I’ve said something to this effect before: I plan on seeing the Internet become far less useful than it is now. More to the point, it will approach uselessness in gospel outreach.
There are several forces at work here, as I see it. One is that nations will assert increasing censorship, so that they have the same level of control as they do with every other form of mass communications. The only message available with be the one approved by the globalists (of both stripes). Thus, I’m praying about other ways to communicate. I’m trusting the Lord to come up with something we don’t currently see.
Another is the systemic control, the kind of thing where no one dares cross certain boundaries. I’m seeing a sort of realignment in Open Source software, for example, that makes the development more and more dependent on commercial sponsorship. With that comes a very low level sort of censorship, where the tools that permit free communication are completely missing. Have you noticed how all web browsers now favor advertisers over the users?
Yes, I realize that there will always be the dissidents who will push the anti-censorship ethics, but they are becoming more and more isolated from the general public at large. Today I bumped into a website that refused to display the contents for me because I used an oddball web browser (Pale Moon), and it made them suspicious, so they blocked my IP address. The dissidents will have their own thing in their corners of the Net, and nobody else will pay any attention to them.
Folks, the only reason I use the Net is because it works as a means to sharing the gospel. When it ceases to serve that purpose, it’s just another tool that has worn out. Here’s the funny part: I’ve finally gotten to the point when a more powerful computer would offer no advantage whatsoever. The Lord has provided abundantly; all the hardware tools I could wish for are in my hands, just about at the same time they become less and less useful for my mission calling.
It makes me wonder just what is coming next.
Did you try accessing that site through a proxy website? That might let you know for sure if your IP was targeted.
The times get more interesting by the day, don’t they?
I didn’t test the site beyond the random attempt to view a single article. It wasn’t that important to me.