50 stars, 13 stripes, one better day for mankind everywhere

A new Obama administration policy on Internet freedom, seen by some as an attempt to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, will help people get around barriers in cyberspace while making it harder for autocratic governments to use the same technology to repress dissent. America has been good to the world over the years by providing great TV shows like Family Guy to broadcasters around the world (one area in which the British continually fail miserably but sometimes the odd gem does slip through like what happened with Mr Bean) while at the same time fattening the global populace up with restaurants like McDonald's and KFC, and America is now helping people in oppressive Internet environments get around filters, stay one step ahead of the censors, the hackers, and the thugs who beat them up or imprison them for what they say online. Although not aimed solely at China, the new efforts are in part intended to help users circumvent the so-called Great Firewall, a far-reaching menu of direct censorship and “opinion guidance” that restricts what the country’s 450 million Internet users can read or write online. However, some have criticized the US for not pouring funding into a single technology, but there is no silver bullet in the struggle against Internet repression, and besides, if repressive governments figure out how to target one tool, others will be available.