UK Government Crowd-Sourcing Censorship 262
angry tapir writes "The UK public can report 'terrorism-related' Web sites to authorities for removal from the Internet under a new program launched by the British government. The program is a way in which the government is seeking to enforce the Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006. These laws make it illegal to have or to share information intended to be useful to terrorists, and ban glorifying terrorism or urging people to commit terrorist acts."
What is considered "terrorism-related"? (Score:5, Interesting)
US and UK government are melding (Score:4, Interesting)
Always a horrifying thought, being reported by your neighbors.
I work with an elderly West German lady. She was telling me that her East German friends had grown a lifetime of distrust for just about everyone. Some East Germans that grew up steeped in this mindset still keep new friends at arm's length, even today.
Also, the story reminded me of this gem:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/ [whitehouse.gov]
Re:US and UK government are melding (Score:3, Interesting)
Tagged this story as "stasi"
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:"Removal from the internet"? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how many things are removed from the Internet that we simply don't get to hear about...
Sure, there are high-profile cases in which it backfires and causes the offending material to be spread far and wide, but I'd be willing to bet that that happens in a tiny minority of the cases, and that in the rest, almost no-one not directly involved ever even knows.
Sorted (Score:5, Interesting)
Check
Check
and check. [ntlworld.com]
Website Captcha Fail (Score:2, Interesting)
The worse part about this site is that they have recaptcha on it but verify the request in javascript.
Hence you can stick this request on your spam bot...
https://reporting.direct.gov.uk/bin/submitter.php?report_type=1&report_url=reporting.direct.gov.uk&report_desc=GeorgeOrwellWasRight [direct.gov.uk]
Perspective (Score:1, Interesting)
OK, so it's still nigh on impossible to report phishing sites and malware-ridden adverts -- things which DO have a tangible negative impact on people -- to the authorities, but everyone is encouraged to take action against a mythical drummed-up threat which impacts almost nobody in this country?
Im so fucking sick of this shit. Is it too much effort to protect us from REAL threats?
Re:"Removal from the internet"? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how many things are removed from the Internet that we simply don't get to hear about...
Good question. There are websites, such as The Memory Hole, which specifically try to maintain records of things which perhaps the powerful controlling interests of mainstream media would like to scrub from history. Like Benazir Bhutto's confirmation that Bin Laden was dead. Or the Pentagon admitting that it targeted civilian water supplies in Iraq. Or Israel claiming to reprimand two top army officers for ordering the Jan. 15 attack on the UN compound in Gaza last year that used white phosphorus shells, but actually not disciplining them at all. That sort of thing, of which there is plenty. Project Censored does a yearly round up of the most important stories ignored by the mainstream media.
There are the things which disappear because no one gives a crap. (My old Geocities website)
Re:One day they'll have to confront it head on (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice strawman. Do you realize that you just validated the grandparent's point? He talks about deporting immigrants who've expressed hostility towards their host culture, some to the point of committing crimes, even murder, and you come out and call him a nazi. That gives him the option of either giving up - which, in his view, results in his nation getting destroyed - or moving towards more radical methods.
Congratulations. You've prevented the matter from being discussed in a calm and reasonable manner, thus making sure that anyone concerned has little choice but to radicalize. Well done.
Yes, I'm pretty sure that hostile immigrants have been deported before. Are these hostile immigrants? Who knows, you cut the discussion short in favour of shouting "Nazi nazi nazi", so now I'll just have to assume the worst or risk my country. Again, congratulations. Pat yourself on the back.
Re:What is considered "terrorism-related"? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, who wants to flood this system to the point that it starts impacting everyone and gets removed?
I'm thinking of something like this:
Google for terms like "armed resistance" "bomb made from" "nerve gas" "freedom" "oppression" "kill" "opposition" "freedom of speech"
then some setup where we run through the first few hundred thousand google results, grab the domain names and use some PHP script to serve up bite sized portions that random Slashdoters can copy paste into the form for submitting "terrorist" web pages.
I'm thinking we could drown the system in noise.
Or am I supporting the terrorists now?
Re:What is considered "terrorism-related"? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not originally it didn't - ask the Glaswegian Muslim girl that was arrested and imprisoned under the 42 day detention crap for writing a poem. Apparently anything they find threatening counts as well as actual threats.
The IWF (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't give them ideas! ;)
But yes - there's the Internet Watch Foundation (which also crowd sources its censorship - their website has a big red button for you to report stuff), which censors blocked webpages for about 95% of UK users (a few ISPs have yet to implement it, but the Government wants it to be mandatory for all). Allegedly it's only for "potential" child pr0n, but we know from the Wikipedia-censorship episode just how broadly they interpret that.
For anything else, it seems the Government is so far preferring to take down the source, and/or criminalise possession of the material.
Re:What is considered "terrorism-related"? (Score:2, Interesting)
Google has already been reported for returning results a terrorist would find useful.
Re:What is considered "terrorism-related"? (Score:3, Interesting)
There was a newspaper article on this topic. Apparently a person can be categorized as being male/female/hermaphrodite in three different categories; genetically, physically and psychologically. Going by those rules, you would end up having
a cube type diagram with 27 different types (a bit like the nationstates cube for types of country).
Re:What is considered "terrorism-related"? (Score:3, Interesting)