"We can’t circumvent our way around internet censorship."
That’s the key message of Ethan Zuckerman’s post “Internet Freedom: Beyond Circumvention.” I’ll repeat it: “We can’t circumvent our way around internet censorship.”
It’s a long, complex post, and very much worth reading. It starts from the economics of running an ISP that can provide circumvention to all of China, goes to the side effects of such a thing (like spammers using it), and then continues to ask why we want circumvention anyway.
Take some time and go read “Internet Freedom: Beyond Circumvention.”