UK Gov't Plans To Censor "Extremist" Websites Via Orders To ISPs 208
Not content with blacklisting certain kinds of pornography, writes an anonymous reader, according to this news from The Guardian, "The UK government is to order broadband companies to block extremist websites and empower a specialist unit to identify and report content deemed too dangerous for online publication. The crime and security minister, James Brokenshire, said on Wednesday that measures for censoring extremist content would be announced shortly. The initiative is likely to be controversial, with broadband companies already warning that freedom of speech could be compromised."
Gaining speed down that slope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gaining speed down that slope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gaining speed down that slope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I think you mean #MINITRU
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's what happened the last time a British government tried to censor media in matters of extremism and terrorism (in this case, IRA-related organizations):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4409447.stm
Spoiler: it didn't do a damn thing.
It will be interesting to see whether Islamic terrorists manage to do what Irish terrorists couldn't, namely, make Britain clamp down on basic freedoms.
Re: (Score:3)
So often I hear that the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy, but here we are. It's held true in this as well as other instances.
First it targets the child porn.
Well now that we have the system in place, let's hit piracy while we're at it.
Now they've hit stage 3: Oh hey look, there's some speech that we don't like, let's get that too.
Re: (Score:3)
Slippery slope is a fallacy when invoked after a first action. That fallaciousness starts looking a bit dodgy after the second step. Then after the third, it's pretty much QED.
Re: (Score:2)
and now that the society's figurative anus is stretched enough they can drop the lube and start the main act.
Wow, did you just call society as a whole Goatse? Now that's a bit harsh!
Re:Gaining speed down that slope... (Score:4, Insightful)
"You got that right. Once again, protecting our freedom by pissing it away."
Note to UK government: censorship never works. It never has, it never will. All it does is foment rebellion.
Re: (Score:2)
.All it does is foment rebellion.
Which then helps bolster their cause, a sort of self fulfilling positive feedback prophecy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No. You can just incarcerate and torture the rebel leaders out of existence (it's being done in Russia now). The result will be a leaderless rebellion only (again as in Russia where every fact of rape or murder causes immediate riot). Disclaimer (and hint): I do NOT indicate ethnicity and faith of rapists and murderers since it is punishable.
The logical consequence will be a rebellion that cannot be stopped because everybody who might represent it is incarcerated.
And you cannot use all the phone and Interne
Re: (Score:3)
They shouldn't necessarily feel offended. I'm American and it doesn't offend me when people criticize the U.S. government. After all, I'm doing the same while it's still allowed.
Re:Gaining speed down that slope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I'm British, and I respect your concern for my feelings more than I worry about you insulting our cunt of a government.
I'm just glad we don't have yours... fuck me, that would be awful.
Re: (Score:3)
You are not right. Severity of Soviet laws is compensated with non-necessity of their fulfillments. There are lots of laws requiring ISP to filter. But the ISP are commercial organizations and they understand that filtering undermines their business, with all consequences of it. Also, they will not filter VPN, TOR and other similar protocols unless required by (nonexistent for now) law.
The UK state of affirs is much more serious.
Re: (Score:3)
Nonsense. The frog died sometime last century.
Re: (Score:3)
I's a fallacy in a logical context. Trouble is, people, and governments, are not logical entities.
Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
When Terrorism is 'Any action that is intended to influence the government', what is extremism? Any idea that the current sitting government doesn't like?
There was once another group of people that went out of their way to censor information their people received, to hide atrocities committed in their name and smash an idea that didn't fit the party line.
As I recall, at one stage, the UK did quite a bit to stop them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Under that definition voting would qualify as terrorism.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Under that definition voting would qualify as terrorism.
Jesus, don't give the retards in the South any more excuses.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
What do you have against people in the southern UK?
I know you can't mean the American South. This kind of nanny-state crap is the kind of thing you'd expect from the Northeast from people like Herr Bloomberg and/or from the "land of fruits & nuts" aka California and some of the northwestern States from people like Feinstein & Pelosi.
Strat
Re: (Score:3)
Fooking English, they they are the ancient enemy! We'll never surrender our kilts!
Re: (Score:3)
For the love of all that is good and right: please keep that kilt on!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
He's clearly referring to the anti-voting laws...
Wait, wait, wait...
So, now laws that simply require presenting basic personal ID (which everybody would need to have to do almost anything in society) in order to prevent election fraud are now "anti-voting laws"?
LMAO!!
Sheesh, you people just get funnier (and more desperate) every single day!
