21st-century censorship

[Commentary] Censorship is flourishing in the information age.

Governments around the world are using stealthy strategies to manipulate the media, and are having as much success as the Internet in disrupting independent media and determining the information that reaches society. Moreover, in many poor countries or in those with autocratic regimes, government actions are more important than the Internet in defining how information is produced and consumed, and by whom. Many governments are routing around the liberating effects of the Internet. Like entrepreneurs, they are relying on innovation and imitation. As a result, the Internet’s promise of open access to independent and diverse sources of information is a reality mostly for the minority of humanity living in mature democracies.

[Philip Bennett is director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy. Moises Naim is a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]