Day 85: Restricted

I thought you might find it interesting to know that in light of recent events in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere, local authorities have decided to restrict free use of some websites like YouTube and blogs. It seems like my blogging platform is easy to access, perhaps because it is linked together with other Google-related accounts. WordPress and LiveJournal, for example, are inaccessible from inside Kazakhstan. We feel rather free here - and we have open conversations (although not of the overly political sort) with locals frequently. It's easy to forget until you run into an article highlighting the Freedom House's rating on Internet freedom or you try to access a site and Google reminds you that it is unavailable. From my non-techy vantage point, it makes me wonder how it is even possible to filter or stop free flow of information in the Internet age. There just seems to be so much out there -- and in so many places.