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Censorship The Internet

Making Small Steps Against Censorship 188

Posted by Zonk from the small-steps-are-better-than-none dept.
JD writes "BBC News has an article about online censorship, blogs in particular. It points out that 'perhaps we need to accept that small gains and slight shifts in direction can make a difference to people's lives, and work for them instead of trying to blast down the walls of repression with a single blow.' Whittling away may be the only realistic way to see change happen."
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Making Small Steps Against Censorship More

Making Small Steps Against Censorship

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  • Blogs: today's main Freedom Tool (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @05:45PM (#12785224)
    Blogs are the modern versions of the small, local newspapers the Founding Fathers had. They allow lone individuals to reach the masses with minimal effort and overhead. It is no wonder that blogs are leading the freedom train.
    • ...and as with every other "freedom", for one who deserves it there's at least ten idiots who abuse it.
    • They're also completely free from fact checking and any sort of responisbility...

      Don't get me wrong, I've got a blog and I make it a point to read many every day, but I while they may be a tool for freedom, they're also damn easy to abuse.
    • Yes, and like those early newspapers they range from the very good to the absolute trash.

    • colonial newspapers vs blogs (Score:5, Interesting)

      by snooo53 ( 663796 ) * on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:30PM (#12785563) Journal
      I disagree. The main difference with blogs today is that there are millions of them that only reach a small unconnected group of individuals.

      Those colonial newspapers were few in number but reached almost 100% of a community (either directly or by word of mouth). It was a major form of entertainment, and could enact major social change.

      The difference is today we have thousands of entertainment outlets as compared to a few dozen in colonial times. It may be easier now to reach millions around the globe, but it's harder to get anoyone to read in the first place. It's also harder to get a group of individuals with enough in common and close enough proximity to actually affect changes in government or whatever social cause you have. There's just too much noise out there on the internet.
      • The population a single blog reaches may be ten or fifteen times the population a colonial paper reached. Indeed, the scale has grown significantly between the 1700s and now. These days the cross-linking between blogs makes up for the fact that one particular blog doesn't reach 100% of a community. Over the span of several blogs, in the form of a blogwork (ie. a network of blogs referencing each other's content), the ideas are eventually propagated to a vast majority of the population.
      • This is really crossing between two areas of epistemology. One is the distinction between raw data and meaningful information. We certainly have much more data than ever before, and most people are not at all equipped to do the active processing required to "make sense" of it. From that perspective, the Internet is mostly just a source of noise--meaningless garbage that obscures the real signal. For an admitedly extreme example, go visit alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.

        The other area is related to truth itself. You

  • better than no censorship, right? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    censored [shinyfeet.com]

  • article makes a good point... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zxnos ( 813588 ) <zxnoss@gmail.com> on Friday June 10, 2005 @05:46PM (#12785232)
    ...laws dont get changed by people breaking them because they disagree with the law. change within the 'system'.

    small steps, it is how we loose freedom, it is how we get it back.

    • ..laws dont get changed by people breaking them because they disagree with the law. change within the 'system'

      I have to disagree with that. I've helped make quite a few, and if you start from your premise your bill will never make it out of the first committee in the long series it must pass thru.

      Those who marshal their forces and alter the way things are done win way more often than those who try to put down one brick in the way of a flood. You need to use a dumptruck and divert the river further upst
    • Let's see.
      American Revolution
      French Revolution
      Mexican Revolution
      Russion Revolution
      umm...
      Pick a country, and they've had a revolution or several.
      • how long ago did those revolutions happen? i dont think a violent uprising by the people is going to produce results - particularly in china where the government has a considerable army at its beck and call. large demonstrations and enough unrest - possibly.
        • Wait, how did the current Chinese government get into power?
          • through revolts led by men who had considerable political influence. how do you get political influence? by working in the 'system'. as weapons technology progresses i think this kind of revolution is less and less likely, particularly without help from outside governments.

            the point of my original post wasnt revolution, just that you arent going to change copyright law, drug laws, free speech, access to information/ideas the government doesnt want you to have, etc. through breaking those laws. it lends leg

  • My fear for the U.S. is... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gg3po ( 724025 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @05:46PM (#12785236)
    The government will use bloggers' desire to be taken seriously as real journalists as an excuse to apply the same kind of censorship the FCC effectively has doled out for some time to the traditional media.

