As the internet continues to grow and spread, it continues to show that this medium is the next printing press. The printing press allowed for mass distribution of retainable information. (Radio and television have had an impact, but not to the same degree. Those {excluding tape recorders and VCRs} only were a delivery system but no way of retaining that information.) Retainable information does not require a person to actively transmit (by voice) the ideas. Long after the person is gone, the ideas can be passed along to others. Because of the resiliency, a free press was the measure of how democractic, tollerant, and (in my opinion) good a society was.
Now the internet is providing that measuring rod. Blogging is a low cost, highly efficient (especially when combined with RSS or Atom feeds) way to mass distribute information. Bloggers are now the new press. (I will not address the concerns with the decline of the professional reporter - that is for another time.) And as the new press, how free those bloggers are is the measurement of how free that society is. There are concerns over the undemocratic distribution of the internet, ie Africa, as a whole, is lagging behind, but that is no different than any other distribution system because it takes money for it to operate.
My prime example is that Microsoft is considering leaving China. I don't know how largely the potential money will impact that decision, but it is telling that an executive is voicing that option. Perhaps it is just to scare the power brokers in China; I doubt that the shareholders would like money being thrown away. However, most other people in the world are not supportive of a non-free press and do not wish to support, with their dollars (or yen, or pounds or Euros), a company that will ban free speech.
