free speech and understand that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. No one should dictate what anyone says, even if it is not always appropriate or conventional. At present there are debates about control and censorship of the Internet and I wonder how long it will be before there are calls for all online content to be subject to approval by strict draconian rulings and guidelines. Surveillance and collection of data by government is already in force and if sanctions are imposed, democratic thought processes will be assigned to the history books.

The notion of a Ministry of Truth is something which I fear will become a reality, and our right to free speech is rapidly disappearing .

For further debates about online censorship see http://current.com/topics/75917592_censorship