Before I start with that I would just like to go off on a tangent and mention how easy it is to create a personal blog. It took me roughly 1 hour and 30 minutes from purchasing a domain to installing word press and blogging away. It was incredible.

Ok so let’s move on to the really educational stuff (not really). I have been thinking about how the internet liberates me in ways I never thought possible. Back in the day as a child in order to express myself I would have to use my outside voice to get my point across in a family of five. Now we have this amazing thing called the internet that lets me broadcast whatever the hell I want and potentially billions can read it. I then thought about the reason why I spend so much time on the internet and I realised it’s not just all about the interesting content out there. It’s the fact that when I’m surfing the net I have virtually no governance from others and I’m basically cut off from any kind of political control….and I really hate politics. This is where the real feeling of freedom kicks in for me.

I then thought about it a little further (yes I have way too much time on my hands at the moment) and became conscious of the fact that the only reason our internet is so liberated is because of our great Nation’s democracy. We are in fact a lucky country. While we complain about the government as they put fluoride in our water or protest the hogwash fact that recycled water is icky there are countries out there which arrest bloggers for having a point of view.

Accurate illustration of freedom levels

I then had a quick look at the great Wikipedia about internet filters and which countries use them. I found an amazing trend (haha it’s not amazing in the slightest) which I have thoughtfully placed in an extremely legible graph for you:

Although my graph was hand drawn in paint, a trend is evident here. More political control leads to more restrictions on the internet. Why? Because the only way to act out against a government is to create a following and what better way to create a following than to use the internet.

I have placed Australia under mild filtering. Now some will say that’s not right, Australia has no filtering. This is somewhat true. We have restrictions on hosting hardcore pornography but that’s about it. We are for the most part a working democracy but we take a look at the other countries which have a hard time trying to use google without breaking a sweat and see how fortunate we are. Saudi Arabia filters immoral content in general and even has a security committee that can block whatever the country’s internet users can see. Moving up on the graph and we have South Korea who actually censor and delete blog posts which criticize the government in any way. Then we have Iran….Iran is a lovely country, but seriously I would crawl up into a ball and die if I had to live there with their internet laws. Iran has actually arrested bloggers for expressing their opinion. They also block women’s rights websites, weblogs and online magazines. This is an outrage…ladies I’m all about women’s rights but their most ambitious block is youtube. Who the hell blocks youtube?

Anyway that’s enough ranting for one day. Stay tuned for more mediocre blog posts from me and make sure you look at the “drunkie pants” category once it shows up. I am full of epiphanies once inebriated; I just haven’t had a chance to be so yet.