Censorship 2.0

Y'know how everyone is up in arms about the whole ridiculous Internet censorship thing? Well, from what I hear, they want to take it a step further. A source at a large, national, telecommunications company that has a really bad advertising campaign promoting broadband (and begins with the letter B) recently informed me that the Ministry of Disinformation has requested...wait for it... an assessment of the feasibility of blocking the torrent protocol.

Yup. That's right. Torrents. They want to take away our torrents now. Bastards.

Whether or not they'll succeed depends on a few things, but I doubt Batelco and the other telecoms would oblige. They would be raping their revenue streams. Who the hell would consider paying 60 bloody dinars for a measly 25GB of bandwidth that they WOULD'NT BE ABLE TO USE?

And it gets worse. Much worse. According to another source, the Ministry is now allegedly in the process of acquiring a new, rather expensive ($150K+) system to filter content on Youtube. Unlike the torrent blocking feasibility study, this is (allegedly) going ahead full steam. Soon, the Ministry will tell you what non-pornographic, already monitored, homemade content you may or may not be able to view. 

This is ridiculous. Pathetic. Primitive. Pointless. Retarded. Ignorant.  Youtube is the world's biggest forum for self-expression. It nurtures creativity. It teaches. It entertains. Surely this is what the Ministry of Culture should be doing? 

The Ministry is using a system that is typically used by corporations to limit employees' online access in an effort to protect productivity. Blue Coat is its name. They spent a fair chunk of cash getting it, and allegedly, requested the system by name. So, it stands to reason that the Ministry believes we all work for them. In effect, they think they own us. And they are unhappy with how much time we spend doing 'frivolous' things. This is not how a democracy works. This is draconian, totalitarianist, dictatorial behaviour. 

We should be ashamed, outraged and above all, vocal. Complain as much as you can, to whoever is willing to listen. Write letters, post blogs, tell friends, distribute fliers, shout it from rooftops... A concerted effort to get our Kingdom's pointless attempt to control the minds of the population recognised in international media is needed. Yes, we may be giving Bahrain a bad name, but in doing so, we may also be able to prevent it from becoming a complete joke. Complain while you can. Soon, all forms of opinion will be BLOCKED FOR VIOLATING REGULATIONS AND LAWS OF THE KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN.