Collateral Damage as UK Censors Internet Archive 272
An anonymous reader noted the latest developments in the controversial censoring of the internet by UK ISPs. Apparently since some content of the Wayback Machine is bad, the whole thing needs to be blacklisted.
That is as expected. (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you start censoring internet things it tends to snowball until it gets in the way of agtually getting information.
WOW (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like the UK is purposely going out of it's way to prove internet censorship doesn't work.
I hope that's the goal, because otherwise they are just working to make their people dumber.
I somehow doubt the really objectionable stuff is on web pages that are open to the public.
Free Speech (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is you cannot have freedom of speech and censorship at the same time. The freedom of speech is one of the most precious freedoms that we have, the freedom to express ideas and opinions. I may not agree with what a lot of people say but they have the right to say it. The power ultimately is in the hands of the people, there may come a time when the military has to choose to either side with the elected official or to side with the people, but that day will not come while the people sit idly still getting trampled upon.
Simply appalling (Score:5, Insightful)
This is outrageous. No government has ANY right to censor the internet or anything else or determine what people look at. It is none of their business. I am simply disgusted, people did not fight and die for freedoms, like basic freedom of speech so that we could give it up and turn ourselves into a totalitarian dictatorship. The UK is NOT a free society, it has become a totalitarain dictatorship and its government has no right or validity to do this. Censorship is one of the most significant hallmarks of a totalitarian prison state. No free society can allow for censorship. Stand up for your rights people! Don't let them get away with enslaving you! This is what we call the totalitarian creep, just take away little peices of freedom at a time, and people dont notice what happens. People say "oh, its just a little freedom, not much", but those little peices start to add up. And in the UK they have been chipping away at the expectations of freedom and privacy for a while and getting people used to living with greater intrusions upon their freedoms and privacy all the time. Years ago, if we would have suggested that one day the government would demand to block access to content and just blatantly censor anything it pleases and monitor all of your communications, you would have been called a nutty conspiracy theorist. But it is happening right now!!! The conspiracy theorists were right and it is becoming increasingly obvious by the day that there are those in power who want to implement a total survellience and censorship society prison state, which would weaken dramatically the framework of a free soceity, leading to greater atrocities and establishment of stasi like agencies and secret police is next. Censorship of any kind is simply an atrocity and a violation of basic human rights and so is mass censorship and the presence of this are a sure sign you are not living in a free society.
Re:That is as expected. (Score:4, Insightful)
Anything that can be censored is ALREADY information. Censorship is just splitting information into that which is deemed acceptable for grown civilised adults to view/read without losing their minds, vs. that which only the extra-grown, extra-civilised censors can view/read without losing their minds.
Re:Simply appalling (Score:3, Insightful)
No government has ANY right to censor the internet ...
The UK government isn't censoring the internet. Some ISP's are. ISP's are free to choose whether they want to use a blacklist. You are free to choose an ISP that doesn't use the blacklist. Hence, I think a totalitarian dictatorship might be a bit of an overstatement.
Can you already see the next step? (Score:4, Insightful)
Databases for people trying to access blocked pages? Oh, wait, that already exists in the UK.
Now let's connect the dots. This is a page that was blocked because it contained child porn. You tried to access it. That makes you... well...?
Re:Simply appalling (Score:2, Insightful)
Stand up for your rights people! Don't let them get away with enslaving you!
I agree, what is happening to the UK government is very scary, as I've heard many people say, but I've never heard anyone suggest how to stand up for our rights/privacy!
Voteing doesn't work - they're all as corrupt as each other.
People are dreaming if they think the no.10 patition website does anything.
Most of the population doesn't even realise that this is happening, or don't believe it anyway.
I honestly belive that politicians don't have a bloody clue, don't act in anyone's interest except their own, and don't listen when anyone with a clue tells them they are wrong.
What are we supposed to do?
Re:That is as expected. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a charitable assumption. This censorship could also be political, malicious, or for that matter completely random. Note that the IWF refuse to discuss details of what specifically led them to blacklist Wayback, other than the usual non-answer of "think of the children".
If (correction, when) the nuLabour regime feel like making any particular group unPersons, they could pick up the phone to the IWF, remind them that regulation is better than legislation, and have anything they like censored, opaquely and without oversight or appeal. Anyone who questions the IWF axiomatically likes kiddie porn, remember.
Re:Simply appalling (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll throw in a (semi) related quote by George Carlin, "Rights aren't rights if someone can take them away, they're privileges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news, even badly, you'd know that every year the list gets shorter, and shorter and shorter."
Re:Simply appalling (Score:1, Insightful)
Aye: this is a private nonprofit org who supply their list to the ISPs, who choose to comply.
You're free to choose another ISP - though they may not be as transparent - and that's good old competitive market forces for you right there.
Totalitarian dictatorship? Dried frog pills please.
