If I were to try to control the internets, I’d do it on many levels.
First, no web anonymity. Verified ID for everyone online, perhaps with the help of some government-furnished technology*.
Second, designate certain sites as illegal, then by court order have their URLs removed from the DNS servers, and heavy fines for ISPs that allowed content from those sites to pass through or reside on their servers.
Third, a $200 reward for anyone who finds illegal content online (hate speech, intolerance, homophobia, anti-progressive thought, Rushism, you get the picture) to be paid regardless of whether or not there is an arrest.
Fourth, allow local police departments to confiscate the computers and other property of offenders who are convicted. Not their homes, or cars, right away, I’d save that incentive once the ball got rolling.
Fifth, allow, encourage, and possibly subsidize civil suits against owners of websites and their server hosts and ISPs for disseminating hurtful content.
I’d encourage news outlets to run several stories a week about how someone became a victim of other people’s internet abuses, and stories of arrests and internet-bans-for-life of miscreants.
Within a decade there would only be sales-oriented sites, official government or MSM news sites, careful entertainment sites, and the like.
For the children.
*So if someone here said Barack Hussain Obama is a murtad fitri, that person could expect a visit.
Boy, you know how to send a chill down a person’s back, don’t you.
>> If I were to try to control the internets, I’d do it on many levels. &etc
Fair enough.
Let’s leave aside, for the moment, the *practicality* of carrying out some of the tactics you suggest, and just assume they are all feasible.
My counter-argument: such actions would be OPPOSED at many levels by a huge number of capable opponents.
For many that we would consider left-wing and who almost certainly supported the Obama/Dem takeover, these tactics you mention would be anathema: showstoppers to re-election of those attempting them.
Should a government — particularly a “sinister Bushitler/Cheney Fascist Pig government” but indeed ANY government — attempt this sort of thing, they would be opposed not only from the right, but also from the left like you would not believe.
Kos and DU and FreeRepublic and Reason and Townhall and Truthout and so on and so forth would find themselves (temporarily) occupying the same bed.
Mind you, a lot of these leftist “kids” are exactly the sort that you would want on your side opposing this kind of repression. They know the tricks and the tools of the trade.
So, again I’ll say, I see the danger and it’s great to be aware of it and spread awareness of it, but I think there are significant forces arrayed against it as well.