“The Green Dam Phenomenon: Governments everywhere are treading on Web freedoms”
If, in the early nineties, the governments of the world had realized just how much power the Internet would offer their citizens, I have little doubt that it would have been quietly strangled in its cradle. Since they missed that opportunity, they’re trying to censor it instead — even in democratic countries that should know better, like Britain and Australia. Fortunately, enough people are resisting their efforts that I doubt many of them will go through.
Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.
— Justice Louis Brandeis, Other People’s Money, and How the Bankers Use It, 1933.