Dutch Legislature Accidentally Votes For Internet Filtering 143
tulcod writes "The Dutch government has accidentally passed an exception to a law on net neutrality, (Google translation of original in Dutch) enabling ISPs to filter internet traffic based on 'ideological motives.' The PvdA (labor party) accidentally voted for this exception to the Telecomwet (telecommunications law), which, on its own, does not allow such filtering. PvdA intends to repair their mistake."
Re:I can't read Dutch... (Score:5, Informative)
But how the hell do you accidentally vote on a piece of legislation?
They were running down a list.
"Who agrees to point 1, please raise your hands. Okay. Who agrees to point 2, please raise your hands." Somewhere around item 8, the labour party mistakenly thought they were agreeing to another point. And just one second after the chairwoman had counted, the party corrected. But then it was too late, because "rules are rules".
However, the article above is a little misleading. The law proposed does not allow every single ISP to block whatever THEY like for "network maintenance reasons". It allows people with certain beliefs to use specialized providers like www.filternet.nl to keep them away from pornography and other things that their religious beliefs forbid. So it's not a type of censorship that this law could allow, but this law is supposed to enable end users to say "please filter my internet to keep my conscience clear". The choice of the end user him-/herself.
Idiotic mistake, but little consequences (Score:2, Informative)
I just read the law in question (Dutch citizen here), and it is not half as ignorant as it is portrayed to be.
First of all, it gives the end user and NO ONE ELSE the possibility to have their own, and no one else's IP traffic filtered for stuff they do not want to see. Second of all, the end user has to take action (contact their ISP) to get this to happen, and to specify what they want filtered. Third of all, it excludes filtering which is aimed at leading to financial gain for ISP's: the "I'll filter out your local greengrocer because Walmart pays me to" kind of crap everyone is -rightly- afraid of.
A loophole to disable net neutrality? I don't see how. Being opt-in, it is less invasive than the law that requires nudie magazines to be stacked above the field of vision of minors at the newsstands.
In fact, you could say this is a law that helps the (fundamentalist Christian, 'cause they're who started this) technophobes/modernophobes to get their content filtered before it hits the browser, opt-in and by your personal specifications. Adblocking and parental filter, ISP-side.
Whether or not one should exclude part of the world's reality from one's possible field of vision is, of course, a different and academic discussion because everyone tries to ignore what they do not want to see. I, for one, am really glad I can use adblocking&co. But I'll make my own choices on what to block and what not, thankyouverymuch, and I don't trust any ISP to do that along the rules I set for them.
Of course, a political party voting for something they did not read is ridiculous. But Dutch politicians -especially the Social Democrats- have a history of doing just that, and in general try to twist the truth so that it seems they had no other choice. This time round, at least they admitted to their stupidity. But in the words of their political leader Job Cohen: "We are all amateurs". Also, the fundamentalist Christians have a habit of hiding horrible proposals in seemingly innocent wordings somewhere in little add-ons in laws concerning a totally different subject, in the hope no-one notices. Apparently, that works -even when the law in question deals with a similar subject.