Sites Featuring "Terrorism" Or "Child Pornography" To Be Blocked In France 176
Advocatus Diaboli writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: Now, the General Directorate of the National Police and its cybercrimes unit will be able to request that sites serving terrorist or pedophilia-related content be blocked by Internet Service Providers serving people in France and its territories. ISPs then have to comply with the request within 24 hours. ISPs will be able to request compensation from the French government for any extra costs incurred in blocking the sites. Users who navigate to a site 'to which access is prohibited will be led to an informational page from the Ministry of the Interior,' the text of the decree said. The informational page will list the grounds for the blocking as well as any possibly remedies. Every quarter, French authorities will check whether the blocked pages still contain the offending material. If not, then the authorities will contact ISPs, which will have to unblock the sites, again within 24 hours.
Its starts with terror and kidding porn (Score:5, Insightful)
Its starts with terror and kidding porn, next comes online casinos that don't have a license from the french government, follow by online BitCoin & alternate currencies web sites the government will claim are being used to avoid paying taxes ... and not to long after that any news sites or blog that the french government doesn't agree with. A very slipper slope...
Re: (Score:2)
The best part is "ISPs will be able to request compensation from the French government for any extra costs incurred in blocking the sites."
I wonder how much it will cost, and if "extra costs" includes the results of lawsuits for inappropriate blocks and subsequent loss of income.
Re: (Score:1)
I like that there is a review process. I don't like that the ISP has the obligation to restore access when there isn't such an obligation to review in the first place.
Re:Its starts with terror and kidding porn (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no provision to pay the owners of the sites that are being blocked, and 'terrorism' and 'child pornography' both have wide ranging interpretations based on whoever may be judging the content.
Basically, by this definition, the French government can arbitrarily take down almost any site it chooses to, and cause them to lose money. That they pay the ISP is inconsequential. This is a disgusting law.
Re: (Score:3)
The ISP gets to bill the government. This means it costs them money to fuck with the net. This sets up a reason for them to not to want to block something. This could help limit grey area cases where the government might decide its not worth their time. I trust money and lazy over the good intentions of the government any day.
No, because the same slippery slope will include a law including a "maximum" amount the ISP can bill, followed by subsequent decreases of that amount.
We've seen that in order EU countries when it came to lawful intercept. They started out as being billable against reguler engineering hours (a technician had to go in the system, poke around etc), and in the end they said "we're paying EUR 5 per tap and that's it.". Under the threat of weapons of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Why is everything a slippery slope for you people? Is it not possible that we find a middle way?
Re:Its starts with terror and kidding porn (Score:4, Insightful)
relying on the fallacy of the middle way will still get you down the slippery slope, just at half the speed!
Re: (Score:1)
"relying on the fallacy of the middle way will still get you down the slippery slope, just at half the speed!"
Actually that's what gets you down the slope at full speed.
Bottom demands X.
Top will never accept X.
A "middle way" is negotiated at Y. Top accepts considering the issue is finalized.
Bottom demands 2X!!!!!
Top will never accept 2X. It's already half way to X for crying out loud!
A "middle way" is negotiated at 2Y, which just happens to be the original X. The case is surely done.
Bottom demands 4X!!!!!!!
Re:Its starts with terror and kidding porn (Score:4, Insightful)
I heard a Palestinian describing what it's like to negotiate with Israel.
He said, it's like dividing a pizza. First, you divide it in half. Then the other guy says, "I want half of your half too." So he takes that half. Then he says, "I want half of what you've got left...."
Re: (Score:1)
You forgot to mention the Palestinians sweetening the pot by blowing up buses (unless that's inconvenient because of walls or border guards), shooting at kids at a 12 year old's party, blowing up a holiday dinner for widowers, shooting rockets or artillery toward towns during morning commute (at a rate of one or two a week during "cease fires").
I could go on for days, actually. People who think the Israelis are ugly should turn their heads and look around 360 degrees and get to know all of Israel's neighbor
Re:Its starts with terror and kidding porn (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot to mention the Palestinians sweetening the pot by blowing up buses (unless that's inconvenient because of walls or border guards), shooting at kids at a 12 year old's party, blowing up a holiday dinner for widowers, shooting rockets or artillery toward towns during morning commute (at a rate of one or two a week during "cease fires").
