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[Ed. Note: Behind the invective and political slant in this story is a subject that I think could lead to a fruitful discussion. "The price of liberty is constant vigilance." SoylentNews is a little corner of the 'net that tries to provide a venue for open discussion. Are our days numbered or threatened? What can be done? Just keep doing what we are doing?]
France has turned into one of the worldwide threats to free speech
Just over one year ago, French President Emmanuel Macron came to the United States to import two potentially invasive species to Washington. One was a tree and the other was a crackdown on free speech. Ironically, soon after the tree was planted, officials dug it up to send it to quarantine. However, the more dangerous species was his acorn of speech controls, a proposal that resulted in rapturous applause from our clueless politicians.
While our politicians in the United States may applaud Macron like village idiots, most Americans are hardcore believers in free speech. It runs in our blood. Undeterred, however, Macron and others in Europe are moving to unilaterally impose speech controls on the internet with new legislation in France and Germany. If you believe this is a European issue, think again.
Macron and his government are attempting to unilaterally scrub out the internet of hateful thoughts. The French Parliament has moved toward a new law that would give internet companies like Facebook and Google just 24 hours to remove hateful speech from their sites or face fines of $1.4 million per violation. A final vote is expected next week. Germany passed a similar measure last year and imposed fines of $56 million.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Sulla on Wednesday July 10 2019, @06:11PM (13 children)
This can only benefit the United States (and non-EU countries). Large companies will be forced to move their servers stateside (or at the very least, out of Europe) so they can avoid theft of their assets by the government for non-compliance. If a company like Google were external to Europe projecting in the only recourse by the authoritarians would be to shut off traffic from Google from coming into the EU if Google chose not to comply. The people would be able to very clearly see that they are losing services because their government is choosing the murder of free speech over them continuing to use services they have come to depend on.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday July 10 2019, @06:29PM
Wishful thinking. In their dream net I expect HTTPS would be backdoored and just the individual pages would be censored instead. Of course the politicians don't know the technical terminology for this, but they'll probably be civil servants behind them that do.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday July 10 2019, @06:42PM
I'm somewhat less sure of that. If say Google or Facebook wants to enjoy profits in/from Europe they kind of have to follow the Europeans rules. Moving back to America and then desire to have their services used but not following any rules or regulations will probably not fly. I'm sure Europe could survive without them both, and they in turn could probably survive without Europe even tho it might take a definite hit on the financial side considering there are about twice as many potential customers there as compare to the US. Not to mention speed, latency, serverfarms etc.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday July 10 2019, @07:32PM (1 child)
Probably a little too late for that. But in any case, this sort of open defiance is usually not how leaders of giant corporations handle a conflict with another entity. More often, they apologize, suck up, pay lip service, and appear to negotiate, all the while lying, cheating, and bribing to continue doing the same objectionable things that became the source of conflict.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:22PM
yes. to pretend these mega corps aren't run by whores is absurd.
(Score: 2) by Mer on Wednesday July 10 2019, @07:34PM
Large companies LOVE this. In fact, they're the ones feeding lies to the french parliament so they can grab more data.
After digital rights movements (that have successfully attacked french law in the past for being unconstitutional or breaking european law) have pointed out to lawmakers that:
>even facebook and google's algorithms are not able to spot hate speech
>the laws remove judges from the censorship circuit
>propagating hate speech is good for the big platforms because they make money out of clicks
>the whole affair is delegating the state's job to the initial culprits
several macron loyalists have expressed that yes, they are aware, and they think it's the right thing.
The same group (la quadrature du net) is already preparing to attack the new law, as it's breaking several european laws.
France is a terrible place to be in right now, it's pushing bad laws at the european level and ignoring the few good european laws. Every single one of these laws goes through the accelerated procedure.
Shut up!, he explained.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:01PM (5 children)
Have we forgotten so soon how the US government extends it's laws into everyone else's jurisdictions?
Do a quick search about the Microsoft Ireland case.
Your government is as authoritarian as any other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:54PM
Bbbbut patents and copyrights are the cornerstone of the free market!!
