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Censorship Your Rights Online

Gag The UK Net in 3 Easy Steps 131

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thats-pretty-bad dept.
Ponderu writes "BBC News is carrying a story about how easy it is to get a website pulled in the UK. They asked several ISPs how they would react to a sample site and the news is not encouraging. " Very frightening.
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Gag The UK Net in 3 Easy Steps More

Gag The UK Net in 3 Easy Steps

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  • "Data Havens"? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Are there any providers, especially in small countries, who aren't as easily coerced? Given that truth is a defense against libel, content need not be illegal to be controversial, yet UK and US sites will pull material on demand (or from an easily purchased letter from a lawyer). I'm looking for recommendations.. Anonymonity would of course be a nice plus.

  • Re:The English law and a lack of backbone. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Remind me again. Who stood alone against the Nazis while America was sitting on its lardy arse? That would be Britain, wouldn't it. Who held off the Luftwaffe despite having far fewer planes? That would be Britain, wouldn't it. How long did America sit on its lardy arse going "Nothing to do with us?" That would be two years, wouldn't it. If it hadn't been for the Japanese the odds are it would have been down to us and the Soviets! Then again, America was also late turning up for the first world war. They've often threatened to be early for the third, though, just to make up. Incidentally, I think you'll find that the majority of English people don't give a fuck about the nobility. Get real, this is not ruritania!

  • UK - The Next Cuba? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    - It's an island - It has a socialist government (hell europe is basically ALL socialist EU==USSR for the new millenium) - No freedom of speech - Secret Police (MI5 or 6, can't remember) - State Owned Television - No private firearm ownership - Elian Gonzolez (no, wait, that's the OLD CUBA) Naw, just kidding, some of my best friends are Limeys (well, a brother-in-law) This censorship shit stinks in the UK, US, Austrailia, Canada or anywhere. Some of these little islands in the Pacific are soon going to be making BIG BUCKS hosting. Cpt_Kirks
  • What makes you think it is any different here in the US. Just to 'see' a group of classmates and I got together with a lawyer friend and wrote up a letter threatening to sue for defamation of character and trademark infringment, then we picked at random, a free hosting site in the US, on which a perfectly innocent small time author was putting short stories, the end result was SAD. Though our complaints HAD NO GROUNDS, barely even applied to the situation the site was removed within 24 hours of receipt of the letter. EVEN AFTER writing a a formal apology letter to both the auhor and the site, to this day the site is still unavailable due to technical dificulties.. OK I feel bad about this, it was poorly conceived but it DOES prove a point...

  • Re:Proud to be an American... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Agreed. It is very likely that a court could say the First Amendment doesn't apply in a civil case, since it isn't government censorship, but instead an action by a private party to get just compensation for a loss. And the court would feel obligated to award them damages. So yes, it would be the government taking your personal funds away and giving them to the plaintiff, but they could still try to side step the First Amendment issue. It would be wrong, unconstitutional, etc, but it could happen.

  • Canada is looking good. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Canada seems awfully safe and comfy these days. Have you noticed how many stories in the last month have been contrasting Canada (in a good way) with the USA, UK, Germany, Australia?

    Canada is like the "New And Improved America", but it has a few big problems:

    • Canadian politicians are pretty dumb and slow. The government is well meaning, but inefficient. (But most politician don't seem malicious or corrupt like those in America.)
    • Taxes. You'll lose 60 percent of your income to taxes. (But you might call that a trade-off for living in a compassionate society.)
    • If Canada pisses off America, then it could get turned into Cubada. This is why Canada does stuff like sending Robin Williams and an elite band of Mounties to the Oscars. Castro never sent hot chicks to America, and see what happened to him? Americans are easy to get along with if you tell them that they are the greatest.
    • The annoying beavers. They put the damn beaver on a nickel and it becomes illegal to club them. They're like rats -- always digging though the trash. (Well, I think beavers are a problem. Sorry. The natives don't seem to mind them.)

    Consider Prime Minister Jean Cretien. He is the only politician alive that speaks neither official language (English, French), but he can stand on the border between Israel and Syria and piss them both off simultaneously (they speak Hebrew and Arabic). This is both good and bad. Canada runs better when he is out travelling, but we are constantly worried that he will start a war with somebody.

    Canada has none of those nasty cancerous American social problems like guns, gross income stratification, poverty, an obviously corrupt government and 3rd estate, the rest of the world hating them...

    Most of the "real issues" consist of funding problems with health care, education, and Quebec. (But Everybody still gets healthcare, Waterloo still kicks MITs ass, and the frogs still have it too good to leave.)

    There are a few perqs too. Toronto has the most competive retail computer market in North America. The beer is not water. You life does not end if you get stuck on the welfare for a few months. You can make fun of Americans. The Americans don't get it when you make fun of them.

    Right now, given how badly other western countries are screwing their citizens, Canada looks pretty good.

  • An Open Letter to UK ISPs (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    To ALL UK ISPs:

    I hereby complain that all of your web pages are nasty, scurrilous and defamatory.

    Remove them immediately, or else!

    Since you have now received a complaint about these web pages, you are legally liable under UK law for the defamatory content of those pages.

    Have a day.

  • Come on, all it takes is a good victim story.

    • First, be a victim of the horrible web site

    • Bring in some tears, tell how you couldn't eat/sleep/poop for days/weeks/years. Involve children, they are a great pawn.

  • Oh please, we here have a crazy enough legal system to bring you to your knees. When a wacko can sue for ten million dollars for tripping over their own shoelaces, what's to stop anyone from sueing you for a web site? Trust me, it's coming soon. You'll have someone crying that they read your site about mowing the grass, and they felt so bad for the grass that they could not work for two years. Therefore for their lost income, pain and suffering, cruelty to plants, they sue you for $200 million. Your only choices are to either spend hundreds of thousands on a defense, or bring the site down. Until there is some sort of loser-pays-fees laws, you must live your life in fear of some crazy crying on TV how you hurt them.

    So it's only natural that ISPs will take sites down rather than go through any PR hassle.
  • Darn submit buttons...

    Come on, all it takes is a good victim story.

    - First, be a victim of the horrible web site.
    - Bring in some tears, tell how you couldn't eat/sleep/poop for days/weeks/years.
    - Involve children, they are a great pawn. No one wants to see a child cry.
    - Contact as many media outlets as you can. They will assist in sprucing up your story.Darn submit buttons...