Re:That is as expected. (Score:4, Insightful)
Where have I seen this before? Oh yea can we tag this VForVendetta?
If the governments want to do anything, they should make the parents responsible for their kids and them selves. Parents should be teaching their kids right from wrong, what those parents want their kids to know. It looks like parents want their kids to be raised at school. Which is wrong. Children learn writing, reading, math... Children are raised at home by the parents. Your job as a parent is not done after the DNA combination and birth of said child.
Re:Can you already see the next step? (Score:4, Insightful)
Misdirected, possibly. Or improperly linked. Possibly a pedophile. I don't want the government to determine I'm a pedo if someone thinks it would be great fun to misdirect a link that I would visit to a pedo site.
Tell them (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Simply appalling (Score:4, Insightful)
The UK government isn't censoring the internet. Some ISP's are. ISP's are free to choose whether they want to use a blacklist. You are free to choose an ISP that doesn't use the blacklist. Hence, I think a totalitarian dictatorship might be a bit of an overstatement.
I agree that avoiding hyperbole is a good idea. But only because such a tactic tends to gloss over the details. And that's where the devil can be found in this case.
On the surface it appears that this is simply a private organization providing a service to private companies. As you stated, ISPs choose to follow the recommendations of the IWF (the exact method of doing this remains a rather large question and is one of the base issue in this particular case). There is no direct government mandate to adhere to the IWF's list.
However, this glosses over the fact that the IWF was formed with assistance of the UK Government and continues to operate with, among other sources, EU funding. That the IWF works so closely with the UK Government lends an additional air of authority. Despite the lack of official authority or Governmental office, the IWF acts very much like they have both.
This really does give the appearance of the UK Government imposing bans without the hassle of them getting their hands dirty to do it. But anyone who wishes to make this claim had better understand the how and why of it. Otherwise the public will look at the claims, look at the situation at face value, and dismiss it outright without a full understanding of the players and their actions.
The trouble with blacklists (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble with blacklists is that the criteria are almost always emotional and subjective and rarely rational or objective. Since human emotional responses are never going to be precisely the same across the board, their resulting contents are a recipe for annoyance and worse. Why are they even still considered effective by anyone?
Re:That is as expected. (Score:2, Insightful)
That's all nice in the western world, but the whole "blame the parents" system fails miserably in less-fortunate (read: terminally fucked) regions of the world where the parents come from a long line of ethically bankrupt generations, largely the product of their dysfunctional war-mongering governments. How can you teach a child the "right way", when you've never known it yourself ?
Orwell would be impressed (Score:1, Insightful)
But instead of just blocking archive.org, traffic should be redirected to a new site, memoryhole.gov.uk.
Re:That is as expected. (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't the government. The IWF is a private organisation that ISPs voluntarily sign up to.
In my opinion, this is even worse, as there is NO review process, and noone ot be held accountable for mistakes.
My take on the UK/US privacy/censorship problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Germany and Austria take anything related to the Holocaust very seriously. Holocaust denial is a felony and will most likely cause you a prison sentence. "Mein Kampf" is the only book that is illegal to own, buy or sell in both countries, and Nazi symbols like swastikas or the Hitler greeting are prohibited. It is also considered "taboo" to say anything along the lines of: "Well, Hitler wasn't all bad, y'know..."
Personally, I think this is a good thing, because it helps people realise the seriousness of the whole thing. People in Germany or Austria will probably not laugh at Jew/Nazi jokes, as these are considered tasteless, not funny, etc.
But:
Germany and Austria also take free speech and its place as foundational pillar of democracy very seriously. It is through demonizing our past and disassociating ourselves with it that we recognise the importance of free speech and privacy. It is for this reason that these countries will never have the "slippery slope" problem of privacy loss and censorship (unless, of course, we are dragged kicking and screaming into it through EU lobbying). Governments in the UK and US (and Australia, I guess) have always been the good guys. There has never been any instance of citizens standing up to oppression on a large scale, which is why most people fail to realise where the slippery slope is (or at least might be) going.
People are slowly forgetting about the horrors of the Holocaust, but the memories of the censorship and privacy invasions by the GDR in East Germany are still vivid in people's memories. Watch The Life of Others [imdb.com] if you still don't know what I'm talking about.
Re:That is as expected. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a rather absolute statement. Kids are raised by everyone who influences them, including parents, teachers, after school care providers, and others they interact with. Your statement is only completely accurate for sheltered, shut-in, home-schooled kids who grow up completely clueless about the world.
I try to shape the influence other people have over my son by giving him the mental tools to evaluate what they tell him, but I can't lock him away from outside influences. Nor do I want to. Listening to and evaluating different opinions is the only way you develop interpersonal critical thinking skills.
Tell that to my ex...
Re:Simply appalling (Score:3, Insightful)
The current government wasn't elected, and the one it replaced was a long way short of a majority.