Strat
Re: (Score:3)
Meanwhile the occurance of voter impersonation is approximately zero. Yes, these are laws to counteract a problem which simply does not exist. Meanwhile, the real purpose of voter ID laws is to prevent votes.
Your "LMAO" comes from ignorance on your part.
Really? We have voter ID laws in Canada, and we still get people trying to vote illegally. Then again, perhaps you can explain why every other western country and some non-western countries in the world have voter ID laws, but the US doesn't.
I'll wait, but I'm sure it's going to be filled with some form of "you're a racist" comment. Don't forget that it's more [usatoday.com] common [watchdogwire.com] than you think.
Re: (Score:2)
If you read more carefully, you will see that I said that the occurance of voter impersonation is approximately zero -- not that it doesn't happen, but that it is actually rare.
As to your second link, that is a problem with voter registrations, not voter ID. People illegally getting onto voter rolls is much more common and is a real problem that is largely unaff
Re: (Score:2)
This assertion is simply not true. For example in the UK (except Northern Ireland), an ID is not required at the time of voting. Northern Ireland does have a real history of significant voter impersonation, so there is a genuine reason for the ID requirement.
Re: (Score:2)
For example in the UK (except Northern Ireland), an ID is not required at the time of voting
But you are required to bring the voting card you received in the post, which is only sent to those on the electoral roll. OK, it's not strictly ID, but it serves a similar purpose.
Re: (Score:3)
> But you are required to bring the voting card you received in the post, which is only sent to those on the electoral roll.
No you're not. I never take mine anymore and I've never had an issue voting.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes it would be easy. So why are the laws not written that way? Because the unwritten purpose of the laws is suppression of legal votes.
Some voter ID laws do give the opportunity to cast a provisional ballot, but then don't give enough time for the voter to obtain the necessary documents to prove that their vo
Re: (Score:3)
Right, right, because laws that require you to actually be eligible to vote, and vote only once, are "anti-voting laws"?
Anyone who buys alcohol will have an ID that lets them vote. So other than a few conservative Christians, who exactly do such laws prevent from legitimately voting?
Re: (Score:2)
You're the liar. To say that requiring proof of citizenship is opposing the right to vote is an abject lie. Such proof is required for all kinds of things in modern day life. It's a simple and prudent thing to do. The raging hysterics of the left alone is proof that fraud is there and they are desperate to protect their edge.
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
When requiring identification proof is absolutely known to disenfranchise tens of thousands of legitimate voters, overwhelmingly in minority and disadvantaged groups --- for the benefit of "preventing" approximately zero voter fraud cases --- then such requirements are unequivocally an opposition to the right to vote, for huge numbers of voters. Such "proof" may be required for lots of everyday things in your middle-class life, but it turns out that tens of thousands of of, e.g., elderly and poor people will be disenfranchised in the states that adopt such laws, because they get by in life without the requisite papers (and cannot spend tens to hundreds of dollars, and possibly multiple days off work during business hours, to scramble through the bureaucracy to obtain them).
Stopping tens of thousands of qualified voters from voting is opposing voting rights. Plain and simple. There is no factual justification for such moves --- in terms of documented evidence of voter fraud --- to be found by its most ardent supporters. In the end, there is simply no reason to perpetrate voter fraud (standing in line for hours, risking being thrown in federal prison, to cast one extra vote) on a large scale --- if you want more votes, it's far easier and more effective to do "get-out-the-vote" drives for the large pool of potential legit voters. Or, if you don't like the idea of legit voters having a voice, you disenfranchise them en-mass by every slimy trick in the book.
Re: (Score:2)
No state with voter ID laws requires a driver's license. Don't believe every bit of propaganda you read. Every state has some sort of non-driver's ID card, and has for decades. They're often called a "drinker's ID", but you also need them to write a check, report for jury duty (in most places), or do any of the hundreds of things one needs an ID for in modern life.
Just because you haven't the slightest idea about the living conditions of the working poor and socially marginalized, doesn't mean those people don't exist
You don't have a fucking clue what living conditions I grew up in. I've met people with poorer childhoods on /., but few from America.
Re: (Score:2)
I assumed he was the increasingly bulbous Alex Salmond, who looks more like a cross between John Prescott & Rupert Murdoch with every passing hour.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, voting for the wrong party anyway.
