Google Chairman Warns of Censorship after Arab Spring

BBC News: At a conference in Ireland, Google chairman Eric Schmidt expressed his belief that dictatorial governments will begin restricting free expression on the Web following the democratic uprisings in Arab countries that occurred this spring. Many of these movements used Web-based technologies to organize protests and communicate with others. Schmidt says that as a result, government censorship of the Internet is going to “get worse,” and he said that some technology executives could face arrest and torture.

Schmidt compared Web censorship to government regulation of television saying, “If you look at television in most of these countries, television is highly regulated because the leaders, partial dictators, half dictators or whatever you want to call them understand the power of television imagery to keep their citizenry in some bucket.”