    • Re:My fear for the U.S. is... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Black Tezcatlipoca ( 891160 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @05:53PM (#12785291)
      The government will use bloggers' desire to be taken seriously as real journalists as an excuse to apply the same kind of censorship the FCC effectively has doled out for some time to the traditional media.

      No they wont, blogs are too useful for astroturfing.

    • The Feedback Loop (Score:2, Interesting)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 )
      I don't think this ever really becomes a problem. Let's say, for instance, a person who is a well known blogger decides to make up some really unbelievable crap. If he continues to do this, he will lose credibility and some of his reader base.

      In the cases where the blogger is a hardcore fanatic of something (Linux, Democrat, Christian, etc.) there will likely always be a few people who will take this persons word, regardless of how ridiculous it is. Since these people would hold this belief anyway and a

      • The simple fact is, that bloggers who want to serve as reporters to a wide audience, will try to report the news as truthfully and with as little bias as possible.

        No.

        Bloggers (well, intelligent bloggers) who wish to have a wide audience will report the news with as much bias as they think they can get away with (generally, a bias shared by the intended audience), and no more.

        If you doubt this, try starting a blog that presents unbiased news on such topics as pornography (especially child pornography)

    • Except that the FCC had absolulely no jurisdiction over the internet, except maybe for wireless connections, and even then, it can't regulate what goes over them.
    • The Supremes have already upheld the availability of dirty books online, and the FCC has no jurisdiction over the printed word and nonpublic/nonbroadcast television/radio.

      Howard Stern if free.

      Well, as in speach.

      KFG
    • "to apply the same kind of censorship the FCC effectively has doled out for some time to the traditional media."
      What censorship has the FCC applied to "news" services?
      As far as I can tell none.

      My question is this. Will the EU actualy put freedom before money?

    • ...to apply the same kind of censorship the FCC effectively has doled out for some time to the traditional media.

      How the hell does the FCC censor the traditional media, other than on issues like nudity? Political content isn't regulated in US newspapers at all, save for defamation issues, and those must be pressed in civil court. Papers are perfectly free to defame first, and pay for it later. Same goes for television. Unless you think things like revealing classified military secrets are protected jou

  • Schools... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by kc32 ( 879357 )
    Too bad my school district filters the internet. I really hate Novell Netware.

  • Those who built it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by soupdevil ( 587476 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @05:48PM (#12785247)
    To me the most interesting part of this is the group of programmers who have built and who maintain this giant filtering, spying apparatus for China. They appear to be competent, and they're probably intelligent and educated, and I would guess that they have access to most of the information that they deny to their fellow citizens.

    So what's in it for them? How do they feel about what they do? Anyone have a link to any information about them?

    • Re:Those who built it (Score:3, Informative)

      by palfrey ( 198640 )
      AFAIK, a lot of this gets done by a variety of American companies, who are quite happy providing and customizing their filtering software for anyone willing to pay up. Unlike cryptographic software, there aren't any restrictions on the export of filtering software, and the continual efforts of users to get around the software provide a steady revenue stream.
      • Well, if that's true, it's kind of evil, maybe even racist, isn't it? It's one (fairly bad) thing if China decides to exclude themselves from the global dialog. It's another (really bad) thing if we actually help them to do it.

        • Re:Those who built it (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:47PM (#12785669)
          > > > So what's in it for [the programmers who build the Great Firewall of China]? How do they feel about what they do? Anyone have a link to any information about them?
          > >
          > >
          > > AFAIK, a lot of this gets done by a variety of American companies, who are quite happy providing and customizing their filtering software for anyone willing to pay up. Unlike cryptographic software, there aren't any restrictions on the export of filtering software, and the continual efforts of users to get around the software provide a steady revenue stream.
          >
          > Well, if that's true, it's kind of evil, maybe even racist, isn't it? It's one (fairly bad) thing if China decides to exclude themselves from the global dialog. It's another (really bad) thing if we actually help them to do it.

          What's racist about it? Developers code bits. Bits don't care where they're used.

          There's a word for China: beta site.

          The USSR and former Socialist Republics were the alpha site. The implementation collapsed under the weight of its own bureaurcacy. You're doing it with paper, not computers, so you're reliant on humans. The fundamental scaling limitation is that because humans can be bought - can betray you - so, for every layer of Secret Police you implement, you have to add another layer of S00per-S33kr1t Police on top of it. East Germany's STASI was the canonical example; an economy imploded because 30% of the population were paid informants on each other.

