Report Warns Against Well-Meaning Net Censorship 123
athloi writes "A report entitled 'Governing the Internet,' was issued Thursday by the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The document, which highlights the increasing environment of internet 'policing' around the world, characterized the practice as 'a bitter reminder of the ease with which some regimes -- democracies and dictatorships alike -- seek to suppress speech that they disapprove of, dislike, or simply fear.' From the article: 'The OSCE report says Kazakhstan's efforts to rein in Internet journalism in the name of national security is reminiscent of Soviet-era "spy mania," and it says Georgian law contains numerous provisions curbing freedom of expression online. Web sites, blogs and personal pages all are subject to criminal as well as civil prosecution in Kazakhstan, and the country's information minister, Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, has vowed to purge Kazakh sites of "dirt" and "lies."'"
Lots of this going around (Score:4, Interesting)
No kiddie porn, no copyright violations, not even libel. Critical of America over the war on drugs and Israel over the war on terror though? You bet.
The posts that triggered this orgy of censorship saw me positing the likelihood that Israel had nuclear weapons forward-deployed in other nations. Shortly after the second post in the series, Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli who blew the whistle on their nuke program, got arrested again. It would seem as though there are some subjects Israel would rather we didn't discuss. I guess I can understand that, but since when does Israel get to control what I can or can't say?
They want to pretend censorship like this is only taking place in places like China. That's bullshit. It's happening here in America and with ever increasing frequency.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -- Johnn F. Kennedy
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We certainly know they censor content when China asks them to.
Why wouldn't they do the same when the U.S. Government asks the same?
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Or do you think it might have been those "damn Jews"?
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(could it be the Muslims?)
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(could it be the Irish?)
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My money's on the secret Hawaiian Kingship and their plans to expand over the USA
-nB
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*Didn't want an argument sidetracked by a lengthy definition, by violation of the constitution I mean the US constitution, and similar d
Oversight and Categorization (Score:2, Insightful)
The difficulty is that different corporations wield a lot of power in different ways. No one is complaining that 3M is censoring people, but Google and other media and/or advertising companies are going to come up against that accusation a great deal. We need to be able, for reasons of oversight and policy, to better define corporations and what they are and are not allowed to do. If we see it as necessary to prevent broadcast companies from portraying images of naked people, or not have audible swear words
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Yell "Bomb" in an airport, "Shooter" at a presidential speech, or "Fire" in a theater and see how far the first amendment gets you.
you are entitled to your opinion, but there is a line, that once crossed puts you in dangerous waters.
-nB
Was it for spamming? (Score:1)
Because that's what you're doing on Slashdot.
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Re:Lots of this going around (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing about free speech, as protected by the US Constitution, is that it only protects you against the government (not private or public businesses) and it doesn't guarantee you a forum. If the US government chose to censor your blog, that's against the constitution. If Google decided that they don't want your blog on their Blogger service, that's completely within their rights to do and is not a violation of free speech. Without knowing why Google decided to remove your blog (did the Israeli government really pressure them?), there's not a whole lot you can do about it.
That said, you can still say what you want. You just need to find another forum. Find a web hoster that's sympathetic to your cause (meaning they won't drop you) and host your blog there.
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This would be a good "Ask Slashdot" question, maybe if somebody else asked it it might be posted.
Where on the web can a person go to have highly controversial political content hosted? They all have clauses in their Terms of Service that let them drop you like a hot rock.
One call alleging anti-Semitism or hate speech and you're history it seems.
(Oh, and it is a violation of free speech. it simply isn'
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Re:Lots of this going around (Score:5, Insightful)
That reminds me of the infamous Bonsai Kitten Website fiasco where a university student did a farcical Website "selling" Bonsai Kitten paraphernalia. The site got banned from just about every hosting company that PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) found out about, and the FBI even investigated the site and the people behind it. PETA actually wanted the people behind the site arrested.
