> So I wonder quite how sanctimonious we in the west look to the Chinese when we preach about internet freedom.
Good point, within reason, but that's like saying that we have no right to criticize North Korea's prison labor camps because we have prisons of our own. Shades of gray.
I left the UK a while ago, but tell me - are people being dragged away by the police in the middle of the night for calling David Cameron a hypocritical, arrogant two-faced tosser?
No?
Then let's continue to criticize China, and recognize that the West, though by no means beyond reproach, is still a goddamn beacon of freedom and liberty compared to there.
And just to earn my share of downvotes for the day I'll throw this thought in - if there's a threat to free speech in the West, it comes not from governments, but from the new authoritarian Left - "you can say what you want as long as it meets our standards of right-on Groupthink. And you can only have a valid opinion on /anything/ if you're not a heterosexual white male."