From a typical "Great Firewall" article from The Canadian Press, this delicious quote on the Power of the Interweb:

"We face so many shared global problems right now, you need some kind of global communications medium through which citizens around the world can communicate and share ideas," says Ronald Deibert, director of the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab.

"We need to find ways to protect these commons as something essential for what you might call planetary democracy to thrive."

 A few thoughts:

  1. Planetary democracy? On which planet? Last I checked liberal democracy was the exception on this planet, which is all the more reason I'm happy to come from one.

  2. China's Internet censorship ultimately does very little to impinge upon the value of the Internet as a global communications medium in China. I can attest first-hand to the large amount of international communication that the Internet is enabling within China. With regard to the majority of Chinese Internet users, language is probably a more important barrier to their ability to access international content.

    The Chinese government's attempts to manage communication within China are much more socially significant than its efforts to block undesirable content from outside China. That's why Imagethief subscribes to Danwei's point of view that "Net Nanny" is a better metaphor than "Great Firewall" for China's online censorship apparatus, even if it doesn't have the delicious historical ring about it. But I think Jeremy is fighting a lonely and probably doomed battle on this front.

  3. This is one of those articles that manages, without ever saying it explicitly, to paint a picture of Chinese Internet users as helpless, befuddled souls who would be enlightened if they only had unfettered access to The Glorious Commons. It just ain't so.