It doesn't really matter what you publish; if it is popular enough and there is an Interest Group that doesn't like it then it will likely be censored. If a Website author is rich, then there will be more options, but most people would likely just give up. And if the site was political and controversial, then there may be government "hate crimes" to deal with, blocking from censorware, etc. There is no easy solution to dealing with censorship. If Google just decides it's easier for them to not list the site in their search engine then they will not list it, which makes the site unavailable to those who are not already aware of it.
One solution would be Freenet, but that too is only available to those who know about it and make the effort to install the software and find the proper "keys" to access the site. Freenet too can also be hampered by legislation in Western countries. The same with Tor and the Onion Network. Tor is rather easy to censor since the IP addresses of the proxies are easily available http://proxy.org/faq.shtml [proxy.org].
And there are always the un-brave who just give up trying to say anything in the first place. When one has to worry about SLAPP (unjustified lawsuits to silence people), Law Enforcement (the war on terror, drugs, think-of-the-children, think-of-the-pets), Special Interest Groups, the PC (Politically Correct) crowd, employers data-mining their employees (or potential employees), even DDoS and "hackers" / crackers; self-censorship is probably more prevalent than people realize. Words, ideas, pictures, humour, and just about every form of communication can be seen as dangerous. The Internet was once a relatively easy way to express oneself, but it is getting harder all the time. ISPs are even finding ways to censor P2P traffic that is designed to obfuscate itself.
The only real solution to censorship is to change the attitudes of the people who have the authority and control to influence the Tubes. Since these people are mainly politicians (like Ted Stevens) who are largely ignorant of the technology they legislate and who could care less about the social dynamics of freedom (beyond their own narrow paradigms), the future does not look bright for an unbridled flow of (uncensored) information.
References:
http://www.shorty.com/bonsaikitten/bkgallery.html [shorty.com] (Bonsai Kitten mirror)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten [wikipedia.org]
http://freenetproject.org/ [freenetproject.org]
http://tor.eff.org/ [eff.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLAPP [wikipedia.org]
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Well, to be fair, before it became clear (particularly to those who weren't familiar with the magic that is A
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It was censored LONG after PETA brought light to this. And PETA has stated that they want all such artwork to be illegal. I have read very many points and counter-points regarding the Website (it was fascinating to me how people could make a controversy out of something which IMHO was an obvious farce), and I certainly don't want to get a head-ache re-hashing all the old arguments here.
If we need to have disclaimers on everything to vindicate art, based on speculation
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Well, to be fair, before it became clear (particularly to those who weren't familiar with the magic that is Adobe Photoshop) that Bonsai Kitten was a hoax
Anyone who read the site should have been able to see it was a joke. Even if they weren't familiar with Photoshop, I would expect PETA to be familiar with kittens, and know that they would not survive if treated as described on the site for long enough to be sold.
If someone describes some sort of criminal activity on a web page -- documents it, even -- I expect the police whose jurisdiction the crime occurred in to investigate it
Which is very different from hosting companies blocking the site as a result of complaints from idiots. One has to follow due process, and is accountable. The other does not. It always seems strange to me that Americans consider it acceptable
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Knowing H. L. Mencken, he was being cynical when he made the statement "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one."
Better act now (Score:4, Funny)
...
Yet.
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http://www.anonhost.org/ [anonhost.org]
http://hosting.dod.net/ [dod.net]
http://www.crisishost.com/ [crisishost.com]
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ [nearlyfreespeech.net]
http://www.secureservertech.com/ [secureservertech.com]
http://www.ctyme.com/ [ctyme.com]
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Where on the web can a person go to have highly controversial political content hosted?
The guys at NearlyFreeSpeech.net are pretty cool; their policies seem to basically be, "we'll comply with whatever laws we have to, and as long as you're not hurting or spamming anyone, we'll stay out of your way."
I don't know exactly what their limits would be / how open they would be to very controversial sites, but I suppose it might be worth sending them an email and asking whether they would be interested in having your business.
But I really don't think there's a dearth of providers willing to get int
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It appears that censoring one's blog is pretty much part of a big fuck you package that includes not replying to any of your emails. I am holding out no hope of getting any kind of response at this point.