          China, as the beta site, is doing something new: an industrialized society with totalitarian controls over information. The system is automated - avoiding the risk of implosion. The system works much like the standard USSR/DDR model, however, in that prohibited information is blocked from the population.

          Full implementation of the production version will be even slicker. Unlike the Chinese model, where citizens know they've've crossed the line (because the request for that "interesting" URL was blocked, or because the email to that "interesting" person never got delivered), the live system will simply log the data for future reference and cross-archiving - it'll be done automatically, avoiding the problem that crashed the alpha site under heavy load.

          Give a subversive enough rope, and he'll hang himself. And unlike the beta site, the production version will enable society to track its unreliable elements until they've exposed all of their secrets and, by extension, all of their friends' secrets.

          Absolute social control, with minimal loss of economic productivity, and (unlike China), practically no diminishment of civilian morale, because everyone thinks they're still free-as-in-speech. Quite clever, really, and the Chinese (as one of the few societies that doesn't really have the morale problem that the beta version might induce in the target market) still manage to benefit by testing the beta version for a free-as-in-beer cost.

          Everybody involved with the project - on both sides of the Pacific - wins.

    • My guess is that a lot of them have drunk the punch, so to to speak. They probably really do believe that all of those external sites extolling the virtues of freedom and democracy really are bad, and so they probably enjoy the challenge of blocking them. Intelligent and educated doesn't always imply open-minded and tolerant; it just ups the odds.
      • Intelligent and educated doesn't always imply open-minded and tolerant; it just ups the odds.

        I can't mod you up, since you're replying to me, but thanks for the quote of the day!
      • I'm not convinced it ups the odds of being open-minded and tolerant at all. The "intelligent and educated" people I've known have been just as closed minded as everyone else. (of course they assumed they were more open-minded and tolerant than everyone else) Imagine the irony of my formative years: I was often persecuted for not being open-minded enough. I foolishly thought this meant "open to ideas other than your own" and not "open only to the groupthink"
    • Those that co-operate with such regimes come in two classes; brainwashed and frightened. I have little doubt that China keeps a pretty good eye on technical schools and universities, and knows who the brightest programmers are. Now either these programmers believe fervently in the State's right to control what people write on the Internet, or they know only too well the consequences for those that don't co-operate. It's a sad state of affairs, but that's the way it is in some countries, particularly thos

    • Re:Those who built it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MourningBlade ( 182180 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:39PM (#12785613) Homepage

      So what's in it for them? How do they feel about what they do? Anyone have a link to any information about them?

      You know how you get someone to implement a censorship system for you? You don't hire mean and cruel people, you get a few people who want to do good. Then you set up draconian punishments for violations of speech and thought codes.

      Then (and this is the magic ingredient), you tell these people you've hired that their job is to keep people from getting in trouble by preventing the people from violating the speech and thought codes.

      Pretty easy, really, and you put people in "helping mode." What's the old quote about "the tyrant may rest, but those who are act for your own good are tireless in their efforts." These people almost definitely believe that they are helping people - saving them from worse punishment.

      And they're probably frustrated by how hard people try to prevent them from doing their job.

      • Just say to the "helper" that you want to protect the youth against hate/racism/sex/porn/nazi/pedophil/whatever-your-b oogyman is... Then people will also happily do as you want, even without draconian censorship law you will then get that censorship you wish ! Remmmember that child protection act where all library would have been mandated to introduct protecting software ?

  • Whittler's Mudder (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10, 2005 @05:49PM (#12785258)
    FTFA: "As more and more governments start restricting what their citizens can say online, those of us who live in relatively open societies need to decide what to do."

    And what of those of us who live in relatively open societies where our governments, more and more, are restricting what we can say online?

    Duck and cover, perhaps.

  • Does information want to be free? Do you? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shanen ( 462549 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @05:53PM (#12785295) Homepage Journal
    That's a deliberate juxtaposition because these issues are all so tightly related. For example, if information about the abuses of power was freely available, it would often be more difficult to abuse it. On the other hand, if our personal information was more freely available, it could often be used against us. We value our own privacy, but that's essentially the same as saying we want the right of censorship over who knows our personal information. Meanwhile BushCo wants to keep private such things as how the energy policy was created and how and when the decision was made to take out Saddam...

    Anyway, my own primary interest is at the personal side of things. I think we need to establish some kind of defensive perimeter around our personal information, or the very notion of privacy will soon be non-existant. That will become just another power used against each of us.

