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Censorship Government Politics

Report Warns Against Well-Meaning Net Censorship 123

Posted by Zonk from the happens-in-democracies-too dept.
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."'"
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Report Warns Against Well-Meaning Net Censorship More

Report Warns Against Well-Meaning Net Censorship

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  • Lots of this going around (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nokilli ( 759129 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @03:33PM (#20015137)
    Technorati simply banned my site. Google first truncated links from other sites leading to pages on my blog, and when that wasn't enough, they simply had Blogger delete the blog.

    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

    --
    Censored [blogspot.com] by [blogspot.com] Technorati [blogspot.com] and now, Blogger too! [blogspot.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by __aaabsi3154 ( 1110199 )
      The important difference here is that google and technorati aren't governments, nor were their actions mandated by the government. I mean, it sucks for you that google doesn't like you, but it isn't the government's fault.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by nokilli ( 759129 )
        Excuse me, but how do you know their actions weren't mandated by the government?

        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?

        --
        Censored [blogspot.com] by [blogspot.com] Technorati [blogspot.com] and now, Blogger too! [blogspot.com]
        • > Excuse me, but how do you know their actions weren't mandated by the government? Because I am the government...
        • I'm not impressed. I can find content just like what you described all over blogs, and the US Government hasn't seem to have gotten to those yet. Are you saying that yours was just that more subversive? Were you that close to exposing the "truth" that "they" don't want us to know? Are you sure you don't just have an inflated opinion of the importance of your own work? Perhaps a bit paranoid?

          Or do you think it might have been those "damn Jews"?
      • In the age where the constitution was drafted corporations were like little fluffy chivavas compared to the mountainlike power of the government. In today's age megacorporations bear a lot of power. Technically it is not a violation of the constitution* if a corporation picks and chooses content and exercises censorship, but it is censorship nonetheless, just _legal_ one.

        *Didn't want an argument sidetracked by a lengthy definition, by violation of the constitution I mean the US constitution, and similar d
    • Were you "censored" for spamming?

      Because that's what you're doing on Slashdot.
      • I completely agree with you, and guess what! So do others! Please visit my website at http://www.no-spamming.org/ [no-spamming.org] to learn more about what you can do to help stop people spamming their personal websites on Slashdot and other forums you frequent!

    • Re:Lots of this going around (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Osty ( 16825 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @03:45PM (#20015317)

      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.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by nokilli ( 759129 )

        Find a web hoster that's sympathetic to your cause (meaning they won't drop you) and host your blog there.

        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'

        • Why not host your own blog on your own server? I mean sure, you're still subject to the possibility that your ISP may block your server if you get labeled as a "terrorist" or "dissident", but you'd likely have more control over your site (even in terms of what ads, if any, you wanted to serve on your site). Pick up a second-hand computer, install your favorite distro and have a go. If you do, try Thingamablog [sourceforge.net], I love it.

          • Re:Lots of this going around (Score:5, Insightful)

            by unlametheweak ( 1102159 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @06:23PM (#20017329)

            Why not host your own blog on your own server?

            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]
            • 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.

              Well, to be fair, before it became clear (particularly to those who weren't familiar with the magic that is A

              • That's not really even censorship per se

                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

              • 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

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Guppy06 ( 410832 )
            "Why not host your own blog on your own server?"

            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)

          by Lockejaw ( 955650 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @05:32PM (#20016809)

          This would be a good "Ask Slashdot" question, maybe if somebody else asked it it might be posted.
          No, go ahead and post it. Slashdot isn't part of the Zionist conspiracy.
          ...
          Yet.

        • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          There are a few webhosts out there that advertise as "free speech". I have no experience with any of them, but they may fit your needs.

          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]

        • 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

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Yfrwlf ( 998822 )
        Correct, but the government could have told them to. The government here in the U.S. has their hands inside the inner workings of the entire technology industry all in the name of anti-terrorism and patriotism and whatever other BS they can think up. What he needs to do is find out why, from their mouths, they shut him down. Then, he can tell the rest of the world in order to make sure everyone knows about their policies and practices. This way, people can act against these companies if they believe it

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by nokilli ( 759129 )

          What he needs to do is find out why, from their mouths, they shut him down. Then, he can tell the rest of the world in order to make sure everyone knows about their policies and practices.

          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)

          --
          Sig break!

      • Re:Lots of this going around (Score:5, Funny)

        by computational super ( 740265 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @04:51PM (#20016237)
        The thing about free speech, as protected by the US Constitution, is that it only protects you against the government

        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!

      • 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.

        Here is the thing that bothers me about this:

        Censorship through proxy.

        Due to the fa

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Yfrwlf ( 998822 )
      Host your blog on your own server? That way, no one can shut you down. :) I know that you shouldn't have to do that, and I would highly recommend that you delve into the Google/Technorati/Blogger policies and try to find out why they shut you down, and definitely also email and call them. Record everything, too. Then come back, and tell the world what you found out. Viva la revolution! :)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by FleaPlus ( 6935 )
      Technorati simply banned my site. Google first truncated links from other sites leading to pages on my blog, and when that wasn't enough, they simply had Blogger delete the blog.