(this is my last post I think, slashdot usually cuts me off at this point, oh the irony)
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Sig break!
Re:Lots of this going around (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, it only stops congress from passing laws against free speech. The constitution doesn't say anything about law enforcement officials enforcing laws not passed by congress - hello Gonzales loophole!
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Here is the thing that bothers me about this:
Censorship through proxy.
Due to the fa
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Could you post the relevant content here, so we could look at it ourselves? Given the OP, I don't think it would be off-topic.
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M.A.D. R.I.P.
(If you haven't already done so, please read the Iranian nuke vs. Israeli nuke post [blogspot.com], you can consider this post to be a continuation and/or expansion of the points made therein.)
M.A.D. of course stands for Mutual Assured Destruction.
It is what passes for sanity these days in international affairs. That
said, it is also enjoying over a half-century of success. M.A.D. is the
policy that justifies the nuclear arsenals bein
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Signed: the world.
Assymetrical Warfare (Score:1)
I admit that I did not read all of your, ah... extensive... writing. But I think that you need to step back and study international politics a bit more. Not everything revolves around M.A.D, and Israel could have any number of reasons to have nuclear weapons. The thing you might do better to come to understand is that the difficulty in the Middle East is far from simplistic; certainly no singular decision at any point in history would have changed that situation to one of easy peace. As I'm sure the recent
Please don't mod parent down (Score:2)
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war on terror, well... the day might come where it's really going to
suck to be you.
Read the rest of this comment...
The REST? DAMN, DUDE - you weren't censored for political incorrectness, they removed you for filling up all the disks on their servers!
Re:Lots of this going around (Score:5, Insightful)
You come very close to stepping over the line from "anti-Zionist" to fundamentalist racist in that sentence.
Re:Lots of this going around (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lots of this going around (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mod parent up, I have no points at the moment.
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Google/Technorati/Blogger among others have this thing called the TOS, or terms of service. They probably have an entire section dedicated to "we can pull your crap down anytime we like, without ever notifying your or giving you a reason if we did..." That TOS probably has a section about banning racist propaganda too, did you think about that?
And racist propaganda can, at times, be entirely subjective. I mean, having a website called "holocaust now" that talks a
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The blogger is clearly off his rocker here; that's the other great thing about free speech. If you let people have it, you let them expose themselves for the nutjobs that they are. I can see that the blogger is way out in left field. Censoring it though instantly makes the message more desirable to be heard. People WANT to hear it now because it is 'bann
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Maybe, but to me that is not the problem. The US is intent on outsourcing ownership of EVERYTHING to corporations. Instead of the government restricting rights, they are outsourcing it to corporations. They are not bound by the same laws as the government and so trample over individual rights (free speech, gun ownership, personal privacy, drug testing, identification implants, etc...).
I am not sure the framers could have envisioned businesses could restricting personal freedoms in place of the government
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At any rate, what does the hoster care? They probably get more page hits from controrversy than someone posting about their new puppy.
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I say you are a racist for calling him a racist. OMGz now I'm racist. Where will it end?
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I suppost a construct like fundamentalist racist could mean something, but the closest I've come up with is in the present context is that it refers to someone who is an American Protestant belonging to one of the more vocal denominations drawing unfair distinctions of Africans who have converted to Judaism.
As for the line, I don't know where yours is drawn, but mine is drawn at the intersection betwe
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Attacking my ideas is one thing. Attacking my vocabulary is another... usually means someone has no argument to present.
Let me do some dictionary work for you. From the OED [oed.com]:
fundamentalism
...
b. In other religions, esp. Islam, a strict adherence to ancient or fundamental doctrines, with no concessions to modern developments in thought or customs.
So fundamentalist, an adherent of fundamentalism; also, an economic or political doctrinaire...
Also from the OED:
doctrinaire, n. (a.)
... ... One who holds some doctrine or theory which he tries to apply without sufficient regard to practical considerations; a pedantic theorist.
2.
I'm sure you know what a racist is.
