So the US is starting a digital BBC World Service, is it?
For many decades now the BBC World Service has been providing the news, unfiltered, unvarnished and uncensored to those unfortunate enough to live under an informationally suppressant government. We think this is a jolly good idea.
The US has built a portal that will allow Europeans to view blocked content including alleged hate speech and terrorism, according to Reuters.
The portal, “freedom.gov”, will allow worldwide users to circumvent government controls on their content. The site features a graphic of a ghostly horse galloping above the Earth, and the motto: “Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready.”
The United States is - apparently - to offer much the same. Unfiltered, unvarnished, uncensored, access to what is being said on the internet. We think that’s a jolly good idea. Obviously so - it’s exactly the thing the BBC World Service has been offering those poor, benighted for all those decades.
We’re less than happy that it’s us that has to be provided with this service, us that are the poor, benighted, for it is evidence that our own government is becoming increasingly informationally suppressant. But that access to the unfiltered, unvarnished and uncensored will still be possible whatever domestic politics seems to us to be a jolly good idea.
Tim Worstall