I could go on for days, actually. People who think the Israelis are ugly should turn their heads and look around 360 degrees and get to know all of Israel's neighbors.
I used to raise money for Israel in the 1980s. I was in the middle of the Jewish establishment. I used to write press releases that ran in the New York Times.
I kept reading stories in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal about Israelis killing Palestinians. The ones that really got to me were the Israelis killing Palestinian children. I remember a story in the NYT about an Israeli chasing a 12-year-old girl named Aasma, who ran away screaming, until he shot her in the head and killed her.
I didn't just believe the NYT. I read the Amnesty International reports. And I didn't just believe the AI reports. I asked Israeli government officials. Their answer? They denied it happened. They said the Palestinians made it all up. The Palestinians lied.
I checked them out. It was the Israelis who were lying.
That was long before any Palestinian suicide bombings or bus bombings. The Palestinians were mostly meek and passive. I kept thinking to myself, "Why don't they get guns and fight back? The Jews would."
There were lots of Palestinians who wanted peace with the Israelis. The Israelis actually made it illegal for the Palestinians to talk about having a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel side-by-side. They arrested Palestinians for talking about peace. I know because I read the AI reports, and called the Israeli government about it.
Finally after the Israelis demonstrated that the peaceful Palestinians would get nowhere, the Palestinians did fight back, though not in the way I expected. They started blowing up buses with suicide bombs. Of course, it's terrible when innocent people get killed, Palestinian or Jew. But the Israelis were provoking, beating, arresting and killing the Palestinians for years before the Palestinians finally decided to fight back.
Of course I could give you facts and supporting evidence, but I've done that many times before and I know what the Israeli-firsters say. They just brush it off and say that it's not true, the Palestinians are lying, Amnesty International is lying, B'Tselem is lying, Haaretz is lying, the UN is lying, the NYT is lying, the BBC is lying, everybody else in the world is lying except Israel and MEMRI, because everybody else in the world is anti-Semitic and hates Israel. And I expect that's what you're going to say.
But maybe I'm wrong. Go read the Goldstone report. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/... [ohchr.org] If you don't believe that, I won't waste any more time with you.
Re: (Score:3)
Both sides are lying.
Re: (Score:2)
Amnesty International isn't lying.
Re: (Score:2)
Some liar who says that terrorism started in the 80's gets 5 insightful?
Jesus f****ing Christ on a pogo stick. Close down the website, all of the intelligent people have left.
Re: (Score:2)
Jon Stewart has a thoughtful response to your comments http://www.addictinginfo.org/2... [addictinginfo.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Also Judge Richard Goldstone has apologized for the poor quality of that report, for how much he was fooled.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Also Judge Richard Goldstone has apologized for the poor quality of that report, for how much he was fooled.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]
I met a member of the Goldstone commission after Goldstone published that article. He said that Goldstone may have changed his mind, but Goldstone was speaking for himself, not the commission. And Goldstone never disclosed the evidence that changed his mind.
The Israeli government refused to cooperate with the Goldstone commission. Goldstone said in that article that if the Israeli government had cooperated, his conclusions would have been different.
The main difference would have been the conclusion that the
Re:Its starts with terror and kidding porn (Score:5, Informative)
Experience, and no, probably not.
Look. Let's be extremely generous and assume for a moment that the Great Firewall of France is never extended to, say, "extreme speech" or anything beyond terrorism and child porn. Judging from similar firewalls elsewhere (like in the UK) the chances of this being the case is nil, but let's pretend for a moment France is unique and doesn't slide down the slippery slope.
This still leads two gaping problems. One is that whilst the definitions of child porn and terrorist material might seem straightforward, they are not. The UN has struggled for years to come up with a tight definition of what terrorism actually is, but has never been able to succeed, partly because any obvious and straightforward definition tends to make western governments outright supporters of terrorism or terrorists themselves. So blocking terrorist material quickly becomes "we know it when we see it" which basically just means whoever is in charge gets to block whatever websites they like, under whatever flimsy justification they can think of. Anything that can be read as being against the state becomes terrorism, in such schemes. As there are no jail sentences for French officials who abuse the system, and no real way to even define what abuse is, political censorship will happen.
