Right, but the article is not even handed when dealing with the role of Western-state-sponsored disruption that these countries are having to deal with. It dism

Right, but the article is not even handed when dealing with the role of Western-state-sponsored disruption that these countries are having to deal with. It dismisses the explanation that investigation and shutdown of radicalizing social media and disruptive ideas is done A.) both by Western and non-Western states and B.) that Western states radicalize social media and news media to achieve policy and geopolitical goals for the crude and inequitable implication that instead these states are just 'evil'. It just isn't that way. When Twitter is being used by competing nations as a means to incite riots in your people, what would you do if you were in power? Looking to America's present: Fusion Centers track various political groups including the Tea Party, Occupy was dismantled by federal agent intervention, access to stories, interviews and meetings is given to journalists and news corporations that 'play ball' with the government and several extremely important political stories have been repressed (Risen's first NSA surveillance story circa second Bush election) or pushed (including false stories, such as the Fallujah Psyop and the partnership with journalist Judith Miller to falsely justify the invasion of Iraq). But we don't even need to look at that. We can look at the link included in the very first post - the US government wants to be able to study radicalizing Twitter messages targeting Americans. Looking to America's past you'll see that both Red Scares burgeoned the state with extra-Constitutional capabilities to restrict American speech, as it was believed that dangerous ideas coming from the last domino of revolutions in Europe (the Soviet Union) where more extreme versions of populist ideas (the Bolsheviks) threatened the system and the status quo so fully it could foment in the end of the US government (as it had already done repeatedly in Europe). Take the Mayor of Jersey City Frank Hague during the Red Scare: "We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist.' You never hear a real American talk like that." That is to say America does do and has done the same sort of restrictions of free speech this article, and others in this thread, would import into a sense of 'evil'. Yes, there's been a global crack down on the internet. A global one. In Western states, there has been too. It's just inequitable to attribute the crack down in non-Western states to 'evilness' and the crack down in Western states to 'practicality'. And to ignore the pressures and leverages on non-Western states placed on them by America/allies. That's what this part of the thread of the discussion is about. As far as the discussion specifically of Western governments and their use of realpolitik, I think it was mostly spurred by the comment suggesting it might be justified by Western 'spreading of freedom' (the thread then focused on analyzing this, and correctly identified IMHO that Western states don't have that track record of spreading freedom attributed to them in myth).