My opinion about internet restrictions in my country: Italy
The issue of internet restrictions is very much felt in many countries and fortunately it touches my country, Italy, in a way that is not so marked. To date I have the possibility to access a bit on all the sites, without any restriction of the contents or censorship by the providers or control bodies. In the last two years, in reality, a vigilante struggle has been focusing on web portals that freely share copyrighted video content, causing the website to be closed and criminal and economic penalties to platform managers. A striking example was the closure of an IPTV platform that allowed the online viewing of Sky, Netflix, Dazon, Mediaset Premium with a very low monthly fee, around 10 euros, and European police bodies moved half of Europe to trace the culprits and track all users who used paid content.
The freedom to be able to do what you want is important on the web, designed as a space where you can share your thoughts or read the thoughts of others. A phenomenon, however, that is spreading in Italy are the Fake News: there are some users who have created a real economy generated by the gain induced by untrue news, often written with the will to misinform the most naive people, damaging their right of knowledge. This phenomenon has occurred especially during the period of the political elections, conveying above all a part of the people not politically aligned to make a decision based on false news. A real scam that allowed a few users to manage portions of the Italian people. The phenomenon has been dammed recently with localized interventions by the supervisory authorities and even here the websites and social profiles of some users have been closed.
In Italy, as I said at the beginning, there is a fair amount of internet access, the only existing censorship concerns issues such as terrorism, pedophilia, violence and drugs. From this point of view, however, I agree because freedom of thought is fine but exaggeration must be controlled and the weakest of the network must be protected, I am referring above all to the very many youngsters who face the dark web, that is the dark part and evil of this new technology.
In Italy there are no complaints on blockchain sites and I have the possibility of accessing any project or online platform like the Exchanges, without any limitation. I consider myself lucky because otherwise I could not have known the Steemit community and deepened this immense and promising project.
A few days ago I read an interesting dossier formulated by Comparitech, a company that tests digital services and provides its users with solutions to solve problems, to defend privacy, in which it signals Italy in 14th place in the ranking of censorship requests of certain sites or blogs for national security reasons. The terrorist attacks of recent years have caused an increase in controls in Italy but also in other European countries such as France, England, Germany.
Now I am for freedom of expression and thought but within the limits of respect for other people. Where my thoughts need to hurt other people in a sensitive way, I am in favor of targeted control with an exclusively educational purpose. Internet censorship for political reasons, power or for any reason that is against knowledge, I find it really incorrect. Knowledge cannot be blocked. It is only a matter of time before these obstacles are removed.
With this post I participate in the contest launched by @upmewhale.