| > The communication which the govt wants to censor gets censored Only if social dynamics evaluate as a zero sum game. Which is the exception, not the rule. Law making is really a modelling exercise. The proof of the validity of a model is measured via the success of it's implementation. The extent of that success is a function of the ability of an authority to enforce those rules. At surface level, centralizing mass media into a handful of channels - whether it's public broadcasting or market dominance through a single private actor - seems like a boon for authoritarians when it comes to censorship. But what censorship really accomplishes is just stripping away the convenience with which undesirable information is spread. It doesn't necessarily strip the wholesale spread of information. History is rife with examples. In the 20th century there were clandestine newspapers (French newspaper La Libération for example) and pamphlets, or listening in on the BBC via longwave. In modern times, there's sneakernets, streetnets (Cuba, even North Korea), datacasting,... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_circumvent...) When a big corporation doesn't play ball and seizes operating in a country, it only moves the needle in one direction, but never quite entirely to the end. |