    Come on, all it takes is a good victim story.

    - First, be a victim of the horrible web site.
    - Bring in some tears, tell how you couldn't eat/sleep/poop for days/weeks/years.
    - Involve children, they are a great pawn. No one wants to see a child cry.
    - Contact as many media outlets as you can. They will assist in sprucing up your story.
    - Accept nothing less than $10 million.
    - Lawyers, you can never have too many.

    Suddenly that web site reviewing movies (or something innocent) is in the position of defending itself, trying to convince the public into believe they really aren't pedofiles, racists, carpenters, etc. And voila, the web site is gone.
    - Accept nothing less than $10 million.
    - Lawyers, you can never have too many.

    Suddenly that web site reviewing movies (or something innocent) is in the position of defending itself, trying to convince the public into believe they really aren't pedofiles, racists, carpenters, etc. And voila, the web site is gone.
  • Well as soon as you start making threats your free speach runs out very fast. If I say "I hate John Doe and I'm going to kill him" on my web page, I can expect sooner or later the cops will start banging on my door.


    The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.

  • I agree. I find it deeply offensive and hurtful. It has caused me significant emotional distress. Please remove it at once.
  • The assumption that dial-up BBS stuff has gone away is a mistake. I still get my mail and news these days from what is basically a fidonet system, and I find it a significantly better service than using one of the big ISPs.
  • Gonna be damn expensive in most european countries, where we almost always have to pay by the minute for dialup calls.
  • The prominence of this article (linked from the front page of news.bbc.co.uk) is really interesting. Millions of normal BBC news website readers will have seen that, and those people are not your average techies.

    The BBC clearly sees this as a mainstream, political, non-technical issue, which is an interesting change in attitude.

  • >Go to a US web hosting site and put your stuff >up there. Then UK rules don't apply.

    Not strictly true. Recent articles on the subject has suggected non-UK ISPs could still potentially be sued under UK law as described at:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_70400 0/704316.stm

    Also more discussion at LinuxUK:

    http://www.linuxuk.co.uk/article.php3?sid=200004 06101731
  • >The ISPs "censor" the material because they have
    >to. The law (I didn't understand whether it's an
    >actual law, or based on existing cases) in the
    >UK is that if the ISP has been made aware of the
    >insulting material

    I'm not a lawer, but I have an awareness of the cases.

    Basically the law was not set by Goverment, but through case law as a result of the Godfrey/Demon case. For a while UK ISPs have been insisting they are more like telcom carriers, who can't be held responsible for content transmitted over their lines, as opposed to publishers who are responsible for what they print.

    As for US law, I'm suprised this hasn't already happened over there given the apparent litigation-happy attitude, or maybe it has happened.

  • Agreed. It is very likely that a court could say the First Amendment doesn't apply in a civil case, since it isn't government censorship,

    I have seen this view stated a number of times, and while I am neither a lawyer nor an American surely this is not what your first amendment states. It does not say "Congress (or the government or federal agency) shall not censor or directly inhibit free speech." What is say is "Congress shall make no law...". Laws are what governs the behaviour of the people not just the government. Civil cases are just as much a matter of law as criminal cases, and these laws must be just as subject to the first amendment as criminal law.

  • Any fule can see that it's the medium that is innocent; the net is a dumb medium, and it's only the messages that are conveyed that carry any intent, malicious or otherwise.

    Surely, what we need to do in the UK is organise shutdowns of *other* media. Get your phone company to call you, and when they do, get someone sat next to you to verbally call you a thief/liar/rapist, loudly enough for the message to be conveyed to the phone. Then insist that the phone company have it's lines removed for carrying defamatory material. Do this with all media. Ring in to TV and radio shows, getting people in the same room as you to carry the same message. Get everything shut down! When there's nothing left to carry commercials and adverts, all media will be reinstated.

    It's worth a try, surely!

  • European Free Speech (Score:3)

    by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @11:29AM (#1134767)
    In Europe, the equivalent of the first amendment is enshrined in the 'European Convention on Human Rights', and if our government breaks any part of it, we can take them to court in European High Court.

    However, the government was not involved in these cases, it's just the case that most ISP's have sufficient protection in their contracts to allow them to drop a site for pretty much any reason.

    As the law is still not particularly clear yet on whether an ISP can be held responsible for the content is hosts, most ISPs are much more willing to drop a customer than face an expensive court battle.

    I must admit, I'm suprised this has been moderated as high as it has been...
  • I was just reading Roger Clarke's CFP notes [anu.edu.au], linked from the older story a couple of days ago [slashdot.org]. There's a good point re: copyright law which also applies here :
    "Widespread non-compliance cannot be effectively constrained, and will demonstrate the irrelevance and inappropriateness of the law."

    Suggestion : UK /.ers start calling ISPs now. Complain about random pages that don't actually mention you. The ISPs will presumably at least check the pages before yanking them, which will start absorbing significant amounts of time. The ISPs will quickly start pressurising the DTI -- the govt will have the choice of changing the law of waving goodbye to UK-based servers.

    I'm sure there are things wrong with this idea, what have I missed ?

    \a



    --

  • I'd rather that the citizens do the discussing themselves - governments haven't had a very good record of representing the interests of the online populace in the past. Unless you count lawyers who are online, that is.

  • What the heck was up with the reference to traceroute in Win95? Doesn't every TCP/IP supporting OS under the sun come with a traceroute? Why did they conspicuously mention Microsoft's product?


    ---
  • Even over 28.8kbit, running your own server is better than having most ISPs host; and tho you may not have very fast remote access to your entire mp3 archive, you will have access to your entire mp3 archive, or whatever you want on your machine.

    If you really don't want your stuff to be open to false accusations and paranoia, or if your stuff really is inflamatory, simply host it on your own box. Problem solved. The power of a free server OS.

  • By that argument, a telivision manufacturer can be held liable for the content of the TV signal, or a newspaper printer for the content of the "opinions" column. What it comes down to is the fact that you are paying the ISP for a certain section of disk space and bandwidth. That space is essentially yours, and you should be able to do whatever you want with it. Of course, this "right" could be changed in the ISP's contract, but it should have to be explicitly stated if this right is not there.

    When you pay for something, it is yours. It's the same basic argument that is used against DeCSS and a whole slew of free speach arguments. And it is correct.

