The US Department of State wants to allocate $19 million to fight internet censorship in countries whose regime Washington deems authoritarian – primarily, in Iran and China.
The money will go to develop new technology that will help to spread material that has been banned by the authorities.US documentary producer Brian Drolet says it is a political tool that Washigton is using very selectively.“It is an instrument to try and cause trouble for potential rivals, competitors,” he told RT. “When I look at it, it is a bit hypocritical, you don’t see the US providing these funds to break censorship in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia, or Uzbekistan or a lot of other countries around the world, that severely censor the access of their population to the internet. But here in the US we have China as a potential rival, Iran is in the crosshairs of the US. You have to look at it as at another instrument of the foreign policy objectives of the US.”Drolet pointed out that prior to the Egyptian uprising, Hosni Mubarak’s regime censored the internet in the country for years and yet the US never allocated any funds to break that censorship. He also talked about other contradictions that show the hypocritical intent of the US government. “At the time that Mubarak tried to shut down the internet, there was a bill in Congress that would have given the president of the United States the power to throw the switch and shut off the internet in case of an emergency,” he said.