  • When you can just shut down the wall making machinery ...

    Well, it seems to me we live in a very passive generation of people, people who love Big Brother or Big Uncle and are afraid to stand up for what they believe in.

    I refuse to live in Fear.
    • As Lewis Sinclair once said (I believe)

      "Woe to those who wake the sleeping giant."

      I believe the giant may soon be awakened as it was partially awakened during the Rodney King trial (and especially after it). All it takes is one incident to spark the event. When Osama Bin Laudin (spelling?) stated that they did what they did to awaken the people of America - this is what he was talking about.

      And no - this does not mean I condone what was done. And no - this does not mean that I want an uprising. And n

  • The times they are a changing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by metlin ( 258108 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:02PM (#12785378) Journal
    It is unfortunate that we have gotten to the point where we have to talk about defeating censorship - it has permeated our society so much that we've grown to accept it. How did this even happen, how did we let it come so far? Several generations are to blame, but more importantly, those that were blind to the fact that this was happening in the first place.

    Even today, look around you - most people simply do not care about what is happening, or how their rights are being trampled on, or even that they have any rights at all. The republic is not of the people anymore, it belongs to our corrupt politicians trying to remake things in the way that benefits them.

    Really, really unfortunate. :-/ Leave the great wall of China, in the great US of A, we've the classic, "Ihr Papieren, bitte!" scenario.

    • Re:The times they are a changing (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kesh ( 65890 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:20PM (#12785503)
      This is not a recent thing, contrary to popular opinion. Things weren't better in the "good old days."

      Point of reference: The Alien And Sedition Acts [wikipedia.org], signed into law by President John Adams in 1798.

      Luckily, it didn't last long. But, other laws did. It took us a very long time to stop censoring entire classes of people, and things were still a lot more constrained than today.

      It's not an excuse for the abuses of today, but it's false to think things were really better a long time ago. Censorship has existed since the first words were spoken.

    • I think China, like most countries, always had censorship, and the lack of censorship is the exception. Even in the USA, where our country was founded with the first member of the bill of rights dedicated to freedom of speech, today we have less censorship than when our founding fathers were alive.

      The trick over the years has been teaching people to demand they _not_ be censored. The internet was too big for China to handle at first, so now they are trying to cope and censor it as much as everything else i
    • You start out by saying that most people aren't defending their rights, then follow up by saying that the will of the majority isn't being followed. You can't have it both ways. Fret about the gradual dissolution of our various civil rights if you wish (I know I do), but believe it or not, it is what most people want. They've decided that health insurance, jobs, education, and all the other political buzzwords are more important than personal liberty.

      It sucks that we're in the minority on this one, but

    • If you're like 95% of US citizens, blame yourself for voting this censors into office! I'm completely serious. We're in this situation because people keep voting for the lesser of two censors, whether it be in the White House, congress, state legislature, or local school board. Conservative or liberal or Republican or Democrat or Green, they all advocate censorship. Only the Libertarians don't.

      The liberal side gave us political correctness and lobby to ban hate speech and tobacco advertisements. The conser
    • You must either be young or failed to pay attention in your youth. We are going back to the 50's & 60's with censorship at the moment but up until 9/11 we were going forward.

  • small steps (Score:5, Interesting)

    by howman ( 170527 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:05PM (#12785400)
    unfortunately our rights get taken away in huge leaps and bounds yet we are left with this advice that we need to take them back in small steps or nudge the course of law like a goldfish shouldering a tanker.
    Does anyone else feel that these are OUR RIGHTS to begin with and we should not let them be touched at all? I mean you see someone messing with your new car, you step up and sort it right away, you don't wait till the car is stolen and have the police bring you back one piece at a time from the chop shop.
    • I want to thank you for your car analogy. I've found it hard in the past to explain to some people in ways that they "get" why I'm so concerned about the erosion of rights, even on a small scale. The camel's nose under the tent just doesn't work as well as pointing out that no one wants people messing with their car, so why would I let someone mess with my rights until they were gone.

    • (This is not aimed specifically at you. You just happened to trigger a rant...)

      Does anyone else feel that these are OUR RIGHTS to begin with and we should not let them be touched at all?

      You have exactly one right: to die. Everything else is a privilege.

      Take Amendment 7 of the Bill of Rights [archives.gov], which declares that you have a right to a trial by jury. Jury trials are expensive. That all has to be paid for, and that happens through taxes. Your taxes are paying for Arthur Andersen's trial --- and his ar

      • I appreciate your opening that I only triggered the rant and that is was not dirrected specifically at me. I too will rant to some point and again as you said, it is not directed specifically at you.

