In the past, I’ve written about censorship on the Internet, especially the Chinese example. It is a touchy subject for many – bringing up both ardent nationalism and unabashed support for free expression. Like many topics of debate which tend to have emotional currents, it is difficult at times to address the substantive issues. That’s why this nuanced point of view on Chinese net censorship is so refreshing. Though I may disagree with the author on some of the points, it provides a good view. Some choice quotes:

“Often, people speak of “censorship” without acknowledging that there is a background of this kind of contest going on. Fundamentally, the assumption behind the intuition that “censorship” is bad is that other people ought to see things just the way we see them. And that may be a laudable goal or a bad goal. But it’s not self-evident. To say that someone else is censoring is to say that they are not seeing things the way we want to see them, and whether the views of those others are “authentic” (in the sense of being liberal or democratic) may be relevant or not to the determination, but again it’s not self-evident.”

and

“You view the Chinese search results as “censored,” but actually, every time I do a search on Tiananmen on Google I feel I’m watching the result of a Google bomb. To me, the iconic image of Tiananmen is the one where Chairman Mao stood up and declared the founding of the People’s Republic. That moment is the dividing line between pre-modern China and modern China, and for many Chinese it is an image that is much more potent than the images of the protests.”

These are genuine, reflective opinions on an issue which is not as binary as it is often made out to be.