UK government control of web: YouTube

The supposed free-for-all, uncontrollable nature of the web is used by media owners to argue for looser regulation: why should their business be stymied by regulations which web operations can ignore? This line of argument was made frequently when the super-injunctions, especially that over Ryan Giggs, were leading the headlines in 2011: Twitter users galore were naming Giggs but papers and TV were legally prevented from doing so. (Since then, of course, there have been a number of cases of Twitter users being jailed, one example being for racial abuse of footballers)

The idea that the web is free from government control is something of a myth however; you can click through either of the following for examples of stories about how our current government has managed to get YouTube to delete a range of videos that would be politically embarassing - I wonder what John Prescott (who just this week argued that the likes of Twitter have ushered in a golden age of citizen freedom, of freedom of expression) would make of this?

If the bloggers below are correct, is this any better than China, where the 'great firewall of China' sees web use strictly censored by a huge bureaucracy?

[source for below: http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/leveson-pressreform-tory-demand-u-tube.html]

In a frightening example of how the state is tightening its grip around the free Internet, it has emerged that You Tube is complying with thousands of requests from governments to censor and remove videos that show protests and other examples of citizens simply asserting their rights, while also deleting search terms by government mandate.....read more

http://theintelhub.com/2011/05/20/government-orders-you-tube-to-censor-protest-videos/

Cameron told GOOGLE to block search items on the Internet

http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/leveson-pressreform-government-ask.html

Cameron ordered armed police to threaten nurses and doctors during a NHS demonstration so he could pass the bill. Cameron censored the entire evenings events.

http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com.es/2012/05/leveson-pressreform-cameron-ordered.html