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Is Internet Censorship Doomed To Fail?

American companies like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo help authoritarian governments, such as China, censor the Internet. The companies' defense: Internet censorship is doomed and bringing the Internet into countries -- even censored -- will hasten the day when those countries are open. But critics say those arguments are self-serving and just plain wrong.

Ars Technica:

[T]he story of China's rise to date has been one of economic liberalization coupled with the maintenance of an authoritarian political structure. With China being vast enough to support a massive internal ecosystem of Internet companies and services, there's certainly no guarantee that ordinary Chinese citizens will ever feel the need to evade the country's Great Firewall. And why bother? It's not difficult to do, but it carries severe risks.

What do you think? Are execs at American companies that cooperate with overseas censors realistic in saying that they're actually promoting openness? Or are those executives simply selling out?

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