Title: Why Internet Censorship is Bad for Everyone
Headings: Why Internet Censorship is Bad for Everyone
Why Internet Censorship is Bad for Everyone
First World Problems
Slowing Progress
Anonymity
Bad for Business
Follow the Money
Access for All

Content: Slowing Progress
It should come as no surprise to learn that censorship typically targets new ideas rather than old ones. Some new ideas are so controversial and challenge the system to such an extreme degree that it may be argued that these ideas are heretical. But let us not forget how ideas once thought to be the product of insanity are now regular practice. Doctors should wash their hands, right? Unfortunately for many unnecessarily lost patients, this wasn’t always the case. A man by the name of Ignaz Semmelweis first championed the idea that doctors washing their hands and instruments could reduce the rate of death in hospitals. He was right, as we know today, but to his contemporaries he was a nut. He was ostracized from his position as a doctor and eventually died in a mental hospital. But his story is important when it comes to sharing ideas on the internet. Unlike in Semmelweis’s time, ideas can be shared much more immediately, so long as they aren’t blocked by censorship.