The world will be exposed to hardcore pornography, child endangerment, AI CSAM, and militant algorithms by force, if needed!
Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine (2018) directly claims the internet is “the most effective weapon the government has ever built,” tracing its roots to Pentagon counterinsurgency projects like ARPA’s efforts in Vietnam-era surveillance.
The book argues surveillance was “woven into the fabric” from the start, linking early ARPANET development to intelligence goals, and extends to modern tech giants like Google as part of a military-digital complex.
Why? Seriously, why do we care so much about this?
Do we not have better uses of our money. Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
These things have been going on forever. Since WWII and until right now, there has been radio stations broadcasting into enemy territory, to bypass censorship.
> Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
Well you've got plenty of countries doing it, including France, Iran, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Brasil, Australia, you name it. Not that it's good, but a criticism for the goose is a criticism for the gander, as a manner of speaking.
As to which, why or why do we care so much about this? Idk, same reason our government funds tens of thousands of initiatives and cares about lots of different things that people find equally important or unimportant.
Historically the US did care a lot, in a way it reminds me of the Crusade for Freedom [1] and Radio Free Europe [2].
So I find this in line with the behavior of many American administration, the weird thing being that this time the target is not the just usual suspects (China, Iran, etc.) but also European allies.
(not saying this is a good thing btw, just trying to put it in perspective)
Weird title, but worthy of discussion. From the little info available so far this appears to be little more than political posturing. If you want to fight censorship, an "online portal" to access all the censored content is the wrongest possible way to go about it. But we'll see.
Since no one seems to have a serious answer to this…the answer is yes, it would easily be blocked. Beyond that, absolutely no one would use this service. Therefore, it can be considered to be nothing more than political posturing by a weak administration.
I just chaired a session at the FOCI conference earlier today, where people were talking about Internet censorship circumvention technologies and how to prevent governments from blocking them. I'd like to remind everyone that the U.S. government has been one the largest funders of that research for decades. Some of it is under USAGM (formerly BBG, the parent of RFE/RL)
and some of it has been under the State Department, partly pursuant to the global Internet freedom program introduced by Hillary Clinton in 2010 when she was Secretary of State.
I'm sure the political and diplomatic valence is very different here, but the concept of "the U.S. government paying to stop foreign governments from censoring the Internet" is a longstanding one.
This is somewhat counterintuitive: The US is the only country I know where most newspapers and government services use strict geoblocks to prevent me from accessing US sites in Europe. Conversely, I've never had any problems accessing European sites from the US. I know this is for a different set of reasons (likely GDPR cookie law or similar), but it's funny that anyone thinks blocks like this are relevant. Most people I know use VPNs these days to make their traffic appear to come from whatever country they need.
That's actually a related issue. European governments routinely and sometimes illegally attempt to enforce their laws against American websites, so if you run a website it's easier to just block the entire continent than to deal with that.
Better than the alternative where they don't, I suppose. Kind of like how for some political things you have to use yandex to search because US search companies suppress the results.
Country-1: "Absolutely free speech! Except when it's about Country-4 -> rights revoked."
Country-2: "Criticize Country-4 all you want, but talking smack about Country-5 is treason buddy."
Country-3: "Wait... so I can roast Country-4 but not Country-5... and also not Country-6? My head hurts."
Country-4: "We don't block anything! ...Just not that thing you're talking about."
Country-5: "See Country-3? We absolutely love speech. As long as it praises us. Freedom yay!"
In the end, we might end up having the very same private vpn';s (or tor) routing their traffic over these gov. vpn's based on keyword matches in the request.. or customer's will be able to choose .. kinda like auto-model feature on openrouter lol.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 93.0 ms ] threadSurveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet by Yasha Levine (2018) directly claims the internet is “the most effective weapon the government has ever built,” tracing its roots to Pentagon counterinsurgency projects like ARPA’s efforts in Vietnam-era surveillance.
The book argues surveillance was “woven into the fabric” from the start, linking early ARPANET development to intelligence goals, and extends to modern tech giants like Google as part of a military-digital complex.
Do we not have better uses of our money. Also the irony considering recent moves by the US government in terms of control of the internet and free speech.
Well you've got plenty of countries doing it, including France, Iran, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Brasil, Australia, you name it. Not that it's good, but a criticism for the goose is a criticism for the gander, as a manner of speaking.
As to which, why or why do we care so much about this? Idk, same reason our government funds tens of thousands of initiatives and cares about lots of different things that people find equally important or unimportant.
So I find this in line with the behavior of many American administration, the weird thing being that this time the target is not the just usual suspects (China, Iran, etc.) but also European allies.
(not saying this is a good thing btw, just trying to put it in perspective)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_for_Freedom
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Libert...
https://freedom.gov/
visuals with the only text on screen being...
---
"Freedom is Coming"
Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready.
Weird title, but worthy of discussion. From the little info available so far this appears to be little more than political posturing. If you want to fight censorship, an "online portal" to access all the censored content is the wrongest possible way to go about it. But we'll see.
"...user activity on the site will not be tracked."
Ok, stopped reading right there.
It's one thing to block some random .gov site unused for anything else, it's another thing to block a domain used for, say, filing flight plans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Globa...
and some of it has been under the State Department, partly pursuant to the global Internet freedom program introduced by Hillary Clinton in 2010 when she was Secretary of State.
I'm sure the political and diplomatic valence is very different here, but the concept of "the U.S. government paying to stop foreign governments from censoring the Internet" is a longstanding one.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/19/us-funding-for...
Country-1: "Absolutely free speech! Except when it's about Country-4 -> rights revoked."
Country-2: "Criticize Country-4 all you want, but talking smack about Country-5 is treason buddy."
Country-3: "Wait... so I can roast Country-4 but not Country-5... and also not Country-6? My head hurts."
Country-4: "We don't block anything! ...Just not that thing you're talking about."
Country-5: "See Country-3? We absolutely love speech. As long as it praises us. Freedom yay!"
In the end, we might end up having the very same private vpn';s (or tor) routing their traffic over these gov. vpn's based on keyword matches in the request.. or customer's will be able to choose .. kinda like auto-model feature on openrouter lol.