      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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by nokilli ( 759129 )
        OK. The formatting is going to suck though...

        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
        • Umm... please don't reproduce.

          Signed: the world.

        • 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 the parent post down -- I asked him to post his content here so we could take a look at it and better evaluate his claims. I actually disagree with his claims and his viewpoint, but he shouldn't be penalized for what I asked him to do.

        • 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)

      by cromar ( 1103585 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @04:12PM (#20015661)
      It would probably help if you didn't say things like "The racist Jews at The New York Times simply desire to preserve what little credibility they have remaining..." (Ironically, your blog is still cached [72.14.253.104] by Google.)

      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)

        by plague3106 ( 71849 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @04:30PM (#20015897)
        Well in a society that respects free speech he has every right to post that trash. Racist speech is protected.

        • Re:Lots of this going around (Score:5, Insightful)

          by BlueParrot ( 965239 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @04:47PM (#20016173)

          Well in a society that respects free speech he has every right to post that trash. Racist speech is protected.
          Maybe, but blogger has no obligation to host it free of charge.
          • Bingo!

            Mod parent up, I have no points at the moment.
            • Oops, wrong button. Here's what I had to add:

              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
              • Again, its a case of free citizens censoring each other, a concept I'm not comfortable with. TOS or not, I don't agree with the censoring of a blogger.

                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
          • In that case, I guess Blogger must be responsible for every last syllable posted on their site.

          • 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

          • Maybe not, but I think even acting as private citizens we need to let others speak their minds as well. Its very unfortunate that citizens in a supposedly free country want to hide topics or ideas they hate. That's not how a good ciziten of this country is supposed to be acting. I suspect the founders never thought we'd attempt to censor each other on a daily basis.

            At any rate, what does the hoster care? They probably get more page hits from controrversy than someone posting about their new puppy.
        • So because he accuses the New York times of harboring racists, he is himself a racist.

          I say you are a racist for calling him a racist. OMGz now I'm racist. Where will it end?
      • You come very close to stepping over the line from "anti-Zionist" to fundamentalist racist in that sentence.

        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

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cromar ( 1103585 )
          As for the line, I don't know where yours is drawn, but mine is drawn at the intersection between words meaning something, and the use of slogans, catchprases, propaganda and cliches.

          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.)
          ...
          2. ... One who holds some doctrine or theory which he tries to apply without sufficient regard to practical considerations; a pedantic theorist.

          I'm sure you know what a racist is.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by catxk ( 1086945 )
        I'm sorry, but who the fuck cares if it's racist? It simply proves he's an idiot. Again, who the fuck cares?
      • It would probably help if you didn't say things like "The racist Jews at The New York Times simply desire to preserve what little credibility they have remaining..."

        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

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I would ban your blog based on the name alone. I might be missing the irony (haven't read it), but Israel-bashing under the title of "Holocaust now" is not acceptable by any standards.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by FleaPlus ( 6935 )
      > Google first truncated links from other sites leading to pages on my blog

      Could you elaborate on what you mean by Google "truncating links"?

    • 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.

      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

    • It's possible that your blog was deleted because it was viewed by blogger as promoting "racial hatred". You many many references to the "racist Jews at The New York Times", and you claim that Technocrati blocked you because the founder and CEO is jewish, and it's all part of some zionist plot against you.

      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

    • 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 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

    • You might find this interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_too l [wikipedia.org]
    • The context of the quote you provide by JFK was in reference to the Alliance for Progress -- an organization established by JFK to battle against Soviet-satellite Cuban-sponsored communism in the Western hemisphere. The method used by the the Alliance for Progress to combat the spread of communism during the early 1960's was economic development. JFK understood better than most that political rights like democratic votes are established when economic rights are enforced; and economic rights like property
    • Umm...? Actually that's not at all oxymoronic, even in spirit. I don't tihnk "oxymoronic" means what you think it means. One can certainly have good intentions and perform an ultimately "bad" act.
      • I don't think censorship means what you think it means.
        • Inconceivable!
        • I know exactly what it means. What many people confuse is censorship as prohibited by the first amendment, and censorship by private entities. In either case, it's censorship per se. It's just that thats fine unless it's the government doing it.
          • I agree that in the US, censorship by the government is unconstitutional, whereas censorship by private organizations is not. I wouldn't say censorship by private organizations is "fine," though. However, the uber-parent deals with censorship by foreign governments of their subjects, not with censorship in the US.
    • Censorship is not bad per se. There are already laws against child porn, bomb-making instructions and nuclear launch codes being shared with the world.

      So censorship can indeed me good, as long as we save it for only the absolutely-worst things.

  • Too specific (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @03:39PM (#20015235)
    If only there were a report that warned against "well-meaning" acts to force people to do (or not do) things against their will in general. That would be cool.