    -davek

  • I had honestly been considering going on the Linux Beer Hike [slashdot.org], but have decided no thanks to this article and listening to Johnny Rotten this past weekend.

    I have always been of the opinion that I refuse to visit a country where rights are trampled on, especially when it comes to free speech. So, I won't be visiting China anytime soon. Nor will I be going back to see Australia. Now Merry Ole England is out.

    Yeah yeah yeah... "what's it matter what I do?" - I know some of you are saying that. I hear that stuff all the time. But, as the saying goes, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Or, as I say to friends of mine who make fun of me when I say I am boycotting something, "fuck you".
  • But the UK might choose to view my webpage as illegal. So would they demand the domain be cut, demand that it not be accessable to UK viewers, or simply let it slip since the server is out of country?

    From what the article describes, this situation is crystal clear. The UK says that ISPs are responsible (after being informed). So, if you "buy" a server from an African ISP, it's outside of the UK jurisdiction. Someone who feels insulted can't sue in the UK. They might want to sue in whatever African country your ISP is holding office though.

    -- Abigail

  • It seems that US-based web hosting companies now have a sustainable business advantage over their competitors in Europe.
    1. That remains to be seen. It might very well be that if people in the US start sueing, they're backed up by the justice system.
    2. UK != Europe.
    -- Abigail

  • Re:Proud to be an American... (Score:3)

    by Abigail-II ( 20195 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @09:38AM (#1134776) Homepage
    I don't know how things work in the UK per se, but this is something that even if they had a first amendment, it would not address. The ISPs censored the material - not the government.

    The ISPs "censor" the material because they have to. The law (I didn't understand whether it's an actual law, or based on existing cases) in the UK is that if the ISP has been made aware of the insulting material, the ISP is responsible. The ISP then has two options: take the site down, or be sued and defend in court that what the person wrote wasn't insulting. Given that lawyers ask more per hour than what the typical customer pays for a year of Internet access, guess which option an ISP takes? Would you go to court to defend someone who only pays you $15/month, knowing that if you lose, you might have to pay several $100k in damages?

    Don't attack the ISPs. Attack the UK law. And don't be so sure it'll never happen in the US. As said before, the first amendment isn't going to help you.

    -- Abigail

  • I wonder if there's a British equivalent of the American ACLU and whether it thinks it's a good time to get into the ISP business...

    Kaa
  • It seems that US-based web hosting companies now have a sustainable business advantage over their competitors in Europe.
    Kaa
  • That if I own a web server I shouldn't be allowed to take down whatever I want to?
  • How difficult is it to understand that that companies/corporations are not subject to the 1st amendment ?
  • The only reason the problem is over stated is because the press have ( as usual ) got the wrong end of the stick.

    The real problem with the recent ruling against Demon was that it made UK ISP's responsible for the content for messages on USENET, even if that message did not originate from one of their users. By the act of Demon's newsservers accepting a messages that a Court of Law deemed libellous, Demon were classed of publishers of the libel, and thus responsible.

    What is needed is a law to state the 'transient' information, such as USENET, does not open up the transit provider to legal action.

    It has been pointed out that Demon could have avoided all this problem by simply cancelling the message when they were made aware of it. However, this would allow deliberate cancellation of innocuous messages, and lead us into another legal mess.
  • Please explain how
    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
    relates to what a company decides should be allowed on its own servers. The first amendment is there to stop the Government restricting freedom of the press etc. The 'press' can choose to not print whatever the hell they like. They are under no obligation.
  • There are already laws that can force you to 'unpublish' articles that are considered untruthful and damaging to a person's or corporation's image. These are not generally considered unconstitutional.

    However, in the case of web pages, there doesn't even have to be a direct threat of legal action. A person who feels libelled by a negative web page can ask the ISP to remove the page, and the ISP might think 'Yes - that's an offensive page' and remove the site, on the basis that (a) it's more trouble than it's worth keeping it there, only with the risk of legal action or (b) simply think 'yep - that's not the sort of thing we want to host'.
  • Sorry, I was aware that Demon settled before any *final* ruling was handed down - clumsy wording on my part.

    However, it has still set a legal precedent - Mr Moorland (?) *did* confirm that Demon were liable under English law for the posting. Demon were already 'guilty' - the only thing that would have been decided had the case progressed further would have been the size of the damages.

  • Re:Proud to be an American... (Score:5)

    by Durbs ( 24675 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @09:24AM (#1134785)
    'Free speech' and 'the 1st amendment' are complete red herrings in this debate. The 1st amendment applies only to Congress, and *not* private business. Corporation can censor whatever and whenever they like on *their* systems/equipment/whatever.

    The problem with the recent Godfrey vs Demon ruling is the application of libel laws and the way they allow you to sue not only the originator of the libel, but also the publisher and distributor.

    The result of this is that when faced with a choice to sue (a) the writer of the libel or (b) the distributor of the libel, it's generally the case that the distributor has the deeper pockets. Therefore, they get sued, not the author.

    Because of this, if a newsagent carries a newspaper that contains a defamatory article, you can infact sue the newsagent, or the publishing company, or the author. In the past, such cases have generally resulted in the publisher being sued, although the newsagent (distributor) has been sued on occasion.

    However, in the case of the Internet, it's the ISP's who have the cash, and so they are the ones who get sued.

    Having said that, the case that started all this, ( Godfrey vs Demon ) related to a USENET posting. This posting was not from a Demon customer, but ended up on Demon's servers in the natural course of things. Demon, upon getting a notice to remove the article, ignored it. Demon have now, in effect, been treated as the publisher of a USENET article that did not originate from them, and since it was deemed libellous, they've paid out a sum not unadjacent to 1/4 million pounds.

    THe situation now is that Demon are paranoid about USENET postings and will suspend your net access for even posting a link to an article the is defmatory/libellous, as that is also deemed as publishing.

    Whilst ISP being responsible for their users' web sites is acceptable - there is no freedom of speech, you are using the resources of a private company and they are under no obligation to let you make potentially business-damaging allegations on their equipment - there is now an air over extreme over-cautiousness, which will hopefully be moderated back down to something more sensible given time.

    The real problem is USENET. There is no way an ISP can be responsible for a USENET feed, 99% of which does not originate from their customers, and for which there is no real method of control for content based cancelling of litigation-inviting messages.

