I accept that the Chinese government is terrible. It's the incredulous "it would never happen in The Free World™" tone of the article that pisses me off.
Do people believe the government doesn't shut down or freeze individual sites at will? Been on 4chan today?
Do people really believe the Chinese government has jailed more people for expression on the Internet than the United States government? Do people believe the U.S. government isn't monitoring or manipulating the Internet? Back doors? Warrantless surveillance? Lurking? Subpoenas for user information without so much as a judge's signature? FISA? NDAA? CISPA? Does the FBI not track people or pay personal visits to people who say the wrong thing on Facebook or YouTube or any other social site?
I know we can express more here in the United States than people can in China, but I really think the feds are using the entire Internet as one giant honeypot right now, and the lid's just waiting to come down. We know the FBI collects information on non-criminal activities both in the real world and on the Internet in the event that those activities become illegal in the future. (Gore sites, for example, are being watched. It's not illegal to post gore. But when it becomes illegal, the FBI will have a list of all those people who posted on the clear Web.)
Do you know how easy it would be for the government to shut down the entire Internet in America? You have a few wireless operators, all heavily beholden to the federal government. You have a few cable and telco monopolies. Their executives and board members are all interchangeable, all part of the same sphere of influence — essentially a telecommunications cadre. This isn't accidental.
I say 10 friendly phone calls from the federal government could get 90 percent of the Internet shut down in this country inside of an hour.
Anyway, they haven't done it here yet. But that's about the only thing that distinguishes us from them.