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:07PM (3 children)
Is 'laws' a new synonym for bombs? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:43PM (1 child)
Laws that go boom.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:22AM
Yeah... I still like better the things that make you go hmmmm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:23AM
Is 'laws' a new synonym for bombs?
No, money is.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by driverless on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:59PM (1 child)
It's a very US-centric view of things. (Some) people in the US believe that it's perfectly acceptable to promote anti-semitism, racism, homophobia, nazism ("there were good people on both sides"), and so on. A lot of people outside the US believe that this should be limited in some way. I've seen a number of posts here taking the US-centric view, typically taking rather extremist views of the rest of the world (one example being someone claiming that the police in Australia? were throwing people in jail for watching the Christchurch shooting video). It'd be just as easy for me, as a non-US observer, to post a similar story about the US, perhaps "In the US it's acceptable to promote nazism and genocide". I don't mind debates over free speech, but claiming the other side has a ridiculous, extreme position just so you can attack them... well, actually, that's US politics isn't it?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:09AM
Fuck you. There were good people on both sides of the statue issue and to state otherwise shows just how biased you are. It's impossible to be here on soylent and not be intelligent enough to know the truth. At the Charlottesville March there were neo-nazis and KKK in attendance, there were also people who don't believe statues should be removed for other reasons. Promoting the retention of statues of our leaders is not racist, it is a backstop against the insane practice of demanding that Jefferson and Washington also be removed from everything in the states. Fuck you and fuck your lies. The constitution will always stand even if it was written by shareholders, you can't change our history so you can steal our freedom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @06:14PM
Actually, a French-owned military contractor wants to force it down the world's throats.
https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-2-meter-amateur-radio-band-144-146mhz-from-becoming-a-aeronautical-band [change.org]
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 10 2019, @06:31PM
It seems more like half of Europe. It's not like the old days, when each country in Europe was an independent nation. Whatever nonsense you hear today from any of the countries, there is a whole block of EU nations backing it up.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shortscreen on Wednesday July 10 2019, @07:16PM (3 children)
Google/Facebook and the government are both threats to free speech.
I say: let them fight each other. Politicians make unreasonable demands for the snooping/advertising corps to police user-submitted and algorithmically generated material. The corps resist because of financial reasons and also fail repeatedly due to the sheer technical impossibility of it all. This generates scandals and blowback and makes them all look dumb, while causing inconvenience for the poor fools who actually use these services, possibly turning them away for good.
What more can you hope for?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shortscreen on Wednesday July 10 2019, @07:20PM (2 children)
Goog/FB are also not "the internet"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:18PM (1 child)
That depends on whom you ask. My parents more or less believe that the Google is the Interwebz and I have grown tired of trying to correct them so I'm just rolling with that now. I tried to sneakily redirect their browser to DDG but they noticed that the logo wasn't the same and there was much lamenting. They still have not noticed that they are not running Chrome anymore so there are apparently limits to everything. Still if the Google is missing the interwebs are down, and I get one of them family support calls you can't put on hold ...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:26PM
Google almost actually "is" the Internet because they have a near monopoly on search and videos. Most people use one of 4 sites: Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, Google, and Youtube. Thus, to the majority of people, those four are the de-facto Internet.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @07:17PM (8 children)
i haven't travelled europe enough to have an opinion.
however, it seems there are forces with enough clout and influence to be heard in the chambers of power to get laws passed.
so instead of "europe this" and "france that", find the real live people that are proposing and supporting these laws AND let us hear their arguments.
if they're "too busy" to answer questions then we can start speculating why they put sooo much time of their limited life span in sponsoring such laws?
i am sure, they didn't just wake up one morning and decided that people have too much freedom in saying whatever they want and then went on a long an arduous trek to get into the position to be heard by those in power ...
in any other case, carry on: "europe" and "france" are to blame!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by quietus on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:58PM (5 children)
The nazis didn't come to power because they were some wonderfully reasonable people who'd sensibly discuss why they thought it necessary to murder x million of people. The clue is in their party name: the National Socialist Democratic Workers Party. In short, they came to power through lies, blatant lies, and hateful lies.
It's one lesson the current crop of Europeans hopefully remembers, but somehow doesn't get through the thick skulls of quite the number of FREE SPEECH zealots.
