Restricted & Unrestricted Internet - Freedom World, My opinion, by @janaveda

Hi dear steemians,

The issue of censorship and restrictions on the internet is fashionable, we have seen how governments in one way or another are imposing legislation to regulate freedom of expression in this medium.

I live in Venezuela and I could tell you, not only of the restrictions made to control access to the internet, but how systematically the State has developed a strategy to dominate all means of expression and perpetuate itself in power. In this regard, it has closed television channels and open-signal radio, as well as the written press has declined. The State also reserves the monopoly of the spectrum of communications bands. Already there, you could have an idea, how is the access to the internet in my country.

However, access to the information highway has not yet been completely closed, but the transmission speed has been substantially reduced and we have seen some sites that express criticism open to the government on duty (they have 20 years in power ) are being blocked.

I do not know, if you know that until two decades ago, Venezuela was a country that hosted without many immigrant restrictions from many parts of the world, now it is not so, on the contrary, many Venezuelans have gone abroad to seek better living conditions, therefore, the internet has become the channel par excellence to keep us virtually united in these days.

Right now, there is a tense calm in the country and we have continuity on the internet, although poor and slow, if we compare it with other latitudes. But this is very relative, once the street protests are activated calling for reinvidications or political acts of opponents, the internet service is usually interrupted intermittently. I must clarify that my residence is near Caracas and this has guaranteed me internet services, but in the interior of the country, the reality is very different. There are scheduled cuts of the electric service and therefore of the internet service.

If this were not enough, I think steemit is a social network, and I would not be surprised if censorship came here, as it is in China. We have already had in other social networks like Whatsapp people who have been imprisoned for expressing their opinions on charges of hate speech. Personally, I do not belong to any political bias, I just want my country to be what it once was, of course, discarding the bad and keeping the good and that we have the guarantee of being free to express our ideas without self-censorship for fear to be persecuted, where we all fit in harmony and peace, where the internet is a free means to learn and grow without ties from elites, but if, from one's own ethics and morals.

Steemit has been constituted for me, in an oasis in this desert and I would be very sorry if for any reason I was censored or directly restricted. I hope that never happens.