Delete, Don’t Block

The government passed an internet censorship law yesterday. The justification is child protection—the only argument that ever works in these situations, because who’s going to vote against protecting children? But the law doesn’t actually protect anyone. It just gives the state legal authority to block websites whenever it wants.

Child exploitation is real and it deserves to be stopped. But this isn’t how you stop it. You need investigation and courts, people who actually know what they’re looking at. Censorship just makes it disappear. The problem is that once you’ve built the machine to block one thing, you’ve built it to block everything. Same infrastructure, same legal justification. Today it’s child porn, tomorrow it’s political speech or news someone in power doesn’t like. You’ve already proved you’re willing to censor. China didn’t build a surveillance state through technology—they built it one reasonable law at a time.

The Pirate Party is organizing protests tomorrow. Delete Instead of Block. I don’t expect it to work. Probably won’t. But I’m tired of how easily people accept this, so I’m going to go stand around with some people who still have a problem with it.