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It is not racist to claim that a group of people not primarily selected by their race, is racist as you imply. If a high-profile paper in Sweden claimed that Sweden was the homeland for the aryans, then that would be racist. It would select one race (or ethnicity) -- indegenous, non-Saami, blue-eyed blonde Swedes -- and exclude other ethnicit
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Could you elaborate on what you mean by Google "truncating links"?
Important difference in censorship (Score:2)
I'm glad, your Israel-bashing was bashed back into whence it came from (more detailed anatomy would be off-topic). This censorship does not bother me at all — and not because I support Israel's right to exist, but because the policy of censorship itself can be discussed freely.
On contrast, Chinese censorship is self-perpetuating (or
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Don't get me wrong. I think it's ridiculous that they would delete your blog too, but you shouldn't say that the reason they did it was because you took a hard and verbal stance against the war on drugs/t
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I don't think my eyes can roll around in their sockets enough to indicate what I think of your hubris. One little blogger who has his blo
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http://web.archive.org/holocaustnow.blogspot.com/2 007/02/mad-rip-part-3.html [archive.org]
http://web.archive.org/holocaustnow.blogspot.com/2 007/01/mad-rip-part-2.html [archive.org]
http://web.archive.org/holocaustnow.blogspot.com/2 007/01/mad-rip.html [archive.org]
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"Well-Meaning" Net Censorship? (Score:2)
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So censorship can indeed me good, as long as we save it for only the absolutely-worst things.
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There are already laws against...bomb-making instructions...being shared with the world.
Maybe [totse.com] where [totse.com] you [totse.com] live [lycos.nl]. But not on my Internet.
Too specific (Score:5, Insightful)
Forcing people to act against their own interests is bad in general. Especially when it's sold as "well-meaning". Censorship is no exception.
Kazakhstan censoring negative reports (Score:4, Funny)
there's a machiavellian answer (Score:2)
therefore, it would be more cost effective to censor nothing on the internet, and merely coopt it for your own purposes. pump out your own rumors and lies anonymously, effectively swamping out any anonymous sources of the "truth" with too much noise to get a good signal. people won't know w
You think you get can-spam, net neturality... (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet was much better when it was the wild west. If fact, it is over. We are getting the do-gooders and know-betters running the show, and it is game over, either with dems or reps in charge (excluding Ron Paul who won't win). Our internet will be turned into a PC, child-safe surburb unless we move on to some new dark network.
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But I can guarantee that if I (or anyone else) popularizes MUPOTDP (My Ubiquitous Protocol Of The Day Protocol) and there's an Apache module and a client app ("browser") for it, the party is back on. And when the nannies find it, we'll just define YAANP (Yet Another Anti-Nanny Protocol) and an Apache module and a client and all is well and good.
The nannyists are driving the world toward protocol-spam. Sooner or later, they will have to concede defeat, as a means wil
I've been holding out for a comeback... (Score:2)
Is Gopher cool again yet?
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All protocols must be acronyms ending in P. Gopher does not qualify and thus is never going to be "back". Perhaps it's time for someone to work on GopherP. Just don't drink it.
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I know what you mean, the Internet is already on my PC...
As proverb would have it... (Score:2)
This got me thinking. (Score:2)
Keep in mind (Score:2, Insightful)
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Western Europe (Score:3, Interesting)
Kazakhstan is the greatest country in the world (Score:1)
Kazakhstan has many hobbies, (Score:1)
Increasingly common restrictions. (Score:3, Interesting)
so what's the fuss? (Score:1)
"Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, has vowed to purge Kazakh sites of "dirt" and "lies." "Those who think it is impossible to control the Internet can continue living in a world of illusions," Yertysbayev told the Vremya newspaper in a recent interview."
Which admittedly sounds like he has an obsessive-compulsive disorder related to housecleaning, and possibly bulimia, but it's really not that bad:
"On Thursday, in a speech at OSCE headquarters in Vienna, Yertysbayev insist
Kazakhstan? Censorship? (Score:1)
It can't work (Score:1)
The web is too decentralized, too anonymous, and too inexpensive a medium to censor. The government may be able to take down individuals, or individual web sites, but the information can't be surpressed for long. No government can silence the millions of voices with the power to make themselves heard.
