Will Western Tech Firms Stand for Freedom? Experts Are Split

Internet experts are about evenly split on whether Western-based technology firms will protect dissidents in autocratic nations a decade down the road or whether they’ll be aiding the oppressors, according to a report released Thursday...

By 2020, they said, Western technology firms “will have taken steps to minimize their usefulness as tools for political organizing by dissidents. They will reason that too much association with sensitive activities will put them in disfavor with autocratic governments. Indeed, in this world, commercial firms derive significant income from filtering and editing their services on behalf of the world's authoritarian regimes.”...