Even child porn is harder to nail down than you would think. One problem is figuring out if the person in the picture is actually a child. For the worst stuff it is of course obvious, but the problems start when e.g. the caption claims the girl is a young looking 18 and the censor decides maybe she's actually 15, but doesn't really know for sure, but hey it's better to be safe than sorry right? And who cares about some guy getting his rocks off to pictures of teenage girls anyway. In the memory hole it goes!
In the UK the age of consent is actually lower than the age at which you are considered to be a child for child porn laws, meaning if a naked teenage couple take a selfie in bed after 100% legal sex, the result can be considered child porn and trigger the full weight of the law. Common sense not applicable!
America has created an even more messed up situation. There they classify cartoons as child porn.
All this of course is based on the assumption that the right approach to dealing with child abuse is to try and block child porn at the ISP level. But paedophilia appears to be some kind of sexual urge or addiction, something fundamentally rooted in brain chemistry or psychology. People who really, really want to look at films of naked children will just use a VPN to America or some other country where there's no censorship in place. It's sort of like trying to ban the sale of cigarettes locally but not ban the import of them. Not gonna work. Medical attention might, though.
If the law worked more like a high quality computer program, with batteries of unit tests and every edge case considered and planned for, AND if politicians and officials were far more disciplined then they actually are, we might be able to say "hmm this sounds OK and isn't going to cause any problems". But France has already proven willing to jail a comedian for making a vague statement that could, theoretically, be read as sympathising with the Charlie Hebdo killers whilst simultaneously telling the world they're gonna defend free speech to the death. So if any country can avoid the slippery slope it's not going to be France.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
"In the UK the age of consent is actually lower than the age at which you are considered to be a child for child porn laws, meaning if a naked teenage couple take a selfie in bed after 100% legal sex, the result can be considered child porn and trigger the full weight of the law."
Same in most of the US.
Federal age when sex becomes legal = 16
when pictures become legal = 18
The odd thing is that that the states don't agree on the first number at all, so what's incredibly illegal in one state is perfectly legal
Re: (Score:2)
The US doesn't have one set of laws about child pornography, but at least 51. Last I read the Federal definition, it was fairly reasonable (although I'm still not comfortable with photographs of a perfectly legal activity being highly illegal*). IIRC, it required a depiction of an identifiable girl under 18 doing something specifically sexual. I am perfectly willing to believe that some states have banned cartoons and such.
Personally, I'd like to see some evidence on what effect child pornography that
Re: (Score:3)
Why is everything a slippery slope for you people? Is it not possible that we find a middle way?
I wish, with all my heart, that we could always rely on reasonable people to take reasonable positions and make reasonable use of power. All it takes is for an unreasonable person to attain a position of power, or even for a reasonable person to be misled by unreasonable people controlling the flow of information, for power to be abused. Put this power in the hands of a reasonable person, and his successor (or two or three) could be a religious zealot or some other kind of fanatic. I categorically find t
Re: (Score:2)
As I understand it, nudity itself is not considered pornography unless it is sexually suggestive.
Re: (Score:2)
Not to mention that you do not want to be charged with child pornography, no matter how fast the charge is thrown out in court.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because, unlike you, we have a clue of what is going on?
Re: (Score:2)
Why is everything a slippery slope for you people? Is it not possible that we find a middle way?
Herbert Simon, the Nobel laureate economist, wrote an article in Science in which he said that the middle way is not always the best. Sometimes a compromise is worse than either alternative.
You want America to be free. I want America to be slave. Let's compromise: Make America half free and half slave.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Its starts with terror and kidding porn, next comes online casinos that don't have a license from the french government, follow by online BitCoin & alternate currencies web sites the government will claim are being used to avoid paying taxes
I always find it interesting to see how the geek frames his "slippery slope" arguments.
"Kidding porn" is a new one to me.
You said that if we allow A to happen, then Z will eventually happen too, therefore A should not happen.
The problem with this reasoning is that it avoids engaging with the issue at hand, and instead shifts attention to extreme hypotheticals. Because no proof is presented to show that such extreme hypotheticals will in fact occur, this fallacy has the form of an appeal to emotion fallacy by leveraging fear. In effect the argument at hand is unfairly tainted by unsubstantiated conjecture.