        I have heard your argument before and although I agree with you that the only right one has is the right to die and all others are privileges, the assumption made is that everyone on the planet shares the same beliefs and moral latitude as the American public. I am not an American, so even though I may think
        • Indeed I was a bit shocked reading that... if the US freedom of speach laws allow someone to say *anything* then surely they become self defeating.. some opinions are judged by society to be too disgusting to own.

          Some kinds of speech are banned in most countries - incitement to riot, incitement to religious hatred. Other kinds make crimes worse... if you shout something racist then beat someone up that's a racially motivated crime (uber long prison sentence) but if you do it quietly that's just mugging (

        • As far as i am concerned, he can think what he likes and can gather with like minded people to discuss ideas that may be disgusting to me, but he can not get on top of a soap box and spout his ideologies to a public that does not want to hear them.

          The thing about protecting speach is that popular speach doesn't need protection. As such, if you only wanted popular speach to be allowed, in a democratic society there is no point to a law protecting the freedom of speach.

        • I am not an American...

          Ha --- neither am I. I'd just assumed you were, so started talking to an American audience. That'll teach me to make blind assumptions.

          I agree with you; the world is a very big place, and different people have different values. What works for the US (or, is currently failing to work) won't work elsewhere. As a member of the ex-British Empire, I look at places like Africa and the ghastly mess and see that as a direct consequence of what my ancestors did a hundred and fifty years a

  • Slashdot itself is doing censoring (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:05PM (#12785405)
    For me Slashdot is doing some type of censoring on their own too. So I am a bit curious why they announce such an article.

    Anonymous posts are limited to 10 posts now (ok we can live with that) but this new 'enter text shown in this image' is beating the hell out of me. Sometimes the chars are so hard to read that it's impossible to enter the right letters. Now if it's hard for me sometimes to read the letters how do disabled people or people with heavy eye problems feel, they are totally excluded from commenting on Slashdot because they barely are able to enter correct letters. Then there is another problem with anonymous posts a bug in the script or so. When you enter something and press submit too fast you get a message telling you that your last comment was not long ago and that you at least need to wait 2 minutes.. Unfortunately due to the bug you can easily wait 5 mins, 6 mins, 10 mins, 20 mins (which get shown too) and nothing much happens. That pretty much sucks.
    • I would disagree that that qualifies as censorship. To me, censorship involves the intent of blocking specific ideas or messages, and these tactics give me the impression that they're focused on spam and trolls.

  • If China was smart... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Travoltus ( 110240 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:09PM (#12785431) Journal
    they'd give everyone video blog access, especially anonymously.

    By the time the abusers - the anonymous stalkers, defamers and trolls - got done with the system - no one would believe anything that comes from the masses anyway.

    Recently, there was an article about how the American press is less apt to use anonymous sources for their stories now, especially after the whole Quran-gate incident. There's a lesson to be learned in this if you're a totalitarian government trying to hold onto power while transitioning to democracy.

    In short, the truth could hide in plain sight among the static. The dissidents would be silenced, nonviolently, by the very system they rely on.
    • "In short, the truth could hide in plain sight among the static. The dissidents would be silenced, nonviolently, by the very system they rely on."

      You mean the moderators and meta-moderators wouldn't save the day? :-)

  • they don't need to be taken seriously.

    telling the truth has that effect all on its own.

    when the mainstream media lies, distorts, and decieves it's viewers, then by definition, THEY will not be taken seriously.

    it has nothing to do with bias. it has everything to do with being an arm of the government. if you didn't realize what that "Debacle" was a while ago; the mainstream liars trying to shout BIAS every 5 seconds... it was because people were starting to wake up to how much of an arm of the government
    • But how do you define who a "liar" is when you're dealing with completely subjective material? Indeed, it is quite difficult. Should FOX News be considered "liars" because they put a neoconservative spin on their reporting? Should Indymedia be considered "liars" because they put a liberal spin on their reporting? There are no absolutes when it comes to "the truth" on various subjective topics, and therefore it is incorrect to deprive people of their freedom of expression because one thinks they are "liars"

  • Distributed Blogging (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HFShadow ( 530449 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:27PM (#12785547)
    Why have no blog sites come out with some form of distributed / anonymous blogging? Something similar to freenet, but optimized for blogs. It seems like a relatively simple idea to keep simple text anonymous when so much work is being put into making anonymous P2P systems.

