Freedom of press 1 – Censorship 0
As you probably all know, there is this issue about wedding involving a rich guy and a cute girl (it’s always like that isn’t it?).
It’s funny because there is a gag order ordered by the court. This mean that no media in Quebec (or Canada?) can disclose the identity of those two persons.
Now I don’t mind about the issue. It’s their own personnal issue and if they need to go to court to fix it then fine. Let’s leave them alone for a bit. The real problem is freedom of press and accessibility to information. How can a gag order be enforced in this Internet era? Impossible. Why bother attacking freedom of the press in this case? Do you really think that the photographs and people at the court kept quiet and never told anyone? Come on…
If people want to know who they are, they just need to hit Google and in less than a few seconds, all the information will be available from sites outside of the jurisdiction.
It’s pathetic to even try to block information. Censorship is futile.
Courts and governments have always been several steps behind technological change. One can argue that this is one of the most disruptive changes in recent history, as far as the spread of information is concerned.
When only journalists had the power to disseminate information, these gag orders made sense. The law will eventually recognize that it’s futile and change it. But it will take some time and several instances like this one for lawmakers to see the point.
Well if they put in place the great firewall of Quebec (in reference to the one in China) then perhaps we’ll be able to restrict access to some information. But even the one in China is full of holes. You simply cannot control the mass anymore. The people will not be defeated.
But I agree, the government IS behind technology. No offense but it’s run by people who probably don’t own a computer :)