Infographic of the Day: Censorship Muzzles 1/4 of the World's Population

Here's another intriguing infographic from the Woorkup, which shows two things: At the top, the number of people around the world affected by censorship. And, at the bottom, the portion of people in those countries that have access to the internet:

There's probably not much to say about this, except to note that the topline figure for people muzzled by censorship is a shockingly massive portion of the world--25% of people alive.

Then again, you could argue that censorship is only effective in countries where Internet penetration is low, because with a bit of technical know-how it's easy to hop the Internet firewalls such as the ones that China and Iran have in place. So while censorship has grown, it's probably not nearly as effective a tool for state control as it once was.

And that might be one reason why in many of the countries with both high censorship and high Internet penetration--such as China, Iran, and Egypt--the government is sustained by nationalism. After all, you may hate your government, but you'll let them stand if you hate everyone else even more.