Google, while subtly taking over the world, have always fought the good fight in terms of free access to information and connectivity. On Monday, Google will kick-off a few new methods that they hope might level the playing fields, and help those under oppressive regimes sidestep oppression and censorship.

The trouble with internet access in places like China, Iran, Syria and Russia is that the respective governments have a bit of a choke-hold on what may and may not be accessed – in an attempt (especially in the case of China) to prevent their citizens getting any knowledge about how free, fair and democratic the rest of the world is. Also, they don’t want their citizens telling the world how kak it is in their countries.

But that is about to be a thing of the past, because as of Monday users in censored nations will be able to perform an identity-swap with someone in a censor-free nation. What does that mean? It means that for the first time, the grass-roots stories of oppression in these countries will be given a platform to be heard – and citizens of these countries will be able to surf the web without their governments blocking certain sites.

This new tool, called uProxy, creates a link between two users who know and trust each other – one who is avoiding government censorship, and one who is allowing the censored user to browse the web using an uncensored identity. This is an enormous step for activists, especially in places like Syria where journalists are having a hard time establishing what hell is going on amidst the gunfire.

Alternatively, non-censored users can use their new Syrian friend’s internet identity, and experience the web as a Syrian would – without Google, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter (what do you do online without those sites anyway?).

Let’s just hope that Syrian users who log in with an uncensored identity for the first time don’t go reading the YouTube comments.

[Source : The Daily Beast]