  • It's all to easy to imagine this being true of just about any ISP - we are just as prone here to having threat of a lawsuit scare an ISP into taking down almost anything.
  • Closest thing I can think of off hand would be Stand [stand.org.uk] - however they're more about gaining sane crypto and e-commerce legislation.

    The worrything thing is that I live in the UK and work for one of the *big* ISPs and I can't think of anything ...
  • You are wrong too. Precedent in the UK is only set by the Court of Appeal or higher - any individual judge is not bound by any other judge's previous ruling, though they do take them into account.

    Hence precedent is not set. The way in which it would have been set is for this case to go to judgement, and then that judgement be taken to the Court of Appeal. This has not been done.

    Alan.

  • Sensationalism. (Score:3)

    by thal ( 33211 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @08:50AM (#1134789) Homepage
    The story summary here overstates the problem a bit, implying that you can get _any_ site pulled. But the cases listed in the article refer only to sites where there is apparently defamatory things said about _yourself_. Now, of course, this isn't good, but it is also hardly anything new. This happens all the time in the United States, as well. There've been a few incidents where a student has posted obviously absurd things about teachers/other students (he is the antichrist, I want to kill him, etc.) and the site has been pulled, along with the student being suspended.

    The sample site they used is hilarious, though. I can never get enough Simpsons references. "This is the largest automobile I could afford."

  • This link is important. Do not read this, and get mad, then leave it at that. Forward this link to whomever your representative is in your government. If you are in the US, forward it to both state and federal government representatives. This article shows, in plain english, what can happen to legislation with good intentions being used to restrict speech in any way.

    And for those of you thinking, "It can't happen here, we have laws protecting our speech", remember that the internet, especially to those who don't understand it, is a new and sometimes frightning media. (remember how much press the Columbine H.S. kids website got?) Many people want the govt to step in and do something, and without specifying what to do. Govt officials need to hear opposing opinions, like this article, before action is taken.
  • ... most ISPs have clauses in their TOS agreements. 'We reserve the right to not host any.... blah blah.... and we might just stick skewers into your eyes, so don't put innapropriate material on our servers (we have a separate service contract for those sites ;-).'

    CYA is the name of the game.

  • mayhaps its time to bring back the days of good ole dial up BBSing? This way, noone can censor it except yourself, and we remove the strip mall BS of the net...

    anybody got the telegard source sitting around still?

  • Be careful what you ask for (Score:4)

    by overshoot ( 39700 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @10:54AM (#1134793)
    Because, as the saying goes, you might get it.

    ISPs have so far pretty much had the best of both worlds, with most of a common carrier's freedom from responsibility for content and none of their obligation to take any and all traffic. That idyllic period may be ending.

    People who look at the British and German cases, and lesser ones that have happened in the USA, tend to propose common-carrier status for ISPs. ISPs, on the other hand, know better. The common carrier's immunity for responsibility for the traffic they carry stems directly from their obligation to take any and all comers willing to pay the tariff. If an ISP actually were to fall under common-carrier law, some very unpleasant things would happen. Like, for instance, spam.

    Keep in mind that at present there is very little legal basis for the 'law of cyberspace'. System administrators, under peer pressure, keep limits on net abuse not because it's the law but because being too slack with abusers is a good way to end up firewalled. Common-carrier status would change that fundamentally by setting a legal standard for refusing packets and users alike: as long as there isn't a law against it, you have to carry it.

    Of course, the response to that is a huge upswing in abuse, to which the only remaining response is to -- you guessed it -- make certain actions on the Net illegal.

    The legislative process being what it is, you can bet that lawmakers' ideas of what should be illegal won't agree much with the existing Internet's cultural norms. Lawmakers, for instance, don't seem to have any objection to spam; they don't do e-mail anyway (that's for flunkies to do, with the weekly abstracts presented on nice crisp paper.) It shouldn't be necessary to enumerate the things that our Lords and Masters don't like that we want to keep safe from them.

    Bad as the situation with defamation claims may be, always keep in mind that it could be lots worse.
  • You can't stop people from having opinions. For instance, in the USA here there is a website I saw on a news show at the address www.godhatesfags.com. Now if I was gay I would find this site very offending, however, it is not directed at any one person. Now if you put something up that is slanderous or libelous towards someone, they have the right to take legal action, but it needs to be proved in a court of law. Even if you have your own server and connection you can get sued. I still think though in order to have true free speech, you have to take the good with the bad, hence the godhatesfags site. However, we also have in this country a law that says that if you are a public figure (politician, actor/actress, sports figure, etc.) you are open to anything that can be said or written about you. I think it is wrong if you target a business wrongly. I guess this is just some ramblings of a first amendment advocate!
  • That if I own a web server I shouldn't be allowed to take down whatever I want to?

    No, if you own a web server, you shouldn't feel that you have to take down whatever someone else wants you to.

  • Remember, freedom of thr press is guaranteed only to those who own one. Similarly, freedom of expression on the net can never be guaranteed to those who have to work through an ISP.

    The difference, in practice, is that the print media has a long history of fighting to retain that freedom.

  • try the Netherlands, especially xs4all.nl. They used to be called hacktic.. in the old days. And ofcourse there's no better way to get a dutchman stubborn than to tell him to do something.

    //rdj
  • That if I own a web server I shouldn't be allowed to take down whatever I want to?

    Hardly. I would however say that if you provide hosting services for many people, you should not be liable for what THEY say on the page.

    I very doubt that these ISPs wish to take down their customers pages - of course they'd prefer to keep taking their monthly cheques. However, the legal climate is such that doing so may put THE ISP at risk of a lawsuit. It should instead be the AUTHOR of the content who is liable, rather than the web hosting service, who as a result of this is in effect FORCED to take down any pages that anyone even threatens with a lawsuit over, frivolous though it may be.
  • Guliani's grip was somewhat legitimate (although not legit enough). Why, he asked, should he have to pay for art that offends him?

    The removal of the art by government--had it been privately funded and displayed--would have been an obvious violation of the First Amendment. This case was too, but should Guliani and those offended be entitled to their tax money back?

    It's similar to the Confederate Flag issue. Why should people have to pay for a flag that offends them?

    When government owns stuff, freedoms erode. The right to free speech should include the right not to fund speech you disagree with.
  • Complain about random pages that don't actually mention you. The ISPs will presumably at least check the pages before yanking them, which will start absorbing significant amounts of time. I'm sure there are things wrong with this idea, what have I missed ?

