Home page Stunting people's freedom of thought and action Using the Internet to impose a mass solitary confinement Locking out information suppresses individual freedom and is evil ... Are we really expected to believe that we are all in this together ....? Are we to accept that people's lives should be about flights of fantasy from the nightmare of reality...? Is the Internet degenerating, after all, into online shopping mall and fantasy games for middle-aged couch potatoes ... ? Are we really expected to accept that online providers are justified in protecting their commercial survival by proactively discriminating against certain people by distorting the truth ..? Why do we willingly embrace our world as a place where individual confidence, based upon a free life'e hopes, motivations and outcomes, should be substituted by a demotivating fatalism bred on the basis of justifiable suspicion of what we are told? There are two related matters in the formation of people's ability to handle freedom in a responsible manner. One is one's development within a family where one is exposed to the dynamic of achieving what one desires whilst responding to the wishes and desires of others. Individual freedom depends on this recognition of just how far one can take one's ambition without imposing on others to the degree that one begins to restrict their individual freedom. The other essential to moving through life so as to maximise the effectiveness with which on acts in a free fashion is the access to accurate facts, or information. Without information one can end up not knowing where to go or how to act to achieve one's ambitions. Useful knowledge comes from an ability to access all of the relevant data and information on a topic of interest; it is a vital learning process upon which an effective freedom depends. The value of information is gauged by the degree to which information is at odds with one's expections. Thus there is no value in the information that the sun will rise tomorrow, even although it might be behind the clouds. On the other hand, if one is told by a reliable source that there will be an earthquake tommorrow, this is important information permitting people to do what they can to avoid harm to themselves, their families and other people. Part of the use of information is to find out what other people are doing and depending upon one's objectives, learning what works and does not work in achieving them. So to deny someone information on a matter of interest to them denies them options upon which to decide things, it stunts their freedom. Political tyranny Tyranny is a control of society through an arbitrary absolute rule. Absolute is the concept of a single person of political party imposing a singular collective mode of behaviour on society. Arbitrariness comes in the form of favours for those closely associated with the party, or those, not of the party, but influential sycophants willing to ingratiate themselves at any cost to humanity, for benefits in kind or money. Such regimes do not uphold individual freedom, especially that based upon free individual judgement. They uphold a system specifically designed to restrict individual freedom. This "disciplines" society through an imposed maze to control people through the imposition of fear. Sometimes this is a fear of others who will intentionally inflict harm on those at odds with a regime by reporting them, in exchange for favours from the regime. More commonly this is a fear which demotivates free volition to a depressing resignation to the uselessness of trying to do anything at odds with the regime, no matter how unjust that regime might be. The evil of restricting data and information Those who provide data and information support a learning process where people develop a better knowledge about things of interest to them. Knowledge and the orientation of people's volition is impaired when data and information are corrupted or indeed, not made available. So if someone asks for information on a specific topic, which is known to exist, and the information supplier does not make that information available, then they are no better than tyrants. Even worse they are in a position of power and yet act as sycophants, distorters of information, misrepresenters of the facts for they do not show all the information that is available. That a service responsible for providing information, might not be able to operate under a tyrannical regime if it did not cow tow and support tyranny by corrupting information, is no justification for such an evil. Since 2002, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have at various times done just this. Google's act of responsible citizenship is to "self-impose" censorship of search results in China. This is sycophant's way of getting the regime off the hook by suggesting that they are not under pressure. Microsoft was reported to have closed down a blog which the regime in China did not like and launching a portal which blocks the words "freedom and democracy". So Bill Gates emphasises that there is information flow and a big and expanding market in China. This is a sycophant's way to side step the real issue by focusing on something else. And Yahoo is accused of handing over information to the Chinese "authorities" which led to the imprisonment of an individual who ran a web site critical of the regime in China. This is just corporate irresponsibility which non-the-less is the sort of thing welcomed by the Chinese regime. Greed No one should be fooled that the ideal of individual freedom is something which is easy to defend or promote. However the opportunities which individual freedom can provide for people anywhere can be severely compromised by the commercial greed which underlies these specific acts of abuse of the right of people to know the truth. Just as companies need to sustain a level playing field in the form of a high standard of factual reporting so should media who disseminate reports, by any means, also ensure coherence by publishing such facts in full.