A Horrifying Interactive Map of Global Internet Censorship 158
An anonymous reader writes "Imagine a world where the book burners had won. A world where information is filtered and must be approved by governments before it can be accessed by their citizens. A world where people are held down and kept in line by oppressive regimes that restrict the free flow of information and bombard citizens with government-approved messages. Now stop imagining, because this horrifying world already exists..."
Re:Doesn't work (Score:5, Informative)
[Citation Needed] (Score:5, Informative)
United States is shown as:
VIOLATIONS OF USER RIGHTS 12/40
FREEDOM ON THE NET 17/100
OBSTACLES TO ACCESS 4/25
LIMITS ON CONTENT 1/35
But they don't say what these things are and which ones are violated. Without the context and citations the results are meaningless -- I could create the same thing in Paint.
Re:[Citation Needed] (Score:5, Informative)
If you get to the specific page for the US, it lists the following as conditions that were met:
- Political, Social and/or Religious Content Blocked?
- Localized or Nationwide ICT Shutdown?
- Pro-government Commentators Manipulate Online Discussions?
- New Law/Directive Increasing Censorship or Punishment Passed?
- New Law/Directive Increasing Surveillance or Restricting Anonymity Passed?
- Blogger/ICT User Arrested for Political or Social Writings?
- Blogger/ICT User Physically Attacked or Killed (including in custody)?
- Technical Attacks Against Government Critics and Human Rights Organisations?
Nowhere are any of those cited (at least not publicly that I could see), but at least a few of them do appear to be true, based on news we've all likely heard.
The myths of Alexandria (Score:4, Informative)
It actually started with the burning of the great library of Alexandria and the murder of Hypathia at the start of an era we call the Dark Ages when Christianity was born.
Although there is a mythology of the burning of the Library at Alexandria, the library may have suffered several fires or acts of destruction over many years. Possible occasions for the partial or complete destruction of the Library of Alexandria include a fire set by Julius Caesar in 48 BC, an attack by Aurelian in the A.D. 270s, the decree of Coptic Pope Theophilus in A.D. 391, and the decree of the second caliph Omar ibn Al-khattab in A.D. 640.
It's contents were largely lost during the taking of the city by the Emperor Aurelian (A.D. 270-275), who was suppressing a revolt by Queen Zenobia of Palmyra. During the course of the fighting, the areas of the city in which the main library was located were damaged. Some sources claim that the smaller library located at the Serapeum survived, though Ammianus Marcellinus wrote of the library in the Serapeum temple as a thing of the past, destroyed when Caesar sacked Alexandria.
Library of Alexandria [wikipedia.org]
According to the only contemporary source, Hypatia was murdered [370 AD] by a Christian mob after being accused of exacerbating a conflict between two prominent figures in Alexandria: the governor Orestes and the Bishop of Alexandria. Kathleen Wider proposes that the murder of Hypatia marked the end of Classical antiquity, and Stephen Greenblatt observes that her murder "effectively marked the downfall of Alexandrian intellectual life". On the other hand, Maria Dzielska and Christian Wildberg note that Hellenistic philosophy continued to flourish in the 5th and 6th centuries, and perhaps until the age of Justinian.
Hypatia [wikipedia.org]
Re:Book burning... (Score:3, Informative)
Christianity was around before 300AD, but the record is poor because they were just another weird cult - and there were plenty of those around. It may well have started in exactly the manner Christians claim: As a cult of personality built around one charismatic individual in the vicinity of Jerusalem in the first century. That information has been lost to history. The Council of Nicaea wasn't the birth of Christianity, but the point at which the previously-pagan Roman empire began to adopt it - a process that required first wading through the mess left by the many competing sects with in Christianity and the establishment of a formal management system. It took some decades after that before it was ready to become an official state religion.
Contrary to a very popular belief though, the council did not establish a canon. They condemned a lot of views as heretical, yes. But they didn't pick a canonical set of documents. That came later, in a process that took many centuries, and there are still ongoing disputes.
I still don't know what the bishop who included Revelation was thinking. It reads like the ramblings of someone high as a kite on 'shrooms, and probably was.
Re:What about.. (Score:5, Informative)
US isn't some magical place where all these problems don't exist - they just don't exist for the english population.
I live in San Jose, California. It is very common to see business signs ONLY in Spanish, Chinese, or Vietnamese. There are no laws requiring businesses to accommodate English speakers. Nor should there be. The USA is not Quebec.