    I think the problem is your presumption. I guess it depends on the amount of revenue the ISP makes from each customer, but if the checking of pages uses too much of an ISP's resources, they'll just remove the material without a check a la Yahoo/Geocities.

  • For the last time! The Godfrey vs. Demon case did not result in a legal ruling.

    Demon decided to settle out of court so that they would not have to gamble on the fact that they may have lost more than that if they went to court.

    On the whole "UK has no free speech" thing, at least we can say what we want, do what we want, be what we want, and not have to worry (too much...) about some a*hole shooting us, beating us, taking us to court, or any combination of the above. And that's just the law enforcement agencies...
  • Remember, this is a country with an official secrets act, and no free speech protection.
  • Check out what happened last year in Brooklyn at the art museum...
    Did you? Unless I am seriously misremembering things, Guliani's gag attempt and de-funding was slapped down by the courts. Hard. Basically, he set a precedent that makes NYC safe for art museums no matter how much it pisses off the mayor or his friends.

    The problem in Britain is that nonsense like the Laurence Godfrey suit against demon.co.uk actually gets anywhere instead of being tossed out as being without merit.
    --

  • Guliani's grip was somewhat legitimate (although not legit enough). Why, he asked, should he have to pay for art that offends him?
    Because, unless it is official GOVERNMENT art (where it is the government speaking), the government doesn't have a right to determine what art it chooses to fund based on who it offends (and that includes penalizing those putting on the display with demands for "refunds"). Neither can the government decide what museum is allowed to rent space based on the art displayed by that museum. Sure, you have a point about keeping the government out of the business of funding art, but the NYC government was already in that business. Once it made that choice, the First Amendment came into play and severely restricted the scope of the judgement calls it could make. Being an art critic and yanking funds isn't one of its options.

    This is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure glad that the government can't decide to fund most art, and then restrict funding to works and artists that strive not to offend anybody. I would certainly find this offensive, if for no other reason than the regime's resemblance to the old Soviet Union.
    --

  • Well, I see some little moderator can't tell the difference between an opinion and a troll. See you in meta-moderation.
    --
  • As far as I understand the situation, it's not law per se, but legal precedent. The guy who sued Demon Internet and got a ruling from the judge that Demon were libel for the content on their servers forced the emergence of a huge 'grey area', that urgently needs sorting out - hopefully when the libelled magazine mentioned earlier takes their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

    j.
  • 2) The new tax laws which came into effect this month (IR35), which basically mean that self-employed programmers pay more tax than any other industry (~ 50% of their _company's income).

    This is a gross misinterpretation of the laws typically made by someone hit by it. The fact of the matter is that IR35 simply means that a self employed programmer who is under contract to a single employer pays the same tax as a regular employee rather than utilising any number of tax loopholes.

  • It's worse than that under uk libel law. Truth is not a garaunteed defence against libel if significant damage has been done by the statement. see the granada TV vs Marks & Spencer case.

    J

  • If someone can't post something potential libel in the UK, can't they just post it on a US server? It would get out to everyone just the same.

  • I must say... (Score:3)

    by LocalYokel ( 85558 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @09:22AM (#1134810) Homepage Journal
    Not too long ago, I remember the European /. readers touting how wonderfully respectful their cultures were about others' opinions and privacy, but here we are with the odd anti-privacy web hosting rules in France, and the pushover British ISP's willing to pull a page for any reason.

    Here is one part of the article that makes no sense to me:
    "To do this, he first runs the trace route (tracert) program which comes, for example, with Windows 95."

    Windows 95 doesn't have nslookup, but a ping would do just as nicely, and get done more quickly.

    And then I begin to wonder about a site like The Register [theregister.co.uk]... Could Rambus(t), Inc. have the site pulled because of their (admitted) daily beatings on the company?

    When I worked for an ISP, various departments got a few complaints about the content of a few sites. We did nothing about them unless they drew excessive traffic, usually porn and warez. We didn't care about anything else, and if we were ever asked about so-and-so's fat stack of Atari and NES ROM's... "We never knew about it".

    The bottom line is that no ISP should have to police its own users.

    --

  • Despite all of Tony Blairs soundbites about aiming to make the UK the centre of World e-commerce (bwaa ha ha) this is where the law hits the fan.

    IAAL and whilst I think the Godfrey -v-Demon decision is soundly based in law and on the particular facts, the bottom line is that failure to give common carrier status to ISPs, as in much of the rest of the World is beginning to have a profoundly terminal effect. The Defamation Act needs to be amended to give some greater measure of protection than at present.

    In my view an ISP should not be liable until a Court grants an injunction or other relief. This would not necessarily take long, hours conceivably, and the balance struck between the rights of the individual and the public interest would be preserved.

    How unfortunate that one of the MPs considering the issue has been the victim of defamation. He'll take a balanced view then....

  • The Outcast case revolves around the fact that the ISP pulling the site did so on the grounds that the site might be defamatory. However I know of another, albeit slightly different, case in the UK, where a site was dropped by the ISP under a different kind of pressure. The site in question, that of a fetish club, was dropped by the ISP because the owner of a competing club, bombarded the ISP with faxes, letters, emails et.c claiming the owners of the first club owed him money. This was after a court case over the same supposed issue which the second owner lost. But the ISP just didnt have the guts to ignore the guy, and dropped the site completely. They still dont have new hosting.

    The second owner has dropped a campaign of rather nasty personal harassment in the meantime, mainly because he has succeeded in winning his little 'dirty tricks' campaign.

    But its a worrying trend. It looks as though UK ISP's aren't prepared to back up their customers. In fact they're prepared to shit on them if someone else says so.

    Does anyone know of a UK ISP with guts willing to back their clients? If emmett is reading, what are Outcast doing now? Have they found a reliable ISP, one with guts? Or do we wind up moving all our UK websites to the States, just to protect ourselves and our sites?

    Im so pissed off that Demon folded against G*dfrey. They may have fucked us all over in the process.

  • Re:ISPs have no responsibility.. (Score:3)

    by WhyteRabbyt ( 85754 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @09:25AM (#1134813) Homepage

    It bloody is a big deal. It engenders a climate where any UK-hosted site is at risk. Outcast didnt have defamatory material. It was just enough to suggest that they might defame in the future, and they lost their site, and possibly business.