Re:Well, (Score:5, Interesting)
Democracy is not the problem, it is imperialism that is the problem. Desperate people act desperately, and voting is no exception.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's nothing to do with the vote or outside intervention. Catholics have been fighting Protestants and Jews fighting Palestinians in these regions since long before anyone from the outside decided to intervene. In Ireland before the Catholic vs. Protestant conflict it was conflict between Saxons, Normans, and Celts.
I know it's still popular for the losers of the wars in which the British empire was successful in dominating them to blame them for everything, but it's stupid to blame them for conflicts that h
Re:Well, (Score:5, Informative)
When Terrorism is 'Any action that is intended to influence the government', what is extremism?
you misquoted.
(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government [or an international governmental organisation][2] or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
just stating the fact, not it's implications.
Re: (Score:2)
does it say OR or OF?
and I don't know, you could constitute "lets march to piccadilly and show them what we think!" could be a threat..
Re: (Score:2)
When Terrorism is 'Any action that is intended to influence the government', what is extremism?
you misquoted.
(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government [or an international governmental organisation][2] or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
just stating the fact, not it's implications.
"let's vote them out of office" would qualify as a threat
Re: (Score:2)
I don't really see the difference, a threat to influence government could be:
"Lower taxes or I'm going to start a protest that will disrupt traffic in London"
Or intimidate a section of the public could be:
"I'm sick of some travellers being a group responsible for excess litter where they've been staying, I'm going to start photographing them doing it and reporting such littering to the police"
Threat is a very broad term, so broad as to effectively mean any attempt to exert political pressure for any kind of
Re: (Score:2)
(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government [or an international governmental organisation][2] or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
The Daily Mail must be worried.
Re: (Score:3)
When Terrorism is 'Any action that is intended to influence the government', what is extremism? Any idea that the current sitting government doesn't like?
There was once another group of people that went out of their way to censor information their people received, to hide atrocities committed in their name and smash an idea that didn't fit the party line.
As I recall, at one stage, the UK did quite a bit to stop them.
Churchill is most likely a bit miffed how the UK government pissed away all the hard work he accomplished. Then again, it's not bad when you are doing it, only when someone else is doing it to you.
Re: (Score:2)
Churchill is most likely a bit miffed how the UK government pissed away all the hard work he accomplished.
You mean, accomplishments like bankrupting the nation, losing the Empire and giving half of Europe (including Poland, which Britain supposedly entered the war to save) to Stalin?
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, losing the Empire, you lost all those nations you STOLE! I very much like a UK that is NOT an Empire. We have enough imperialism for now...
No, but the European Union is an empire, as is the USA itself - a confederation of originally separate states which went to war in 1861 to prevent some from leaving it as they wished, and also expanded to include Indian nations and former Spanish territories such as Texas.
Re: (Score:2)
There was once another group of people that went out of their way to censor information their people received, to hide atrocities committed in their name and smash an idea that didn't fit the party line.
As I recall, at one stage, the UK did quite a bit to stop them.
Hurrah for the Blackshirts!
Re: (Score:2)
Not enough, if you listen to future PM Nigel Farage.
Oh hang on...
Extremists? (Score:2)
Theres a lot of them in the States, but I don't suppose they count.
On both ends of the political spectrum
Re:Extremists? (Score:5, Insightful)
The United States of America was founded by armed political extremists.
So much for the Internet.. (Score:2)
Nobody listens to science, sadly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Historically, far and away the most dangerous information a web site can host is the idea it's good, necessary, and proper for a government to have the power to censor.
That's just based on a silly metric called megadeaths, though.
Re: (Score:2)
Dammit, my mod points expired!
Re:Nobody listens to science, sadly. (Score:5, Insightful)
The world needs a hero.
The world needs to stop looking for heroes. The belief that an almighty hero will ride into town and save us all is the root cause of much human suffering, from Hitler to Stalin to Mao to David Cameron.
When humans finally accept that someone with the power to save them is also someone with the power to enslave them, we might actually be able to build a sensible society.
Very extremist behavior (Score:3, Insightful)
One man's extremism (Score:3)
One man's extremism is another man's passion for truth and the rights of the people.
In the famous words of noted hacker Pr1nc3ss L3Ah (Score:4, Insightful)
"The more you tighten your grip... the more bits will simply slip through your fingers."
Seriously though, censorship? "1984" was a warning, NOT A BLOODY GUIDEBOOK!
The UK Gov't has its head up its ass.