    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)

    by darkmayo ( 251580 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @03:39PM (#20015237)
    from Uzbekistan, namely about how there Potassium is better.
  • you can't entirely shield people from themselves (ie, the thoughts of their fellow citizens). the internet is just a powerful way to do what people do anyways whenever and whereever they congregate: gossip and pass rumors

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27, 2007 @03:52PM (#20015403)
    ...and all those other supposedly good things you want without getting the bad interference and ubiqitious filtering, you are fooling yourself.

    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.
    • This is perhaps why many of us are still dedicated to Usenet and to a lesser extent, Internet Relay Chat. Usenet still feels very much like the wild Internet I remember in the late '80s and early '90s, except for the increase in spam. Still, even with that, I am filtering less on Usenet than I am on the Web; plus you can be as much of a total dick as you want to whomever you want, and the most that anyone can do is individually killfile you -- moderation as it should be.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Mattintosh ( 758112 )
      No, HTTP is over. Maybe even SMTP and POP.

      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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Enoxice ( 993945 )
      "Our internet will be turned into a PC..."

      I know what you mean, the Internet is already on my PC...
  • "road to hell is paved with good intentions."
  • This kind of censorship is something that a real-life Church Lady [wikipedia.org] would do.

  • Keep in mind (Score:2, Insightful)

    by HitekHobo ( 1132869 )
    The internet treats censorship as damage and reroutes around it.
    • That's fine for everyone who isn't being censored. The censored will just become insular.

    • Western Europe (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Monty845 ( 739787 )
      I think it is interesting how there is no mention of western european censorship: Hate speach (France etc...), Holocaust Denial (Germany etc...) We may not like what people say, and may even wish they couldn't say it, but censoring it is wrong. If this commision isn't equally as worried about that, then they are really just trying to look good by identifying the faults of others, rather than effecting change.
  • It is dirty Uzbeki spies! They jealous of our Potassium export! High Five!
  • Internet Crime, Ping-pong and rape.

  • Increasingly common restrictions. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by metrometro ( 1092237 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @04:20PM (#20015751)
    I work with an international governance watchdog, Global Integrity ( http://www.globalintegrity.org/ [globalintegrity.org] ), and anecdotally we're seeing a marked increase in online censorship being reported, under democracies and dictators both, even since we started looking at this in 2004. It's like the anti-democracy elements of the world just now figured out how to do this in earnest. We've just begun tracking the issue rigorously this year - we'll let Slashdot know when that report comes out.
  • I don't see what all the fuss is about:

    "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

  • That's Borat on bread and water then
  • Didn't Digg try this censorship thing once in response to a DCMA takedown request? I recall that it didn't seem to work very well.

    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)

    by ericferris ( 1087061 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @04:55PM (#20016295) Homepage
    A criminal bureaucracy will just harass you until they get what they want -- your money generally. Once they have your money and you're broke, they'll just make sure you toe the line, but otherwise they'll let you be because they recon they cannot get blood from a turnip. It's called a kleptocracy and it's very common now and in History. You are more than welcome to practice warfare against them because it's fair game to try to throw down a dictatorship of thugs.

    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)

      by NEOtaku17 ( 679902 )
      "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -C.S. Lewis
      • Hey, no fair paraphrasing my brilliant insights! Who does that Lewis guy think he is? :-)

        Nice to see that I agree with a quotable philosopher.
  • ..about the secret blocklists that are in use in at least Sweden and Finland. In Finland it is to be used against child porn and everyone swore that the lists would not be used for anything else .. until suddenly someone wanted to block out foreign poker sites. Sigh... Atleast in Kazahstan you know.

  • I've been thinking... (Score:3)

    by localman ( 111171 ) on Friday July 27, 2007 @05:34PM (#20016845) Homepage
    And this may be obvious to others but it just occurred to me. Hasn't most trouble, pain, and suffering in the world been caused by movements which "have vowed to purge"?

    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.
    • Just wanted to let you know you've got a very good point... one I've been making to people answering the question: " Do you need to believe in (a) god to have morals? [wis.dm]" In trying to understand the ones who answered "yes", I've come to the same conclusion as you: humans think they need an authority figure to be good; they just can't do it themselves.
      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
      • Thanks for the reply. You mention morals apart from "god". It's something I've been thinking about, and it made me question of what morals actually are. My current best guess is this:

        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
        • Hey there,

          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? ...we can hope.

          Nice "talking" to ya...
  • By attacking The Pirate Bay with child porn allegation and threat of censor, the Swedish police a few weeks ago proved that censorship is impossible to implement in a society which aims to be democratic. It's really as close as you can get to a mathematical valid proof of a societal matter, the experiment goes like this: You limit yourself to censoring the absolutely most horrific thing in society. You wait one year. If The Pirate Bay is still not mentioned in the context of the filter, you might have somet

  • 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...

    • No, there is censorship that is not "well-meaning".

      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

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        Political leader of a country (cuba, Germany early 1940s, Venezuela) who censors an opponent or opposition's speech to retain power.

        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.

        That being said I believe that censorship isn't inherently a bad thing or a good thing, it's

  • country's information minister, Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, has vowed to purge Kazakh sites of "dirt" and "lies."

    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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