Re:Free Speech (Score:1, Insightful)
Yelling fire in a crowded theater is perfectly acceptable given that the theater is actually on fire. Censorship would be an attempt to remove the phrase even in appropriate situations.
So how do you like your marshmellows?
Re:Well you can always rise against oppression ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because those handguns you're allowed to buy will be oh-so-effective pitted against the tanks, armoured aircraft, long-range artilliary and and armed robots of the entire US armed forces. Good luck with that.
Re:That is as expected. (Score:4, Insightful)
Would ya'll please stop misusing this? Semantics are about content, syntax about presentation. Semantic differences are important (though the degree is variable,) syntactic ones are essentially not.
Re:Free Speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually it's even worse. Many people are aware of the phrase (at least here in the UK), it is spoken with reasonable regularity, and the people use it in a context in which they are agreeing with the sentiment. But it seems most people pay lip service to this, and don't actually mean it when push comes to shove. We just don't have the same reverence for free speech that Americans do, something I find unfortunate.
Re:My take on the UK/US privacy/censorship problem (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Kids are raised by... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That is as expected. (Score:3, Insightful)
Once you start censoring internet things it tends to snowball until it gets in the way of agtually getting information.
Actually, it seems once you start censoring the Internet, it starts getting harder to censor the Internet.
For instance, my ISP, which did get involved in the wikpedia censorship fiasco, seems to have stayed clear of this one.
Re:That is as expected. (Score:3, Insightful)
It is probably an intersection between the album cover incident and the general reason why blacklists are rarely made public.
If we knew why it was blacklisted, we could(and probably would) find fault with it and then publicly ridicule the blacklist, holding this to be yet another reason why blacklists are made of failure.
So instead of giving us more ammo, they just nuke the whole thing. Nothing to object to, so we can only shout "there is nothing wrong with this site!" and them to reply "except for the kiddy porn, which we won't help publicize".
Re:That is as expected. (Score:2, Insightful)
They didn't voluntarily sign up to it. They were told they have to volunteer, or there would be strict legislation.
That's coercion.
Re:My take on the UK/US privacy/censorship problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait, isn't Germany the country where videogames can't have red blood? And aren't they the ones the ruined the Fallout tradition of being able to shoot kids (in game, obviously).
Smells like censorship. Smells like censorship that has nothing to do with the Holocaust.
Also, censoring a book, or a thought ("the holocaust never happened") is still censorship, no matter how much you agree with it being banned. Mein Kampf has some historical importance, so reading it does not denote that the reader is an aspiring Nazi. Hell, I've read it, and it didn't make me a Nazi, far from it. It was actually educational, it allowed me to get into the head of a despot, which informed me about future possible despots. Its a (really badly written) warning.
As for holocaust denial... I find it tragically funny. Some of my friends grandparents have tattoos on their arms. Hell my grandfather was among the first US troops to arrive at Auschwitz, he didn't talk about it much, but he was there. How can you deny something that people who are still alive lived through? Ignoring that, if you want to claim that their are "lying Jews" about, there is actual Nazi paper work, and forensic evidence.
Banning denial is silly, since the whole argument is silly. I doubt listening to a denier is going to convince ANYONE with half a brain.
Re:Can you already see the next step? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not slippery slope, it's time and again proven. People have been accused and even convicted because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's easier to be in the wrong place when the internet is involved. Not only would you be "in the wrong place at the wrong time" if you just happened to take your evening drink in the kingpin's bar during the sting, no matter when you were there, if only because you got the wrong directions from your friend you'd be on the list of suspects.
Now, with all rickrolls and meatspins happening, do you really think it's so far off that someone would be sent to a "shocking" sex site by a prankster, a page that is eventually deemed "indecent" and made illegal because it displays some sort of activity that is gross AND eventually illegal in some country?
Not all countries have the same "decency" laws. Some things that are perfectly legal in the US are anything but legal in many countries. Yes, countries like Canada and parts of the EU, we're not talking about countries under Sharia law like Iran. Some of those sex acts can be considered quite shocking.
Anyone here questioning that some prankster thinks it's fun to send someone to such a page?
Re:WOW (Score:3, Insightful)
The previous Howard government (conservative) spent A$100 Million on providing a free client side filter to citizens that was broken within 30 minutes. The current Rudd government (less conservative) has spent nothing as it hasn't passed its idea through parliament yet. It's not likely to pass as it relies on the support of the greens who have openly opposed it and co-operation of the ISP's who have openly opposed it. The last Australian government who thought they could rule by fiat was removed by the Governor-General in short order.
I'd don't want the A$100 mil back, or the money that Senator Conroy wants for the filter, I do however want that money to be put into the budget for education which will benefit Australia's children far more then any filter could ever hope to (Education suffered horribly under the Liberal (Conservative) government).