Saudi Arabia Requiring License For Online Media

Beetle B. writes "According to Saudi Arabia's leading English newspaper, Arab News, online newspapers, blogs and forums will now need to register with the Ministry of Information and Culture for licenses to operate, according to new regulations that the ministry announced Saturday it is to introduce. Abdul Aziz Khoja, minister of information and culture, said that the system is 'in line with the development moves that the media sector is witnessing.' He added that the rules do not include any clauses restricting freedom of speech and that the ministry is eager to ensure there is transparency. He also said that the rules will be made open to improvement in the future."

Re:Fairness

[Attila Dimedici]

but suggesting that the US is trying to "regulate" the internet just shows a complete (and willing) failure to understand the topic.

Perhaps your definition of regulate is different from mine, but hasn't the FCC introduced "net neutrality" regulations? What, if not the Internet, do those regulations apply to?

Licensing and Freedom

[BJ_Covert_Action]

When I was growing up my buddy's dad told us a story. He talked about how he and his dad used to go out into the woods and cut firewood, fish, and hunt without a license. They just took these rights for granted. Hell, he even told us about how he shot a buck in some guy's front yard when he was a teenager. That was life back then in the sticks. Anyways, when he was younger, his dad made the comment to him that, when he got older, one would need a license to fish, hunt, and cut firewood. He also predicted that, eventually, you would only be allowed to do these things in certain, designated parts of the wilderness, rather than anywhere the road ended in bush.

Anyways, those predictions have come true, at least here in the California. That always stuck with me and got me thinking. I have ten bucks that says, when I am my roomate's dad's age, you'll need a license to upload most, if not all, content that you want to the internet. You might require a license to legally access the internet at all. You'll be required to get a license to allow you to consume alcohol, if it's not prohibited outright. And you'll need a license to run a wireless networking node, you know, so that you can't set up a shady mesh network that is not policed.

So those are my predictions for the next 20 years. Every time I see a story like this from Saudi Arabia, China, or, hell, even places like Australia with their internet censorship boogeyman that their government keeps bringing up, I just figure that the U.S. will wait a year or two before enacting those same policies here. I'm so sick of this bullshit about living in the land of the free but continually watching our freedoms get sold to the highest bidder. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but mark my words, the internet will be licensed in the U.S. before long.

Oh, one more, if 3D printing becomes cheap and accessible, you'll be required to get a manufacturing license to produce anything. That one will get enacted under the name of that God-foresaken commerce clause.

We need to buy electric cars

[circletimessquare]

Not because of the environment, but so we stop funding Saudi Arabia. If it weren't for oil, Saudi Arabia would be a few poor camel herders in the desert, and their children would look on their ultraconservative religious views and go "I'm outta here," and ultraconservative Islam would die as a force in this world.

But we are artificially maintaining Saudi Arabia's Wahabbi beliefs every time we fill up our fuel tanks, and Saudi Arabia exports ultraconservative Wahabbism to Pakistan, to absolutely wonderful results, sarcasm clearly intended.

Value systems and cultural believe systems that work in this world create value for their societies and result in rich societies. And those values and beliefs are therefore furthered. Meanwhile, broken value systems and abusive cultural believe systems that don't work in this world result in impoverished suffering societies no one wants to be a part of, and so those societies change to seek out more prosperity. But if your society is sitting upon a giant vat of petroleum, and other societies pay you trillions for that, there's no reason to change, and so you keep these medieval belief systems, because you can afford to do that. We need to make sure Saudi Arabia can't afford to do that anymore.

If Islamic extremism bothers you, then your next automobile purchase should be electric. There's very little you can do in this world as an individual to right horrible complicated wrongs. But here is one clear way you can.

Re:Licensing and Freedom

[BitZtream]

Fishing licenses have always struck me as silly, at least for non-commercial fishermen using poles instead of nets.

Non-commercial fishing licenses are more or less a tax, as are hunting licenses in places where limits aren't an issue.

I'm happy to pay for a fishing license because that money is then used to stock the lakes I fish in and do research into keeping the areas I fish healthy for me to fish in down the road.

Inland lakes are extremely overfished in the US these days. Florida has been destroyed by tourism from a fishing perspective.

You also have to deal with the people who come out to the lake and use casting nets to catch fish to take home, if what they catch isn't big enough, they just let it die on the shore or dock, of course these guys aren't licensed anyway.

The license fees help to pay people to keep the lakes, rivers and other waterways alive. They pay for some of the boat ramps I launch from. They pay for the educational services and kids fishing trips and outdoors events to educate our children about the damage they can do and how to prevent it.

In short, fishing licenses are just like hunting licenses, they help slow down the damage being done by over population and waste, and I'm really okay with it as a fisherman myself, but that could be because I'm lucky enough to live in an area that cares a lot about its waterways. The last 6 times I've been out on the lake, 4 of those times I saw and conversed with researchers or wardens about the state of the lake and any problems I might have noticed or think of. The $35/year I pay for a fishing license is probably the most productive use of money I ever make ... well, short of buying Apple stock back when they weren't worth crap :)