So no big conspiracy theory: just a hard lesson that letting people say anything they like might end in having to watch your mother, father, wife or man, son or daughter, being summarily tortured and slaughtered.
Or as my mother used to say: too much freedom leads to slavery.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:30AM
they came to power through lies, blatant lies, and hateful lies.
They came to power because people chose to believe the lies. The Nazis' power came from the audience, not the "leaders".
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:46AM
Fortunately, people always remember history, so this could never happen again...
They don't like it when people shout "FIRE!!" in crowded theatres (the Europeans, not the zealots).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:56AM (1 child)
Wasn’t it “National Socialist German Workers’ Party”?
(Score: 2) by quietus on Thursday July 11 2019, @08:15AM
Yes -- you are correct.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:08AM
The lessons that Europeans need to remember are the vicious barbarity of Islam, the conspiring and intolerance of the Vatican, the backstabbing treason and greed of the international Jewish bankers, the evils of Communism, and the threat to the public of a standing army (or police force, intelligence agency, or regulatory body). Right now you are under attack by all five. If you ignore these lessons long enough, either the people find a Hitler to stop it or you get conquered.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:18PM (1 child)
Somehow, I don't think Scott Morrison is gonna debate those laws [theguardian.com] with you on S/N. And, by the way, his name doesn't sound 'so frenchy, so chic'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:51AM
I don't kmow - depends on 'ow you pronounce "Maurissoehn".
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Bot on Wednesday July 10 2019, @07:44PM
As much as I consider Macron a puppet that would be overturned after 10 minutes, had he been leading whatever banana republic, we must admit to ourselves that censoring the internet was in the plans from the beginning.
There is NO FUCKING WAY that the incumbents did not see the revolutionary potential of the internet. Yet they let it flourish. Why? because it is also an infrastructure for ultimate control. Now that a nice fiber cable lurks near a lot of homes, there is no need to maintain the pretense, and little by little with whatever excuse the trap slowly clicks into place. Boiled frogs.
Google and Facebook welcome whatever regulation. As long as it increases the barrier of entry for the competition, what's the problem. Money? But they are in a league where money can be printed for you, if you push the right agenda. They won't last forever because chaos and struggles are the signature of evil empires, not because of money per se.
As for the poor meatbag, the way out, as usual when in a power struggle, is to try to retain as much control as possible. Return to the internet of protocols or condemn yourself to relearn how to do the same simple things wherever some manager wants to leave his print on some cloud infrastructure.
Today I had to send some photos. Transfer via wired USB (MTP protocol) is way slower than upload with a not even top of the line copper DSL link. Not normal.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by Betteridge on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:03PM (3 children)
Well, as usual, I say... "No."
Er... well, umm... "maybe"?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:31PM (1 child)
That actually an easy one : Government employees are too lazy to go after any but the worst offenses.
add a judiciary that goes at tectonic speed, and you end up with something only the most blatant nazi sympathizers could worry about.
> Macron and his government are attempting to unilaterally scrub out the internet of hateful thoughts.
> The French Parliament has moved toward a new law that would give internet companies like Facebook
> and Google just 24 hours to remove hateful speech from their sites or face fines of $1.4 million per violation.
"Hey! You're selling/publishing stuff that's illegal here!"
"Wait, you can't expect me to stop doing that in less than 24 hours! That is an outrage!"
"it's illegal, take it down"
"Well, where I'm from, it's not illegal, so you are a big meaniiiie"
Background for the outrage : Didn't they just vote a 3%-or-so tax on the big internet companies revenues ? Of course, the web is suddenly going to fill with "bad government, bad!" stories. Forget free speech, the internet giants are going to flare up any angle they can to make those oppressors recoil and leave their bottom line alone.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:28PM
It's not just France, though it takes the lead: an EU wide tax is in the works: maybe non-EU governments will get ideas too, then.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:42PM
Nah, "No" is right.
Has anybody been killed for criticizing Emmanuel Macron? How about imprisoned? Has anybody been arrested for publishing true information that important people in the French government would like to not get out?