Example: Colin Closet asserts that if we allow same-sex couples to marry, then the next thing we know we'll be allowing people to marry their parents, their cars and even monkeys.
slippery slope [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]
Re: (Score:3)
The difference is this isn't a slipper slope fallacy because these kinds of block lists have already been shown to be used for political purposes wherever they show up. It's not unsubstantiated conjecture.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is this isn't a slipper slope fallacy because these kinds of block lists have already been shown to be used for political purposes wherever they show up.
It's called "mission creep."
Re: (Score:2)
Can you point to some actual incidents of these systems being used for political purposes in western Europe? I'm not doubting you, I'd just like to study the abuse.
In the UK there has been some commercial abuse. The BPI argued that since things like child pornography can be blocked the ISPs have the means already in place to block sites that the BPI doesn't like as well, and used the high court to force ISPs to comply. That's not political abuse though.
Re: (Score:2)
Normally I hate citing wikipedia, esp on politically divisive topics, but I'm doing it now just to show how mainstream this criticism is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
That's different the subject of the story here though. That's ISPs "family filter" blocking which is optional, not the semi-mandatory Cleanfeed.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is quantitative, not qualitative. The near universal history of abuses internet Great Firewalls have is well documented, one being semi or wholly mandatory just makes it a bigger threat.
Thanks Captain Ignorant! (Score:3)
While surely correcting the person's grammar could be called appropriate, the rest is simply ignorant rambling. French media has already been telling it's citizens to turn in anyone that did not participate in the moment of silence for Charlie Hebdo because they are terrorists. People with opinions that differ from the current political party are also being labelled terrorists.
France is seeing today the ole "if you are not with us you are against us" bullshit that led to the US adopting the Patriot act wh
Re: (Score:2)
America is in a police state today, the fact that people are not being shot in the street doe not change that fact.
The fact that too many people are not being shot in the street, anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
In Russia they started blocking websites with the same reasons (+ a "methods of committing suicide" category to supposedly prevent kids from killing themselves). Then, once they had the infrastructure in place and more or less working they added a bunch of other stuff, such as:
- down-with-the-government posts
- pirated content
The blocked site list is managed by incredibly dumb people. That included blocking an Everquest wiki article on magic potions (supposedly it describes drugs) and Github for a single rep
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
France's 9/11 (Score:1)
Now it's time for them to spend the next ten years terrorizing themselves, while at the same time working hard to dismantle everything that a free and fair society stands for. We're honored over here in the US – imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Lucky for them (Score:1)
someone already wrote the handbook with step-by-step instructions and field-tested it, too.
Blocking is counter productive (Score:4, Insightful)
Blocking child pornography will mean that the general audience will not be aware of its existence, hence they will not put pressure on politicians to end child abuse. Blocking child porn is counter productive, that's a fact. This I say as one of the founders of www.meldpunt.org and www.inhope.org.
Re: (Score:3)
Blocking child pornography will mean that the general audience will not be aware of its existence, hence they will not put pressure on politicians to end child abuse. Blocking child porn is counter productive, that's a fact. This I say as one of the founders of www.meldpunt.org and www.inhope.org.
Such nonsense. There are plenty of TV shows and news that discuss child porn (e.g. Law and Order: Special Victims Unit). You don't need to see it online in order to understand how harmful it can be for victims. There is absolutely no good reason to allow people to spread these videos. Imagine if your brother or sister was unfortunate enough to end up in these videos.
Re: (Score:1)
Such nonsense. There are plenty of TV shows and news that discuss child porn (e.g. Law and Order: Special Victims Unit).
Indeed, there is a lot of fiction about it. Probably lie and propaganda too as in the past 25 years I have stumble about a lot of weird and disgusting imagery but I have yet to see any 'child porn'. Because of this, I am inclined to believe that no such thing exist and is, in fact, just a grand conspiracy to rob us of ours freedoms.
Note that I do believe child abuse exist. Just not that rapist are stupid enough to take picture that will be use as evidence against them and post them in the intertubes. And if
Re: (Score:3)
Such nonsense. There are plenty of TV shows and news that discuss child porn (e.g. Law and Order: Special Victims Unit).
heh heh, TV shows and news, for example, law and order. heh heh heh.
You don't need to see it online in order to understand how harmful it can be for victims.
Seeing it online while doing some casual browsing really brings home how prevalent it is. There is a tendency among all humans to downplay problems because we don't want to believe that they are real.
Imagine if your brother or sister was unfortunate enough to end up in these videos.
Imagine how motivated you would be to do something about it.
