It's a mashed up world out there

This blog is turning into yet another whinge about work: YAWAW, or YAWN. It was never meant to be. So let me pretend that I'm saying something wider about society and the internet rather than just about my terrible employers.
If you're into things webby, you'll almost certainly have read about if not actually read Tim O'Reilly's call for (self-)censorship, which has made the headlines in a number of places. I think what's shocked the internet community is that someone with as much understanding of the web should advocate this approach, when the whole strength of the web has been its liberalism; I use the term with all its implicitly positive and negative connotations.
Generally the internet has grown because it is innovative and free form, permitting the majority of people with the financial means to post content little hindrance to do so. There are of course exceptions, but generally this liberalism has led to rapid innovation of diversity of content, business models and technology. This is particularly in evidence in the much rehashed concept of Web 2.0. Such innovation creates issues for the politically reactionary, but few in our industry would have expected Tim O'Reilly to form part of that group.
You wouldn't expect the leading internet agency in Europe to form part of that group either, but an email to staff suggests otherwise:

[We] have been asked to attend a brainstorming seminar at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on April 19th to explore the subject of how digital media can be used to defend against radicalisation.

The FCO tells us:

Groups such as Al Qaeda use the Internet and other communication media to great effect for propaganda and recruitment purposes.

Leaving aside my doubts about how much Al Qaeda is a cohesive group that distributes mass email and uploads photos of insurgent activities onto Flickr or terrorist mash-ups onto Facebook, let's just consider the company's reaction. It accepts without question that radicalisation is wrong and that the internet should be used to control it, then seeks to engage staff in telling the government why. So we're telling the government how to censor ourselves (coz they sure as hell don't know) while we tell our clients about how radical our thinking is in providing innovative solutions on the internet. We're provocative, we are. You can be too. Unless you're doing something that's not right. We'll be the judge of that though. So, we can create Web 2.0 style forums and develop some of the biggest mash-ups in the UK, but we're in favour of censorhip. That's because we're ethical. But we can still build sites for arms and cigarette manufacturers.
Wow, it's a complex world out there.