Taleban.com (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember that there was great controversy about the Taliban, then in control of the country of Afghanistan. I would go to www.taliban.com and read what they had to say. It was in English. Then in July it was hacked and the front page was replaced by a picture of the American flag. A month or so later the United States invaded Afghanistan. A month after that www.taliban.com disappeared from the Internet.
The United States of America does not have to block web sites. If they don't like you, you just cease
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Good joke, good joke. As if you weren't monitoring and tracking everyone already - it is the funny.
The Truth Is Dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know why people are upset with this (Score:2)
The Internet began as a freedom of speech thing the same way me standing in a park did. But that was in the '80s. Now, the Internet acts as a full publication and broadcast system, like me putting up a six-storey banner on the side of a skyscraper.
There have always been laws governing what you can say in a public arena.
Today, it's the norm for 3-year olds to use online systems, as well as educational institutions, and a whole host of real-world legitimate and vital purposes. It's no longer an optional ac
Re: (Score:2)
You might want to not censor your name here.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, until then, I consider it rude to talk to a stranger without introducing yourself. So I'm done talking with you.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, I've paid a lot for this name, and continue to do so. So if that's sarcasm, the joke's on you. It actually is my official and registered alias. You might try it some time -- proves that you actually care about what you say, standing behind your own words and whatnot.
Re: (Score:2)
They actually aren't "removing" anything. They simply aren't allowing others to sell access to it. They aren't taking down the web-site, and they aren't even taking down the web-site's hosting. They are simply not permitting the telecom company to re-broadcast it for money.
That means you can start your own telecom ISP, make it your business policy to not censor, make that the promise to every paying customer -- make it evident and obvious that's exactly what you're selling and how you differentiate your
But this can't happen (Score:3)
This is a slippery slope, and I've been assured here on many occasions that slippery slopes are a logical fallacy.
Re: (Score:2)
The oxygen of publicity (Score:2)
In 1985 Margaret Thatcher gave a speech to the American Bar Association in which she said "we must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend". This led to a ban on broadcast of utterances by republican politicians supportive of the Provisional IRA, which in turn led to the absurd situation of news programmes showing video of politicians such as Gerry Adams speaking but with the audio replaced by an actor's voice.
It only drew attention to the
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I thought the actors voice-over was a pretty smart compromise. The freedom of the press was preserved, but the passion of the rhetoric was diffused.
When does this become an issue? (Score:2)
Whether or not this becomes a freedom of speech issue depends upon many factors, one of which is the definition of free speech. Personally I draw the line at encouraging people to commit material crimes (e.g. murder) and at intentionally fabricating false information with the intent to harm others (e.g. accusing a person of rape when they did not commit that crime). Yet even if we all agreed upon that definition, there is the question of exactly what constitutes extremism and how that translates into law
Environmentalists (Score:2)
There was a story at The Guardian some months ago about internal government documents that had labeled mainstream environmentalists as extremists.
Re: (Score:2)
There was a story at The Guardian some months ago about internal government documents that had labeled mainstream environmentalists as extremists.
I suspect that suppressing reports like that (and of course the Snowden coverage) is ultimately where this is heading.
Too late (Score:2)
Some ministry of the UK government tried contacting us in regard to content filtering. But we had already blacklisted them as a member of an extremist totalitarian regime. So their communication was blocked.
Will this include "commercial extremists"? (Score:2)
So, Energy from Thorium (promoted, in part, by an international group, which just concluded its 2013 Conference, at CERN, in Geneva) could be deemed as a -commercially- extreme concept, eg, since - if/when Thorium-/LFTR-based nuclear power (cf the recently released eBook "Nuclear 2.0") begins to replace fossil-fueled & even Uranium-based powe plants - a number of well-endowed commercial interests may feel unduly threatened by EfT.
Could the info & organisations who would like to bring EfT -sooner- in
Wheee (Score:2)
Love the ride down that slope.. ( it accelerates towards the end, so bring seat belts )
Re:Its almost like... (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine the frustration of today's governments. They imprison us en masse, they torture us, they let the 1% rape the 90%, they basically piss away the rights we took back from the old-world monarchies as fast as they can...
And we just sit around and take it. "Oh well", we say, "at least they keep me safe from dying of something slightly less likely than choking to death on a goldfish".