I'm not advocating showing extra CP to people to make them aware that it's a thing that exists, and neither is the GP. But look, this is just like how so many Germans think they don't
Re: (Score:2)
"You block CP and all you'll do is drive the pornographers further underground"
No need to go to extremes. Just 6 feet underground seems about right to me.
Re: (Score:1)
Um, how often do you accidentally stumble upon child pornography?
Every six months or so, some shows up on G+ in a group which normally shows totally legal (and in fact, mostly R-rated due to G+ content policy) content.
I simply can't believe that not being able to accidentally access child pornography will suddenly make people forget that such abuse exists.
Again, it's not that they will forget that it exists, it's that they'll forget to think about it, so they won't do anything about it.
Re: (Score:3)
What do you really expect the people to do? Demand their government to do more than what's currently happening now?
Yes. They should demand that something effective be done.
Aren't there already special task forces that cooperate internationally to deal with CP/sex trafficking/people trafficking rings? Is this really not enough?
It's not just not enough, it's useless. They can't possibly get them all, and even if they could, more would just spring up in their place. Something has to be done to fix the problem at a societal level, not just treat the symptoms. Otherwise, it just keeps happening.
Re: (Score:2)
But what is this more effective thing that can be done but isn't being done?
It's not any of the things you suggested, which again, are just treating symptoms, obviously. I think the answer is overhauling mental health care, and making it possible for people to get some.
Re: (Score:2)
There are many things that could be done. One of the first things that should be done is to overhaul what "consent" means. Right now, it's a randomly varying line in the sand consisting of an arbitrarily assigned age. What it should be is a license held by a person that shows they have shown themselves capable of reasoning, knowledgeable about the risks and potential consequences, and so on. The age line in the sand thing errs both
Re:Blocking is counter productive (Score:5, Interesting)
Blocking child pornography will mean that the general audience will not be aware of its existence, hence they will not put pressure on politicians to end child abuse. Blocking child porn is counter productive, that's a fact. This I say as one of the founders of www.meldpunt.org and www.inhope.org.
Such nonsense. There are plenty of TV shows and news that discuss child porn (e.g. Law and Order: Special Victims Unit). ...
A lot of people have also noticed the occasional reports of people being arrested for having photos of their newborn child, or for taking photos at a family gathering that included a (nearly-)naked infant wandering by in the background. The idea that there's a "slippery slope" leading to the criminalizing of all infant photos isn't quite correct; we're already at the bottom of that slope. If you're not aware or this, you might consider not taking any pictures whenever there are children in the vicinity (and it's warm enough for them to not be completely covered). Some infants can be pretty good at slipping out of their clothes and running around.
The terrorism part is also widely understood to mean "any activity that the government doesn't like at the moment". In the US, we even have the story of Senator Ted Kennedy being blocked at the airport because his name was on the government's list of terrorist. That one was funny, yes, but it doesn't take a genius to understand what that really means for the rest of us who aren't in powerful government (or industry) positions. Such programs are easily converted into tools that can be used against anyone, as was well illustrated by the victims of the "Red Hunt" back in the 1950s and 1960s.
Re: (Score:2)
None of these shows gives an accurate depiction of where this stuff is and how much of a problem it is. From talking to some LEOs that deal with this stuff, I deduce the depictions in these shows are grossly inaccurate.
Re: (Score:2)
I've spent a great deal of time around the shady side of the internet for reasons of piracy. I've seen a ton of porn both distributed and advertising. Were child pornography* at all common, I imagine I'd have encountered it by now.
*I really don't like that term, but I know well enough not to try to change the language.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Blocking child pornography will mean that the general audience will not be aware of its existence
That's odd, because there are plenty of people - the vast majority, one hopes - who've never seen it and yet are aware of its existence. I've never seen Finland but I'm pretty sure it exists.
You don't need to show someone a thing to make them aware of that thing. In fact, telling them about it and its long term ramifications is surely better than just pointing at some child porn and going "Hey? Hmm? Bad that."
hence they will not put pressure on politicians to end child abuse.
That's the job of the police and the care services. It's already illegal.
Blocking child porn is counter productive, that's a fact.
Got any evidence of that?
Re: (Score:3)
Blocking child pornography will mean that the general audience will not be aware of its existence, hence they will not put pressure on politicians to end child abuse.