Because those sorts of things have happened around the world, and while the French aren't what I'd call weak when it comes to projecting their power they aren't in the same league as, say, China.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:15PM
"a proposal that resulted in rapturous applause from our clueless politicians."
if you really think they are clueless and not malicious maybe it is you who is clueless.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:18PM (1 child)
"Macron and his government are attempting to unilaterally scrub out the internet of hateful thoughts."
No, they are seeing to criminalize opposition to their seditious and treasonous invasion/white genocide. It's very obvious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:21PM
Be afraid, be very afraid. They are coming after white males, because their women are so juicy.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ilsa on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:24PM (18 children)
I know everyone is going, "Yeah! Free speech! Rah rah rah!", but here's one that people arn't talking about: With great power comes great responsibility.
There isn't one single right you can be granted where you can say "This right is unlimited!". Everything requires a balance.
A perfect example is on Slashdot right now talking about the DeepPorn takedown. People are screaming censorship, and how terrible Microsoft is for blocking open source. Everyone is going absolutely out of their way to ignore or outright deny that DeepPorn is a tool whose exclusive purpose is to sexually harass people. The commenters on slashdot feel that it is their right to undress any woman they want, and by extension, post those pictures on the internet.
It was disgusting and disturbing to the point where for the first time I am seriously considering outright closing my slashdot account and walking away. I was talking to a colleague about it, and she lamented how she has all but quit social media because she is too scared to use it. She's afraid of being doxxed, or getting flooded with rape/murder threats. I can't say I blame her. I've been pulling back myself, and am much happier for it. This is one of the few sites I still browse and comment on, because (with some notable exceptions), the calibre of people on this site are better than average.
The thing is, everyone seems to confuse what free speech actually means. It means you can criticize your gov't without fear of retaliation. It does NOT give you the right to doxx people. It doesn't NOT give you the right to take a bullhorn and start yelling out the importance of committing Swazili genocide in the middle of Times Square. (I made that up just now... I hope.) You are not allowed to scream "Fire!" in a theatre.
Yet for some reason people refuse to accept that yes, there are limits to what you can say. Everyone wants to believe they can say whatever you want without repercussions.
Because of this complete unwillingness to allow any kind of responsibility, what we have is an internet where the trolls have won. People care more about being outraged than intelligent debate. People who would be valuable additions to the internet community at large are walking away cause it's not worth the risk.
You don't get the right to free speech if you arn't willing to take responsibility for that speech. So now we are seeing the inevitable happening: Just like a 4 year old has their candy taken away from them because they refuse to control themselves, that right is being rightfully stripped away because we collectively don't deserve it.
(Score: 2, Troll) by takyon on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:44PM (13 children)
Yes, that is a stupid takedown and it is censorship. If you don't want your photos or videos to be "deep-porned", you should avoid publishing images of yourself online. Making code marginally harder to find and install is going to do nothing to solve the "problem". I'm going to sub the story now, and we'll see how long you keep coming here.
Obviously, people should have been considering GitHub alternatives before that takedown. I'm surprised GitHub hasn't nuked all Kodi addons yet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:12PM (5 children)
Careful how you thread there, tak, what you do is called "blame the victim".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:25PM (4 children)
If getting fake porn made of you is all it takes to be a "victim", pretty soon everyone will be a victim.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:00PM (1 child)
Keeping into account that taking pictures in public is something one cannot stop, you are right. I hope you'll enjoy the bodies your image will be grafted on and the activities depicted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:32PM
You assume that 1.) I go outside, and 2.) I'm not a bot hosted on GitLab.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:28PM (1 child)
If getting robbed is all it takes to be a "victim", pretty soon everyone will be a victim.
- yup, I've been robbed before and felt victimized, yet astonishingly I'm sill glad there are laws against theft
Free Speech Hysterics are no better than "think of the kids" hysterics. With my limited knowledge of the details here I won't make a proclamation, but takyon you are nuts to make that post with a straight face.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:30PM
Left unwritten: algorithms could pornify all incoming images AUTOMATICALLY.
Laws are not going to be very effective here. You don't even have to share the fake porn pics. Just share the software and the source images.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:20PM
Depending on the quality of the discussion, it will be the same for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Informative) by quietus on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:25PM (5 children)
There is principle, and there's defending a principle: if you're going to bludgeon a soylentil to death with your inescapable logic, please do it in a polite manner.
