French Government decides to censor the Internet

[whitebark]

Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Sir Winston Churchill

 

[bludex]

A few thoughts:

A) Democracy in theory & 'Democracy' in practice are 2 totally different things - imo, many 'democracies' are facades for capitalizing on the 'sheepeople' they marginalize. [...]

B) The strategy of many governments throughout time and right up to this day have 1 great strategy - Divide and Conquer - including it's own citizens.
[...]

The internet creates transparency and takes a lot away from the power to divide and conquer, even from the ultimate division, the division of people's minds (tinfoilhead_mode=ON).

 

[katherine]

Government is evil.

 

[Rubber Duck]

Government is evil.

Yes, but it is vastly preferable to anarchy.

 

[onlinetv]

The way "freedom" looks in todays "democracies" (mob rule) reminds me of old B&W movies depicting fascism. The only difference is now it is in color.

 

[simon johnson]

......most other Western countries guarantee Freedom of Speech and The Press and not just for the internet.

Do you honestly believe there is freedom of the press? Its like saying Fox news is fair and balanced or CNN really does have "the best political team on television" :lol:

Most western governments go through the process of "we must censor the Internet" only to find that they can't and their citizens find ways around it. Its a political vote winning exercise aimed at ignorant non-technically literate voters.

I'm sure the ISP's are in an uproar, as they generally don't want the infrastructure or the legal issues associated with filtering this stuff. It will all sort itself out in the end.

 

[Dave Zan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but currently the most governments like France's can
do is filter whatever goes through their network, but not of other countries?

The article said it supposedly takes effect on September, so that might give a
few French locals there time to possibly turn it around or so. But if it happens
that arguably a majority of them agree to it, then that's it, isn't it?

Not all jurisdictions are necessarily democratic. How much freedoms, rights, &
say, privileges they'll have depends on what their government and its people
pretty much agree on.

So...is the internet a freedom? A right? A privilege?

(Of course, that can also depend how much people know about it, much more
care...)

 

[incka]

Well seems that is the way the net is going. My ISP in UK is currently blocking all domains hosted by Namedrive the parking company.Cannot find out why !!. Where is it going to stop ?.

DG

Current ISP: BT. NameDrive parking sites: Fine.
Old ISP til 1st May: Be There. NameDrive parking sites: Fine.

The namedrive domains were .uk ones.

Hope that helps you

 

[bludex]

The way "freedom" looks in todays "democracies" (mob rule) reminds me of old B&W movies depicting fascism. The only difference is now it is in color.

I felt it You said it!

In Zeitgeist-the movie you can see they even speak the same sentences http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com

At the moment 'they' at least still have to pretend that we're living in a democracy, and hope uneducated or people/sheeple don't recognize the subtle differences.

We are still able to educate and have the duty to do so as much as we can.

 

[HarveyJ]

My uncle says there was a time long ago when firemen used to put out fires, instead of starting them

Who ready morning jump'n'jerks? It double plus good... I minus like Goldstein!


Seriously though, that the WWW managed to move for so long without this sort of thing amazes me.

The frustrating part is that the Governments that make this legislation are usually aware that all they will be doing is criminalising currently lawful activity, and that it won't actually catch any real criminals, other than perhaps the really dumb ones.
Considering that most child pornography is spread via private FTP, usenet groups, XDCCs via IRC, or even Telnet FT, this does almost nothing.
Hell, the producers of most of this stuff aren't stupid people. They're not skeezy old men in coats with no idea. They're usually fairly techno-savvy, and that's why curtailing their activities is so hard.