Many people have asked me about the of the internet in this country. Here’s what I’ve noticed so far. The rumors are true, but the lack of access to certain sites hasn’t affected my ability to get work done and access information on the ‘Net. However, the most glaring blocked site I’ve noticed is www.wikipedia.org, and that’s a pretty important site. In no apartment, library, or Starbucks will you be able to get to this site. It just spins until it just times out. However, businesses often have exceptions. I can see wikipedia at work, but I’m a tiny minority of people who can see that site at the workplace.   Check out this image below:

As a test, I did a Google search on that famous event in 1989. Of course, the results showed wikipedia.org is right up there near the top, so I tried opening that link in a new browser tab (the first tab that failed to load in the photo above). I also opened a new tab for Google Video and got the result that you see above (note the highlighted text that I have in that image…plus, the text below that!.Do you think they’re expecting to have this content soon?) The other pages that wouldn’t load are articles on sites of similar prestige as wikipedia. They all failed to display. I also searched for the video on youtube.com and I saw the results, but clicking on any of these videos yielded an “HTTP Connection Rest” error.

The internet is like a failing dyke that the gub’ment is trying plug with as many fingers as possible. There’s nowhere near enough fingers to go around, even in this country and you can find gaps if you look hard enough. I guess the idea is to block the easy and obvious, with the biggest bang-for-the-buck. I was bound and determined to find this photo and it didn’t take me too long. The interesting thing about this now uber-famous photo is that there’s not much awareness here of it, or that unnamed, unknown person standing alone in the photo. I’ve asked two people if they know that famous photo; they didn’t (were they telling me the truth?). I’ll have to keep asking the question and get a better feel of just how little awareness there is, but what I’ve found so far is aligned with what I’ve heard from others.