Your post was out of line -- adding "and we'll see how long you keep coming here." Not stylish, takyon. Not what we're used from you.
You might want to consider grabbing your old copy of the Good Soldier Svejk [wikipedia.org] and a decent bottle of whiskey.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:35PM (4 children)
It was in reference to that. If you're about to walk away from Slashdot because commenters are opposing censorship at GitHub, you should expect a similar response here.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:24PM (3 children)
And you want to test the resolution of that person, right?
Because everything needs to be clear cut? Or were you just jesting and whoever cannot take it is a precious snowflake?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:51PM (2 children)
The story is going to go out at 01:53 UTC, and everyone will engage in a thoughtful and polite discussion.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:13AM
It better do.
Otherwise I might get the idea to take a trip over to voat and 'invite'** some characters there to join S/N.
You know? Just to raise the thoughtfulness level of the discourse here on S/N and make it easier for the soylenters to understand the alt-right ethos without being nagged by aristarchus.
---
** yes, I know I'm free to use it, but I find "goad" to be such an unpolite term
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday July 11 2019, @01:39AM
Prophecy, or delusion?
Meanwhile, in takyon's basement lair: the pictures are already out there! [engadget.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:50PM (1 child)
Free speech has to be as close to unlimited as practical or there isn't a point to declaring it a value at all. If you aren't defending speech you find abhorrent, that you totally disagree with, you aren't defending free speech at all; You are just defending your side. So yes, Communists and Nazis both have to be able to speak right along with Americans quoting Madison and Jefferson. And even worse. Islamists, Scientology whacked out cults, all of it. Flat Earthers, Warmists, Scientism, all can enter the arena of ideas. Whether they survive free and open debate is another matter, all ideas are NOT equally true.
Deep Porn is toxic but forget trying to ban it. Far too late. And remember, any new technology is first used for porn before it becomes ubiquitous. It is actually those future uses of this deep learning crap that should be scaring the piss out of you. People have been drawing women with their cloths off almost as long as they have been undressing them in their mind, automating it is only a matter of speed and wider availability. Any attempt to ban Deep Porn will do more lasting damage to society than it will do. You are not required to like reality, only accept it.
Your last line though has a lot of Truth in it. Our Founding Fathers did say their government was only fit for a religious and moral people, that it would serve no other. We are now neither so we will soon be ruled. Hope we choose a good King.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @09:10AM
I disagree.
I'm not sure why deepporn got into this thread, deepporn is not free speech and doesn't resemble it at all. It is at least slander/libel and possibly some form of sexual assault.
So yes, I believe deepporn should be banned and I don't mind police and prosecutors spending time chasing the perpetrators responsible for creating unauthorized deepporn. There are a lot of pron actresses, hentai, ... out there already, if you really want someone specific to go naked and do dirty things. Well, why don't you try and hire them or convince them of that instead of making decisions in their stead? With this technology you can probably create any model you want, so why use real people that have things to lose from using their portret/images?
Just because it is hard to enforce/prosecute doesn't mean it should be legal.
I do mind if they want to force new laws that restrict my freedoms trying to prevent deepporn, and I do mind these proposed restrictions on free speech.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:48AM
We shouldn't even be arguing over free speech rights. What is much more important is to develop a technology to circumvent all attempts at censorship, ad hoc, distributed mesh nets, whatever. Basically it means acquiring internet access without an ISP cop getting in the way. Then we don't have to care what the French or any other politicians want, or what GitHub removes. Let them flap their tongues all they want. Our job is route around the damage. Censorship is always damage. It is always more offensive than the content being censored.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday July 11 2019, @01:02AM
Just walk away, don't close the account. You don't want to have your username taken over by some troll.
Unfortunately the proportion of exceptions is increasing, and Soylent News is going the way of the green site. There are more mature places for intelligent conversation.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:12PM (2 children)
If they were targeting protected speech this way, that would be a much bigger story involving constitutional rights. They neglected to link a primary source, and the language is childish.