    If I pay for a site, then I have a contract with the ISP. If they renege on that contract at the wave of my competitor's hand, then I should be able to do something about it. But, no. You think its fine to allow my competitor an easy sabotage tool. Gee I hope it happens to you.

  • The idea of getting a genuinely damaging page pulled is reasonable on the surface. The problem is, what if it isn't genuinely damaging? This would seem the case given the information about the original case posted to /. and certainly with the example given in this article.

    If this behavior (get any complaint, kneejerk yank a page) becomes the norm, then things like FreeNet will be given impetus. And there the genuinely offensive/dangerous/illegal items that deserve to be yanked cannot be. Result: Treating the problem incorrectly leads to a far worse problem.

    Laws on the net are rather like antibiotics, use them incorrectly and all you get is a resistant strain of whatever you were trying to get rid of.
  • Ah well, I don't use EMACS. And only use vi enough to get something else going, fwiw.
  • I demand that this jingoism and its implicit assumption that America is unique in guaranteeing the right to free speech be removed immediately from this webserver.
  • While I wouldn't expect anyone would try to make the net illegal (It just makes WAY too much money) even if they tried something like that, they'd also have to shut down the phone networks. Store and forward has been around far longer than the net and the technophiles would probably revert to that and private networks should anything happen to the Internet.

    Actually it'd be putting the net back in the hands of just the techies. Maybe alt.sex would become readible again.

  • I see two ways to fight this (there may be more thought):

    1) Fight fire with fire. Start complaining about every site. For instance, the gay magazine that was taken down could have asked that the other magazine (they are the ones who complained, right?) be taken down because they also think it would publish something diffamatory next year!

    2) Start threatening to sue the ISPs for violation of contract, censorship of something similar when they take down a site for no reason. If IPSs become more afraid to take down a site than to leave it there, then they'll think twice before taking down any site. Of course, teh off-side is that these ISPs risk being caught in the middle of fights.
  • I think I agree with every point you make :-)
    Free speech without responsibility is a bad thing and where possible ISP's should get the user to remove the account or modify it, with the situation since Demon settled the case its too dangerous for a company to allow anyone to post slanderous or other dodgy content.
  • Despite my fanatical pro-capitalist tendencies, I am always disturbed when people try to defend freedom of speech on the grounds that it's good for business. Freedom of speech must be defended as a good thing *in* *itself*, not because it has positive secondary effects, either on business or society. (Freedom of thought and expression invariably threaten the existing order, so it is usually BAD for both business and society. Too bad for business and society, then -- freedom comes first.)

    E-commerce, meaning, buying useless tchotchkes online instead of shoving through the bleating herd to do so, is only loosely tied to free speech. The true value of the internet is not in e-bay or .coms, but in the ease with which people can forge communities. It is THAT which is threatened by idiotic lawsuits.

  • There was no Demon ruling (Score:3)

    by spiralx ( 97066 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @10:25AM (#1134821)

    The recent demon et al. decisions, which hold ISP's responsible for defamatory material on their servers.

    There was no decision - Demon settled out of court. No legal precedent has been set. I've seen several posts get this wrong here, but I can't be bothered to reply to all of them :)

  • Free Speech Arbitrage (Score:3)

    by humphreybogus ( 99410 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @12:08PM (#1134822)
    What I think is interesting in this case (and interesting about the Net in general) is how it allows for a kind of "general arbitrage."

    Consider this analogy:
    Arbitrage, for the uninitiated, as applied in the stock market means to exploit a pricing inefficiency in the marketplace by making a trade that closes the inefficiency. Arbtriage can be riskless--ie, if a merger is announced at $3 per share, and the stock is trading at $1.50, buying at $2 gives you a riskless return. That's why these differences tend not to exist very long.

    The key to arbitrage is availabilty of information--if everyone in the world knows at the same moment that a stock trading at $1.50 should be valued at $3, the price will immediately become $3.

    Why this is relevant:
    What the internet allows is arbitrage over a wide range of "markets" (including the financial markets). Because information can be served or accessed from anywhere, countries are having difficultly enforcing "legal inefficiencies" that stand in the way of what the users want.

    For instance:
    --DeCSS banned in US? Serve it from a box in a country with no extradition treaty with the US
    --UK ISPs remove content at the hint of a threat? Host it in the US, where laws offer better protection to ISPs.
    --Gambling illegal in US? Host it from the Bahamas.
    --Pricing discrepancy between Buy.com price for a 19in Monitor and retail store pricing? 800 orders.
    --No porn in Australia? A data center in Santa Clara, CA, is the new home for Aussie porn.

    Now maybe this is entirely self-evident, based on the design of the internet. And sure, there are ways that nations or companies could combat this, should they really want to.

    But as long as there is one country with relatively open interpretations of laws that are strict in other countries, and as long as the technology of the internet continues to allow users to access that "forbidden" content relatively easily, this phenomenon seems likely to continue. Of course, governments could decide to inspect every inbound and outbound packet from their country--but it's not easy.

    Maybe instead of tax havens, there will be "Net Havens." Some might call this a "race to the bottom," but I think on balance more people will end up with access to the expression/commerce they desire. I think that's a good thing. And the countries that tend to be more lax in enforcing restrictions on speech/commerce will likely benefit from more internet traffic/hosting business.

  • Off topic, but following the thread...

    Just curious:

    What if I'm accused of a crime, the government finds a bunch of garbage data on my computer, and demands that I turn over the key?

    Do they even have to prove that the data they are demanding a key to is even data, not random garbage? It should be relatively easy to encrypt data that is impossible to distinguish from noise...
  • Just remember, defamation and libel are no more legal in the US than it is in the UK, the first amendment does not cover that. The problem in the UK is that the law seems to allow individuals to define the meaning of libel, even if it isn't defamitory. The point of the article is that he contacted the isp's first, and most said they would react unequivocally for the the complainer, With british law, such an allegation could mean certain doom for an isp, being a business, it would stand to lose a lot in financial resources, not to mention the loss of reputation. The problem is not with libel, but the change in dealing with it. If a statement is defamitory, the first person to deal with should alway be the poster, not the host. It's akin to suing a library because is has within it a book that is offensive. Doing such a thing would be absurd, but thats exactly what an isp is, with regard to web space, it's a storage place for information, just like a library.
  • If the politicians don't protect the ISPs from this sort of stupid behaviour we are going to see a rather large decline in web sites.
    This stinks very badly of the Australian web censorchip act. In both cases the ISPs get hit for other peoples behaviour.
  • I can see why governments might want the ability to control speech. This is not to say that they have a right to limit it, but they should have the ability to prevent serious damage to an individual's reputation, livelihood or quality of life as a consequence of the defamatory activities of a vindictive third party.