Really? I've never seen any kiddie porn, and I'm both aware of its existence and seriously concerned about the children that suffer in its making, and potentially suffer due to desires that may be inflamed by its viewing.
Similarly, I've avoided seeing the graphic videos of ISIS beheadings, and I'm quite aware of that situation as well.
Your premise is questionable at best, which makes your conclusion worthless unless and until you can substantiate the premise.
Re: (Score:3)
You are not aware of what is going on. You mistake the propaganda that has been put out for reality. Want to bet that things are actually quite a bit different to what that propaganda says?
Re: (Score:2)
Your brain seems to be malfunctioning. You read things that are not there.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They do not want to fight child abuse (of which child porn is just a symptom). They want to keep it life and well, so they can trot it out whenever some freedom-reducing laws need to be rammed down the public's throats. Volker Pispers had a nice analogy to this blocking a long time ago: Suppose there is a rapist raping a woman in the open and a policeman comes along. Instead of stopping and arresting the rapist, the policeman puts up screening walls so that nobody can see what is going on. That is what bloc
Re: (Score:2)
My impression is that the net result of the child porn laws is that you have 50-year-old cops sitting on their fat asses in front of a monitor eating donuts, pretending to be 12-year-old girls, instead of going out and stopping actual child sex abuse (which is a lot more difficult).
In fact, if you wanted to stop child sex abuse, there are probably people who are better able to stop it than cops. Shift the money from police to schools, and bring back the guidance counselors who were laid off.
Re: (Score:2)
If I ever encounter child abuse images on the internet (I havn't yet), I am not going to report it. I don't want to get involved. I don't want to have the police come around and interrogate me, asking what I was doing in the vicinity of such sites. I don't want to see my career ended because I work in education, a field so paranoid that the slightest hint of suspicion disqualifies a person for life. I don't want the police to sieze all my computers as part of an investigation, as has happened to some people
Re: (Score:2)
And while I cannot fault you at all for that, it nicely describes the problem.
Block Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
I have just witnessed Slashdot featuring right on the front page and article about *both* terrorism and child pornography!
Burn the witch!
Re: (Score:2)
I have just witnessed Slashdot featuring right on the front page and article about *both* terrorism and child pornography!
Burn the witch!
"Think of the children!"
Re: (Score:2)
Just make sure they understand it was the beta site.
Re: (Score:2)
I have just witnessed Slashdot featuring right on the front page and article about *both* terrorism and child pornography!
Burn the witch!
We might also note that this isn't at all hypothetical. One of the routine problems for organizations for victim support is that their work is frequently blocked by keyword-based software. One of the best-documented histories is the online sites for support of breast-cancer victims. They are repeatedly classified as "porn" sites, and blocked by pretty much any software intended to block porn. Similar problems have appeared for sites that support victims of domestic abuse, because the blocking software
Re: (Score:2)
One of my favorite cases was a brief panic at a financial hub when all email communication regarding canola prices and futures was blocked by the spam filter - canola is more often known as 'rapeseed oil' outside of the US and Canada. The name canola'was only introduced in the 1970s, because a number of Canadian executives found it too uncomfortable to describe themselves as 'in the rape industry.'
Re: (Score:2)
One of my favorite cases was a brief panic at a financial hub when all email communication regarding canola prices and futures was blocked by the spam filter - canola is more often known as 'rapeseed oil' outside of the US and Canada. The name canola'was only introduced in the 1970s, because a number of Canadian executives found it too uncomfortable to describe themselves as 'in the rape industry.'
Yeah, and that's a good example of an English word that has several different origins, from several different old languages, and the pronunciations has evolved to the same string of phonemes over the centuries. One of the species by that name have the scientific name Brassica rapa, which came from Latin. The closely-related Brassica napus looks similar to non-farmers, and has similar seeds, so most of the population doesn't distinguish them.
You hear cognates of "rape" used in various other European lan
realitically ? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
And its beta and editors!
Darn it! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
I was just about to get the domains "DownWithTerrorism.com" and "EndChildPornography.org". Now what'll I do?
You obviously wouldn't have registered those anyway, because the keyword parts of common web filters would block them.
Pedophilia is a rich man's sport!! (Score:1)
No use to have some lower class pedophile cherry-pick the best children while his betters
have to fly to hidden resorts on largely unknown pacific islands to indulge.
