But in Asia, home to everything from free-wheeling democracies to totalitarian regimes and others in between, many governments are increasingly realising that controlling online content, including dissent, just will not work.
Even China, which strongly regulates the Internet and is grappling with how to deal with the extremely popular microblogs read by hundreds of millions of its people, is highly unlikely to block them completely.
"Governments are committing quite a bit of resources and time to block websites and I think it's a panic reaction," says Phil Robertson, Bangkok-based deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch.
"They have some temporary, immediate discouraging effect but over the longer term, they won't be effective because people will still find a way to get the news they want to hear.
"Once people have been exposed to the Internet and see the power of getting information free to your computer, it's a very addictive feeling of empowerment."
That snowballing of sentiment has played out this year in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, where governments have been overthrown by movements bolstered by the Internet. The United States tried to block dissemination of the WikiLeaks cables and British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to temporarily censor social networking sites after riots last month.
Asia is also learning first-hand about the ubiquitous power of the wired world.
In India, authorities were taken aback last month when an anti-corruption campaign multiplied on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites and drew tens of thousands of people to protest sites.
But there were no signs the government tried in any way to crack down on the online crusade, even if it could have.
"At the rate in which it gained momentum, I don't think the government actually had the time to ban the movement," said Vijay Mukhi, a cyber-security expert.