    Because of the internet, their ability to do this is, over time, determined by the restraint they exercise in the use of that power. If they use it only when the case is extreme, when the individual has a demonstrable complaint with demonstrable damages, and that we're not talking about someone calling a spade a spade, then I can't honestly say I feel that bad about someone being pushed off their soapbox. If you call an innocent man a rapist on a website, and lie about the facts you have to back that up, then you are causing harm, in effect, you're raping his/her reputation, and you should be stopped. This is why we have libel and slander laws.

    If the government/legal system abuses the power it has to control speech, or uses it too often, then it will be removed from them. The old adage - "The internet sees censorship as damage, and routes around it" holds. People will go offshore, censorship will be seen as a terrible thing and people will lobby for that power to be removed from the hands of people who could otherwise have been genuinely helpful to the small minority that is getting badly and unjustly slandered.

    Censorship of opinion is a bad thing, but as far as I'm concerned, the buck stops when someone has their quality of life unjustifiably diminished by what has been published. The attitude that says people can get web sites shut down because they disagree with the content is a squandering of the power people have over other people's speech, and as with all legal rights that are abused, in the end, it will be removed and the pendulum will probably swing too far the other way, with slander and libel on the internet being unstoppable because it is published from locations where such laws are not enforcable.

    I don't see this issue going anywhere nice in the near future.

  • net exactly sure but the poster could still get prosecuted rather than the ISP

    we had case here of a UK citizen who ran a porn site in the US. He got prosecuted because he uploaded content to it from the UK and thus the judge deemed him to have published it in the uk even though it was hosted outside

    libel would be the same, the libel occurred when you typed it not when i read it

    it's an arcane law really from the days when printers needed to read your copy in order to print it. It makes publishers err on the side of caution. It's an outdated law but I don't see it changing any time soon.

    quote from the article :

    "It's no way to make Britain the best place in the world for e-commerce."

    As usual money talks. Our cities are run only for the shops not the shoppers - same with the net in the state's opinion.

    the only freedom you have is to spend money in shops.
    .oO0Oo.

  • We can't be fooled into thinking we have the lock on freedom of speech in the US of A.

    Check out what happened last year in Brooklyn at the art museum, or check out the success rate of keeping up any kind of "hacker's" site. Not that they know what "hacker" means anyway.

    The degree of misunderstanding that corporate bigwigs and governo-crats display toward the REAL net is shocking. Hello, COPA. Believe me, they will find a way to censor us. And it won't be pretty.


    --
  • "I fear some conservatives will ultimately attempt to ban the Internet once they discover encryption and other methods make it impossible to control completely"

    Why conservatives ? Who do you think invented Poltical Correctness ? Certainly not right-wingers.

    There is already plenty of censure going on on the Internet. Just you try and use a few hot words like "n*gger" on AOL or Geocities and see what happens.

    Censorship is not the monopoly of the right wing.
  • ISPs have so far pretty much had the best of both worlds, with most of a common carrier's freedom from responsibility for content and none of their obligation to take any and all traffic. That idyllic period may be ending.
    Excellent point.

    If an ISP actually were to fall under common-carrier law, some very unpleasant things would happen. Like, for instance, spam.
    True. But spam can be legislated against. In the areas where common carriers already carry spam (faxes, phones) we do have legislation. We probably would have it for the Internet by now if not for the limited success of the various anti-spam systems, which provide just enough restraint to keep the pressure for legislation from being overwhelming.

  • -UNPOPULAR OPINION-
    ISP's should be able to shut down at will any site which they think might be offensive or illegal, unless their contract with the client states otherwise.

    On the other hand. If you run your own physical server, or have your own physical server co-located, only you should be able to shut down access. For example, if a phone company had an answering service that some put illegal material on (whatever it may be,) the phone company should be able to immediately shut off the account once they become aware of the issue. Now, if the illegal material was located on your answering machine (or high tech menu based phone system, etc.) the phone company does not have the right to shut off your line because of it, or be sued because of it. If the information resides on their equipment, I think they should be held liable once they are aware of it.

    I think it should comes down to who owns the pysical device the information resides on. This is not really that different from a phone system.

    If you want to be secure in the fact that your information can't be turned off, you should have your own server. Otherwise you are taking your chances, or show have the actions of the ISP defined in a contract. The ISP shouldn't be held liable for stuff on your own equipment (any more than a phone company would be for someone with known suspected mob ties planing an illegal act over the telephone system.)
    -/UNPOPULAR OPINION-

    -Pete
  • I'm sorry, but this just isn't that big a deal. ISPs have no responsibility to host any material they don't want to. I don't remember ISPs ever pledging that by providing a service that they were going to tolerate any and all things. The bottom line is that it's their hardware, their bandwidth, and their choice. If the government was the sole ISP and that was the only way to get information on the Internet, that would be one thing. But if an ISP wants to choose what they'll host and what they won't, that's their right. Buy a server and some bandwidth for yourself if you want to put whatever you want on the Net. Private companies have no responsibility to make sure every voice has an equal chance of being heard.
  • If you had a contract that said that you were allowed to host any material whatsoever on your account, and then the ISP went back on that, then you clearly have a case. But I don't think anyone ever had any contracts agreeing to allow hosting of any and all material. Reneging on a contract is a different mater from the theoretical realm of "censorship," which was what my post was about.
  • Then none of the blame should be on the ISPs. If they have no choice in the matter, that's one thing. Then we should be attacking the government's policy and not ISPs' policies. The blame-laying here is totally off-base.
  • Which is exactly what the current debate is about! ISP's in the UK have made it clear that they will pull a site at the mearest hint of a lawsuit.

