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Censorship is not the same as international trade barriers.

A trade barrier is a tax or tariff that is designed to make foreign goods cost more than local goods. If the person can afford to pay the price difference, then the goods can be purchased or used. There may be some countries where the good is actually banned, and you are arrested if caught with it, but that is not the normal case. (In the US Cuban Cigars is one example of a banned item that can be purchased if made somewhere else. Cigars are legal, but Cuban Cigars are not, and it takes a chemist to tell the difference if there is no label.)

Censorship is a complete ban of information or a point of view. Having the information or promoting the information leads to jail or fines. Although the elite in the censored countries may have the information, they do not admit to having it and do not promote it.

The closest thing to this in the US, is child porn, where someone with pictures on their hard drive can be jailed only for possessing the pictures. Otherwise the only censorship in the USA is related to security and military.

Some people equate self-restraint with censorship, but for most discussions, censorship is defined as a Government ban. Corporations and individuals can choose to not talk about something, but that is not censorship.

Google has nothing to gain from censorship, since it requires more people and other resources to censor information. They do allow individuals to practice self-restraint by providing adult content filters.

Learn more about this author, Arthur J. Byrnes.
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