And I hope this notion strikes fear down to the very core of the politicia
Gimme a thug rather than well-meaning Big Brothers (Score:3, Insightful)
But the absolute worst nightmare is a bureaucracy of well-meaning weenies, always concerned about your own well-being, sometimes genuinely. Those won't stop harassing you, ever. They know what's good for you. They know you're too dumb to survive without them. And they know that they need to constantly babysit you from cradle to grave. There is no way to get them to stop. You cannot throw money at them to have them leave you alone, because they want you to be happy. Of course, they'll make you miserable. They are the nannycrats.
We are clearly in that case here. And you know the cinch? When nannycrats get ousted, they are surprised, nay, shocked that people don't want their overbearing, crushing attention.
Beware of people who want to make you happy in spite of yourself. Gimme a thug anytime over a nannycrat.
Tyranny (Score:3, Insightful)
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Nice to see that I agree with a quotable philosopher.
More worried... (Score:2)
I've been thinking... (Score:3)
I'm an athiest, and I used to think that it was religion that caused most of the trouble, pain, and suffering. But I have to admit that athiest regimes have just as much blood on their hands. Then I started chalking it up to human nature (which it may be) but that's not a very useful distinction, what with not being a distinction at all. Recently I've started thinking that it is the idea that we must "cleanse" or "fix" things that is the cause of most evil. The idea that if we could only rid the world of a certain type of person or activity then we'd be much better off. I think that is the flag that indicates trouble. And people of all beliefs and political positions can get into this mindset.
Of course, I have to watch myself as it becomes easy to want to rid the world of people who "vow to purge", which makes me another monster. Instead I try to remind myself I can stand up in opposition to such a thing without trying to purge it. I don't want to kill or dethrone the leader of Kazakhstan, I just don't want him to go after people or their expression in attempt to cleanse things. All things have muddy gray edges, and there are cases where I'm sure this yardstick won't work perfectly. But whenever I find myself saying "the world would be a better place if we could only rid the world of these people..." I stop and check myself.
Anyways, just thought I'd mention it. I think that the ideal world is achieved by not worrying so much about trying to make the ideal world, and just doing your best and enjoying life and letting others do the same.
Cheers.
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I think if people were to understand the concept of "if you feel good [when you do something], fine;' if you feel bad, then don't do that", and then live by that
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You know how we have facial recognition abilities, and though we've yet to describe how that feature of the human mind works, it definitely works and it processes a huge amount of ambiguous information quickly and suddenly we "just know" that the person is someone we recognize.
I think that morals are similar. Even if we jus
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Yeah, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head... and the facial recognition analogy is a good one.
It's like what the Oracle said in the Matrix: "Nobody can tell you you are in love, you just know it...through and through, balls to bones." That's what it is; I call it instinct. But that becomes the question... does a person pay attention to there instincts...? Can they even recognize them?
Nice "talking" to ya...
The Pirate Bay (Score:1)
ALL censorship is "well-meaning" (Score:2)
It is not like the the censors are sitting somewhere rubbing their hands thinking, Ok, who am I gonna stick it to today...
They all mean well...
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Examples:
Political leader of a country (cuba, Germany early 1940s, Venezuela) who censors an opponent or opposition's speech to retain power.
A country censoring history. (Ignoring history like the Japanese did for a time about World war 2 or the south did for the civil war isn't the problem. The problem is if someone said America can no longer any civil war ending except the one where the south won).
Just because censorship can be "rationalized" doesn't me
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Come, come, I'm quite certain, all of those monsters were convinced, their actions were for the better of their countries. Not even Stalin would admit — even if only to himself — that the country would've been better off under someone else... There is always justification.
Trouble for Pravda. (Score:2)
I guess that means no more Pravda in Kazakhstan. Bummer. How will the Kazakhstanis now learn about breaking scientific developments [pravda.ru]?
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