Craig Benzine speaking at VidCon 2012 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Wikicommons/ Gage Skidmore. Some rights reserved.30 years ago, it was easy to silence ideas. Not reporting on something could guarantee its obscurity. The internet changed all that by allowing almost anyone to start up a blog, vlog, or website and do their own reporting.
By lowering the barrier to entry, would-be journalists and political commentators have emerged from every corner of the internet. As global internet access has increased, so too has our collective ability to make the media our own.
This scares dictators. It’s why countries such as North Korea, China, and Turkey have a censored internet, an extension of the other kinds of media censorship in those countries. As Xi Jinping put it, the media must “love the party, protect the party, and closely align themselves with the party leadership in thought, politics and action.”