    If you'd take a moment to pull your head out of the sand and try to understand I thing I wrote, it would be quite clear to you that my point is that ISPs have every right to pull a site at any time they want, with reason or without. There's a reason why 99% of ISP contracts I've seen say that either party can cancel the contract with or without reason. If you're so worried about the problem, make sure you read the fine print and find an ISP that's a big enough sucker not to have one of these clauses. It's their right, they're providing you a service and they write the contracts.

  • stuff acce [gte.net]sse [8m.com]s just as e [goatse.cx]asy to the [rose-hulman.edu] web [w3.org] surfe [gnu.org]r, no matte [rose-hulman.edu]r whe [warez.com]re [squishdot.org] it's locate [rose-hulman.edu]d.

    Not 100% accurate. The user might only see com [register.com] instead of co.uk (or even better to [come.to]), but ping times to faraway sites are bound to be lower because, for example, light moves only 299.8 km per millisecond. Latency produces slow loading sites, which turn off users who browse linearly and don't use Open Link in New Window aggressively.

  • If you really don't want your stuff to be open to false accusations and paranoia, or if your stuff really is inflamatory, simply host it on your own box.

    If someone were to dislike your content and complain to your ISP, the ISP would probably find something in its contract that lets it kill the connection between your server and the Internet. Unless you are on the backbone, you have to respect your upstream.

  • FreeNet is not such a bad idea. I was very hesistant towards it at first because I was afraid it would increase the amount of garbage like child-pornography on the net, but with legislation like this soon to take the world by storm, maybe firing up a new Universe on another port is not such a bad idea after all :)

    The advantage we have right now is basically that the Internet is still a bit of a technocracy - those who understand the technology can use it to circumvent the rules. But for how long? I fear some conservatives will ultimately attempt to ban the Internet once they discover encryption and other methods make it impossible to control completely.

  • Gee, first the AOL Germany news and now this. Well, at least here in the US of A I can say things like *CENSORED* and not have to worry about someone taking it down. Woohoo! Free speech is absolute here, and all of you other countries can *CENSORED*!

  • You didn't read the JonKatz article today, did you? Don't you know that if you say the wrong things that your classmates might turn you in to WAVE America? Gee, stop thinking that just because it is an inalienable right that it applies to you!

    Besides, as someone pointed out, Geocities has a censorship statement, and given the recent news, I wouldn't be surprised if other hosts did the same.

  • Please remember that the demand for removal is a civil matter not a criminal one. Here in the US, it appears that it is only sufficient to consume oxygen and emit carbon dioxide for someone to file a lawsuit against you for something or other (like the sun came up or a stock went down). As such, the actions of most stateside ISPs would be the same as those in GB. The question, though, is weather or not you can file a counter suit for damages against the complaining party for the fact that your site was removed. If so, then the merits of any libel will have to be shown in a court of law for you not to recover damages. One would hope that the fact that somebody got their poor little feelings hurt would not be sufficient for the site removal to be enfourced and the counter-suit dismissed. Personally, I am very offended at the IRS site this time of year. Can someone point me to their ISP???

  • Re:Proud to be an American... (Score:5)

    by DemiGodez ( 138452 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @08:57AM (#1134850)
    Remember though, if every ISP in America decided to do the exact same thing, it would NOT be violation of the first amendment.

    The first amendment says "Congress shall make no law..". It is designed to protect people from the government, not from other people.

    In the U.S. there is no right to a web page. The only thing the first amendment protects our speech against is the government passing laws.

    However, an argument can be made that the laws that allow frivilious lawsuits and bully ISPs into making changes like this limit free speech. But people would be even less happy if their right to sue was taken away.

    I don't know how things work in the UK per se, but this is something that even if they had a first amendment, it would not address. The ISPs censored the material - not the government.

  • Hypocrisy in the UK (Score:5)

    by Salsaman ( 141471 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @09:06AM (#1134852) Homepage
    The UK .gov claims it is trying to make the country into an e-commerce centre. However with the law and economy we have in the UK, I doubt very much that we'll see it happen. Consider the following factors:

    1) The RIP bill which is going through parliament at the moment [stand.org.uk] which would basically allow the authorities to demand anybody's security keys and allow covert monitoring of ISPs.

    2) The new tax laws which came into effect this month (IR35), which basically mean that self-employed programmers pay more tax than any other industry (~ 50% of their _company's income).

    3) The recent demon et al. decisions, which hold ISP's responsible for defamatory material on their servers.

    Quite how the government sees the situation as inviting to e-commerce companies is beyond me.

  • Re:There was no Demon ruling (Score:3)

    by obscurity ( 156348 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @01:28PM (#1134863)
    You are wrong. A precedent has been set, even though Demon settled. This was
    for the first of the two cases that Godfrey brought, and the precedent was
    set when Morland (the judge) dismissed Demon's original defence of innocent
    dissemination as hopeless after they had been put on notice (which Godfrey
    did). If they had removed the offending articles as soon as they were made
    aware of them, they would have had a good defence, but as they did not, they
    could no longer use that defence. See demon.service for more detailed
    discussion on this.

  • Remember, this is a country with an official secrets act, and no free speech protection.

    The USA has broadly similar powers that the Official Secrets Act grants the UK government. All countries have certain information that is protected for reasons of national interest. The US is not significantly more open than the UK in this respect.

    The lack of a formal right to Free Speech in the UK is detrimental, but it really isn't the issue here. The issue is that UK libel laws are stricter than the US laws. This isn't all bad. For example, it is much harder in the UK to use media power to unfairly smear and attack an individual. In the US you can use media power to libel someone and then hide behind a Free Speech defense, even when the victim doesn't have equal access to the media to put their side of the story.

  • That if I own a web server I shouldn't be allowed to take down whatever I want to?

    No, if you own a web server, you shouldn't feel that you have to take down whatever someone else wants you to.

    You _don't_ have to take something down because someone else wants you to. But if you own a web server, then you _do_ have to be aware of (IANAL) legal precedent for having your ass sued as the result of a customer's page. You're running a business and are under no obligation to provide a soapbox for anything that (a) you disagree with or (b) could result in costly litigation.

  • GB provides an interesting glimpse into what the US legal landscape would look like without the First Amendment. Our legal traditions are similar to GB's, given that we inherited our common law from them. But in GB, because they do not have an explicit, overarching committment to free speech, not only is fairly harmless speech banned, but businesses such as these ISPs are put into very difficult situations.

    It's much easier to appreciate the First Amendment with such a contrast case available!

    -- Diana Hsieh

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