Singapore is just one of many examples of nations which want substantial benefits from being part of the international information Web, but want to filter what their citizens see. Whether this censorship reaches across national borders and restricts what others can see is not clear. It is easier for an information service to ban all material found objectionable by any nation from its site then to risk the loss of business from noncompliance. This is what happened with Germany and Compuserve. The obvious danger is that if one takes the intersection of what all nations and cultures find acceptable it may be very small and the global network may dissolve into groups of nations which are culturally and politically compatible.
Similar problems exist within nations.
The prosecution of a San Francisco system operator by the prosecutor in Tennessee is an example of the difficulties caused by the border ignoring and culture ignoring photons. It will cause difficulties for governments and law enforcement agencies as the technology is adopted by forces that operate outside the law - terrorists, organized crime, drug dealers etc. Many of our standard techniques for monitoring the behavior of such groups such as wire tapping, communications monitoring, infiltration of counter-spies, etc., will be hampered by the network technology. The balance between rights and duties is very difficult for a free society. Perhaps the best that can be said was said many years ago - They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.