Can you see how unsatisfied our leaders must feel at that level of rolling over by those they seek to oppress? "Stop hitting yourself in the face", the bully says, and here we stand around actually hitting ourselves in the face over, and over, and over. Takes all the fun out of it!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Heavy on the hyperbole are we? And "today's governments" is mostly the US government. Our incarceration rate is 1/10th of the US. We don't have a Gitmo. The 1% is getting richer but with the march of technology the TVs are getting bigger, the smartphones smarter so I can't see any real decline in living standard even though the gap is widening. As for rights, go back to the pre-Internet days and see how much they controlled the mass media back then. They're still trying to put Internet back in the bag, for
Re: (Score:3)
Who the fuck writes a text spamming bot in 2013 and then has a fixed size text buffer???
Re:Offshore hosting. Game, set, and match. (Score:4, Insightful)
er, that's why they are getting ISPs to block the routes to the sites, rather than taking the sites down.
They already forced ISPs to do it for child porn, then the courts enforced blocks on "pirate" sites because the child porn filters proved that it was technically possible, next step (previously announced, due to come in soon) they are forcing every UK ISP to implement porn (_legal_ porn) filters.
And now it's "block stuff that isn't porn/child-porn/illegal-under-copyright-law, but we don't like it anyway". No surprise.
Might be time stockpile some paper copies of the anarchists cookbook - could start to go up in value faster than bitcoins...
Re: (Score:2)
Much as I like the romantic idea of being an underground data-trader, covertly threading my way through government blocks an thwarting investigations to bring forbidden cargo to those with the bitcoin to pay, there is a vital flaw in that vision of the future: It depends on the censorship efforts being half-way effective. Trying to stop the spread of information today is like trying to order back the tide.
Re:Offshore hosting. Game, set, and match. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169254&cid=14107454 [slashdot.org]
And the punchline is we're still surprised every time the ratchet turns tighter. Every. Fucking. Time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
freedom of speech is a total fiction anyway...there is a plethora of restrictions on free speech, not the least being having to be careful of what you say in social settings as to not alienate yourself from whatever group your are trying to gain favor in.
Congratulations, you just confused freedom of speech with freedom from consequences. Speech is an action, actions have reactions, we can call them consequences. Those consequences are limited by the same rules of society as all other consequences, that is, nobody is ever entitled to break the law because of something someone said and thus you are theoretically protected from violent reprisal for expression of your opinion. In practice, the state operates no enterprise engaged in your protection; it operates
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
well, then, you seem to contradict yourself.
short of being locked up by the state ON THE POTENTIAL of you saying something "illegal", it's simply impossible for anyone to stop you from saying whatever you want wherever you want.
and of course, there could be consequences...but no one, in this case, took away your "freedom of speech"
so what is your point again??
Re: (Score:2)
freedom of speech is a total fiction anyway...there is a plethora of restrictions on free speech, not the least being having to be careful of what you say in social settings as to not alienate yourself from whatever group your are trying to gain favor in.
Yes, it's this terrible human right called freedom of association which on the flip side says I don't have to associate with people I don't want to associate with. Now you're down to schoolyard level though, you can't force someone else to be friends with you. It doesn't exactly belong in the same discussion as actual censorship, harassment, imprisonment, discrimination or persecution based on your speech. It's only the freedom to hold and express an opinion, you can't by law make it a popular one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A comparison in six words:
"It's OK when we do it."
Re: (Score:2)
That's because beheadings is porn for a corrupt government.
They imagine doing the same to any of their opponents.
Soon "Extremism"(TM) will be an automatic death sentence.
Game of Thrones, 21st century style.
Re: (Score:2)
So in 10 years time, you will again be able to carry the entire content of the "Internet" on a 3.5" floppy-disk.
Seriously - I will make my sites available as onion-sites before new-year.
Re: (Score:2)
This could have been said truthfully most years in the last 250 or so. Certainly, it would have been true if said in 1865....
Re: (Score:2)
"This from the country that banned Michael Savage"
I don't understand this. You realise most countries deny entry every single day for various reasons including the US for the reason we banned Michael Savage?
The only reason it was news when the UK did it is precisely because it was a big deal and precisely because the UK has historically had one of the most liberal border crossings in the world.
Even supposedly liberal Canada I was very nearly refused entry into once simply because the customs officer did not
Re: (Score:2)
They're not lumping him in with terrorists any more than Canada was lumping me in with terrorists because one customs officer couldn't believe I'd take a laptop on a private holiday.
"and only served the liberal wing who doesn't want to hear opposing views"
By definition, if they don't want to hear opposing views, then they're not liberal.
"liberal censorship."
Again, I don't think you know what liberalism is. "Liberal censorship"- I'll try and help you understand why that statement is stupid. It's a bit like s