Connectivity up, and so is censorship. Go figure!

ARTICLE: "Google releases data on governments' demands for user data, site censorship," by Cecilia Kang, Washington Post, 21 April 2010.

Google says more nations censor content as the Internet continues to explode in users and reach.

We are meant to be dismayed, but a more realistic understanding says, as I've long maintained, with connectivity comes scary content and thus the desire to censor, both for legitimate reasons ("The Internet is for porn," as they sing in "Avenue Q," so check out democracies Brazil and Germany as the number 1 and 2 requesters that offensive online material be removed) and regressive ones (single-party rule maintenance). To expect censor-less connectivity right off the bat and globalization expands is a fantasy.

Hell, America remains the top requester for user data, for plenty of good reasons.

China, of course, demands Google not release any info on its activities, considering them "state secrets." Some take this as a sign of strength, others a sign of profound and increasingly pathetic weakness and fear. I lean toward the latter, naturally.

The big lesson?

The information highlights how some nations handle online content differently than others. Italy, for example, has stronger privacy laws online than the United States. In India, defamation complaints have been taken to local police, who then contact Google to sniff out impostors on Orkut.

Every regime/culture at its own pace.
So the Internet doesn't erase all borders. Wah-wah! It also doesn't erase all cultural differences, thank God.