    All it would take is a simple little client app that connects to other peers around the world. A checkbox saying "Connect me directly to xxx.blogservers.com" could be turned on for users in the USA / Canada where freedom of speech isn't a problem and everyone. Give the client app the ability to read blogs (as well as having them web accessable) and I don't see why this wouldn't succeed. It certainly would be far safer than ranting about your government on an non-ssl'ed connection.

  • Geekspeak (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @06:44PM (#12785649) Homepage Journal
    The best small step you can do to "fight censorship" is to help others communicate. Sure, geeks are known for limited interpersonal skills. But we commune with machines like brothers. And these machines are the engines for widespread personal communication. Getting more people around the US, around the world, to communicate more, and more effectively, harnesses the unbeatable power of expression. Censors benefit from centralized communication bottlenecks; geeks help people route around them. Slashdotters are part of a global mass movement of people helping each other communicate, which trumps the censors every time. I'm proud of you :).
  • Bring on the acronyms: YAZBS (Yet Another Zonk Blogging Story)
  • Please register your mouth and all thoughts with the department of citizen expression. Your account will be reviwed, including a full background check that will include your sexual preference, religious and political beleifs. If you are found to be mundane and unoffensive, you will receive your liscense to speak publically via US mail within 6 to 8 weeks.

    Any attempt to speak out loud in public through the use of various media's which include (but not limited to) the internet, radio, television, megaphone,

  • The idea of no censorship is a pure fantasy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by joneshenry ( 9497 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:18PM (#12785822)
    The idea of a censorship-free society is a pure fantasy, and it is the consensus of almost everyone on the planet in the 21st century that some forms of censorship are necessary.

    Speech that incites hatred against favored groups in a country will simply not be permitted on the grounds that the public order is threatened. For example, see the case of Oriana Fallaci [bbc.co.uk]. Now she may or may not be eventually ruled to have committed defamatory speech against Islam, but the principle stands that there is a line somewhere that cannot be crossed without a person being liable for government sanctions. As for the case of Europe, I predict this line will be drawn more and more in the direction that no speech critical of Islam will be permitted.

    In the 21st century, almost everyone, regardless of civilization, accepts that there is no such principle as the unlimited right to publish any book.

    Similarly in the 21st century, there is a consensus that some political parties should be banned. For an example, Belgium's highest court ruled that the Vlaams Blok is racist and banned it from political participation [bbc.co.uk]. Again, there is a line somewhere that cannot be crossed. In the case of Europe, I predict the line will be drawn where it will be illegal for a political party to advocate anti-immigrant positions.

    • The idea of a censorship-free society is a pure fantasy,

      Everything is pure fantasy before it comes into being.

      it is the consensus of almost everyone on the planet in the 21st century that some forms of censorship are necessary.

      Argument by consensus isn't valid.

      Speech that incites hatred against favored groups in a country will simply not be permitted on the grounds that the public order is threatened.

      Speech that incited blacks to vote in the American South simply could not be permitted on the grou
    • the consensus of almost everyone on the planet in the 21st century that some forms of censorship are necessary

      False.

      P.S. Censor this:
      Fuck You.

      -

  • Makes Sense (Score:3, Insightful)

    by craXORjack ( 726120 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:37PM (#12785912)
    Whittling away may be the only realistic way to see change happen.

    It makes sense since this is how we have been losing our rights, whittled away bit by bit.

  • Ok, what if (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Halvy ( 748070 )

    Enough people (in China) just kept on bloging or whatever.

    What are the pigs gunna do.. arrest 1.5B people?

    Meanwhile, all those young guys who are in the army have friends and loved ones who are contributing to the technological advances that allow them (the army guys) to enjoy the InterNet like everyone else in the world.

    So it is not just the arswhole tech-guys that work for the government who are contributing (good or bad) to China's InterNet technologies.

    I can NEVER understand why everyone always

  • It's a case of "Doctor? Heal thyself".

    Bill Thompkinson has been posting on finally.com for some time. His posts are the same sort of obtuse rhetoric delivered by an "observer", not a journalist, who has managed to blind the editors he meets with seemingly insightful articles.

    Bill? Your country, in which you still live in, gave up "the right to silence" a few years back, and is one of the most heavily censored societies in the world.

    "At least in the UK we don't have to register before we can start a blog,

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