Mr Fang – shut down the Great Chinese Firewall please

As an efficient tool for the Communist party, it filters all Internet traffic between China and the rest of the world and prevents access to any pages and content that doesn’t meet the Communist party’s liking.

Try visiting sites talking about Falun Gong, Dalai Lama or Chinese dissidents from a computer in China and you will get a “Web page not found” message in return.

With the years, the system has grown more and more sophisticated – and is also augmented by an army of probably as many as 100,000 people working as censors and propaganda workers – reading every micro blog entry. They immediately delete posts that touch on sensitive subjects and contribute with content to lead discussions “in the right direction”.

Sina Weibo – China’s version of Twitter – employs 4,000 people merely for doing censorship.

For an authoritarian regime this may seem like a smart move – but for humanity it is a great loss.

Internet’s immense potential to make this planet a better place, depends on the unfiltered exchange of ideas between people and unrestricted collaboration across distance.

Every government’s attempt to “protect” it’s people from accessing “harmful” content on the Internet must be fought back. Not only countries like China, North Korea, Cuba and Iran uses this type of technology – but even democracies such as Australia and Iceland are wandering down this dangerous path.

We think that Net neutrality should be a human right.