How long (Score:3)
before organizations like Greenpeace are on the list of sites to block?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]
"Terrorism" (Score:1)
Why would you ban a page about a particular strategy in war? What about pages on carpet bombing, or biological warfare, or genocide, or propaganda?
Are articles about Nelson Mandela all going to be blocked? The ANC were, in strategic terms, terrorists.
They could be just be honest and say, "Pages which the government consider to be promoting our enemies in war will be blocked." Because France is all about freedom of speech, and the right to offend, and bla bla enlightenment - providing your opinions are the c
Blocking how? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Unlikely. It makes the authorities look bad if they are blocking harmless sites. That's certainly what happened in Australia when ASIC tried to block a site for running a fraud, and accidently blocked the Melbourne Free University and around 1200 other live sites.
4Chan (Score:1)
Bye Bye 4Chan.
my ... (Score:2)
I am absolutely ok with this (Score:2)
As long as I am the one deciding which sites I don't want to access.
Obligatory (Score:1)
First they came for the 'terrorists' and I did not speak out because am not a terrorist.
Then they came for the 'child porn' and I did not speak out because I do not like child porn.
etc...
Thank heaven ... (Score:2)
What's to stop the National Police? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
TFS suggested that there are ways to challenge the censorship, and that the government would have to put the reason for censorship on the web. It doesn't sound like the sole opinion of some bureaucrat is definitive.
What is an ISP? (Score:2)
Who was Charlie? (Score:2)
Vive la liberté?
Re: (Score:2)
Goverment in action again (Score:2)
You're blocking the site in the first place so you can not access it.
Every jurisdiction is different (Score:2)
Every jurisdiction is different. The US has the strictest pornography laws on the planet, but does little to block web providers of same. Canada has anti-hate-speech laws that they enforce to take down content. The UK is going full-on Nazi and blocks all kinds of stuff. The Chinese block just about anything and everything their government censors don't like, and Pakistan is even worse. Then you've got Turkey's repressive and blatant blocking of people the government just flat out doesn't like.
But the
Re: (Score:2)
Still OK
Charlie Hebdo's next cover: Bomber Mohammed thrusting a lit stick of dynamite up an altar boy's ass. The slogan DEATH TO JEWS written in wet, splattery paint across the entire thing.
Re: (Score:1)
Do they mean actual child abuse or cartoon depictions of it?
I don't know what counts as terrorism. That seems loosely defined. If we're talking about videos of people being murdered, that's something that's stands alone as a potential to ban. But if it involves people disagreeing with what the government says, that's totally different.
From the article...
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't work as satire, as it doesn't make any point. It's just shoving random offensive images together.
Re: Making fun of religion (Score:2)
I take it you haven't seen many of Charlie Heebdo's other cartoons.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think many people have. It wasn't a very widely-red publication.
Sticking head in the sand is thus, ENCOURAGED !! (Score:1)
Yep, that's the part the Western government is telling the people --- stick your fucking head into the fucking sand and all will be okay
Blocking sites will only motivate even more people to try to locate those sites, and in the meantime encourage the webmasters to set up even more sites with even more radical contents
Even back then, in the 1990's where websites are not that common, people had been actively exchanging information in newsgroups. With social media sites dime a dozen, how the fuck are you going
Re:Making fun of religion (Score:5, Insightful)
I think its outrageous that we honor them by implementing this wonton censorship. This is the sort of thing they litterally died for. That said, its not freedom of speech. Now lets look a the two organizations. One is a government cracking down on dissent, and the other is a filthy magazine known for taking pot shots at everyone. I think the two statements are not incompatible
I am Charlie
I am not the French Government
Re: (Score:2)
I am not the French Government
Of course not, Louis XIV is.
Re: (Score:2)
I think its outrageous that we honor them by implementing this wonton censorship.
So when has the French government started suppressing Chinese dumplings?
Take out (Score:2)
You stay the heck away from my wontons. There's plenty of chicken wings left, go over there before I break your chopsticks for you.
Re: (Score:2)
There is free speech and there is mocking speech.
one and the same
"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam." -- President Obama, addressing the United Nations General Assembly
Says the man who's responsible for drone bombing pakistan, and funding insurgencies that lead to the rise of extremists and more death. Tell me, how many people have Charlie Hedbo killed?