Greetings. By now you've probably heard that Google has very recently dropped some videos from YouTube that were considered offensive enough to the Thailand government that Thailand threatened a criminal lawsuit. That threat is now dropped, though at last report blocking of YouTube by Thailand may still be in place.

What you may not know -- and what has not been widely reported -- is that the controversy over the original offending videos has triggered countless mirrors of those videos themselves in various locations, and a slew of even more directly "vulgar" videos on the same theme, playable at YouTube and a morphing list of other sites.

It doesn't take more than a few minutes of research on Google to find piles of these materials, once you're provided with (or figure out) some "second-tier" keywords relating to the subject and the various personages involved in the disputes. Will Thailand soon demand that Google remove those links? Once we pass over the event horizon into the vortex of "political" censorship is it possible to ever escape?

And to what end? As predicted, it appears that Thailand's demands and Google's response in this case have fanned the flames rather than put them out, along the very lines I've talked about recently.

This is but the beginning. Google (and other Web entities) must understandably enforce their stated policies, but to the extent that these policies are viewed by the world as largely ad hoc and subject to pressure or expediency, the politically-based demands will keep on coming, much as the stereotypical blackmailer is never satisfied with the initial payment and always wants more. Meanwhile, "offending" materials will continue to circulate around the globe largely unimpeded, in ever wider circles, never to be eradicated no matter the rationale. That's just the way it is. No escape.

We can and should make diligent attempts to work through these issues -- and that means brainstorming on a scale beyond any individual boardrooms. Even then a possible -- perhaps even likely -- result of current trends will essentially be content and copyright chaos, with freedom of speech ironically a casualty as ever more repressive means to try controlling content are brought to bear. We may despite our best intentions be powerless to prevent this outcome. However, we haven't yet really even made a sincere effort at dealing with this dilemma, so it's too early to write off the possibilities of success -- yet.

But if we don't get off of our collective butts soon, we will absolutely guarantee a bad outcome for everybody involved, except perhaps for those who have long viewed free speech as an enemy, and the Internet as their personal mechanism for societal control.

The Internet is arguably in its own way the most powerful tool created since the nuclear bomb. The battles over control of the Net's content may prove to be as important in the sphere of human rights and culture, as battles over nukes are to the survival of mankind.

This isn't just about money, business plans, and stockholders, or even stimulating R&D. It's about human rights and our collective intellectual and political futures. We're screwing up. We will not be forgiven if we haven't even tried to get this right.

--Lauren--