Under the assumption this only targets illegal speech, I'm for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:41PM
I'll be waiting for your Darwin Award, because you are too stupid to live.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:02PM
I worry far more about those who would outlaw speech, than those who engage in outlawed speech.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:21PM (6 children)
Racist and "tribalistic" speech helped trigger the worst war ever, and Europe took the brunt of it. Of course they are going to be heavily against such.
Speech that claims a given culture or race is inferior rarely does any good anyhow. I've never seen any good come out of such, have you?
If you have a specific criticism about a specific activity, then criticize that activity instead of tie it to a group.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:50PM (5 children)
No idiot. Speech did nothing of the sort. Speech is nothing without action. If I say I'm gonna punch you in the face, you are not gonna fall over to the ground until I punch you in the face.
Leftists seem to have hard time grasping the basic reality that speech and action are not equivelent.
Most speech is jsut speech, and never leads to action. You can outlaw action. Outlawing speech is nothing more than thought-policing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:27PM
A fist fight often begin with words.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:44PM (3 children)
Wrong.
Calls for violence and genocide are not protected speech and civilization has carried on just fine. Those laws limiting the freedom of speech have no bearing on the problems we have today, so as usual you wacko extremists are full of shit.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday July 11 2019, @01:07AM (2 children)
It doesn't matter whether it's "protected" or not. Legislation is toothless. Philosophy is brainless. The only way to protect all speech is to make censorship technically impractical/impossible. Devote all energy towards that end and render the argument moot.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday July 11 2019, @01:44AM (1 child)
Hey!
Them's fighting words, fustakravitshit!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:14AM
:-) Wow! The remote works all the way from here!
Ok, that was the "Speak" button, let's try "Play Dead"
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:05PM
This development is good news. It means the death of big social media is closer.
As governments lose their fear of regulating the Internet small and non-transnational become advantages. Consider Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, etc. They have legal presence in, derive income from and generally operate in over a hundred jurisdictions. That means they are going to have to deal with the combinational explosion resulting from all of them demanding their laws be applied. They will need to handle a poster in Russia being viewed in China and a thousand other combinations. They can either go mad trying to filter who can see who or impose a least common denominator on everyone. They probably can't actually do that first option so will be forced into the second. And the users will leave.
Now compare a smaller service with legal presence in only one country, obeying only one set of laws. Anyone in the world can still (if only through a VPN) use it and it receives a huge advantage over only having to impose one country's restrictions. Especially if that one country is the US with the 1st Amendment and the long legal tradition that both created it and has flowed from it. Or look to the federated social media services, it becomes like email. France can't really regulate email flowing into their citizens boxes lest they open up protonmail.com boxes. They could still punish an identifiable French citizen for what they can be shown to write but again, VPNs and offshore email services to the rescue.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:22PM
My intent is not to defend any country restricting freedom of speech, however some of us grow tired of people trying to get people to fight because of gender, race, color, ethnicity and religion. That's not what we should be ready to fight over. A civil war should be about corruption of people in power, invasion of privacy, private property or greedy and reckless coorporations. It should not be the people fighting itself.
These laws have their roots in the UN and other post world war two initiatives to prevent it from happening again. In 1965 the UN made a declaration to end racism, which many countries followed up on with laws. In my country the law in its first form came in 1939 to end the hate of world war two that had made it acceptable to treat groups of people like lesser humans. In 1971 it was modified to align with the UN declaration. In 1987 sexual orientation was added and in 1995 it had an addition with harsher penalties for propaganda enterprise.
I'm not saying I like the idea of limiting free speech in general. It should not be abused to silence a few morons here and there using profound language. It has never been used like that in my country as far as I know (small country; I'd know). I hope though that it helps prevent ever again that we the people will start fighting each other over such rediculous things as our religion, who we fall in love with or a color. We have bigger things to stand up for and AFAIK there is no law preventing me from saying all that I want about companies trampling on my rights and people in power.
Censorship is wrong. Free speech is one of the most important aspects of a democracy. I'm not saying anyone fighting to remove these laws are wrong. I'm just saying the laws are there for a reason and it's not because the person next to you whom you enjoy calling a faggot-trannie-nigger is a snowflake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:58PM (2 children)
For all of our freedoms, not just speech.
We are watching the collapse of society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @12:31AM (1 child)
Be afraid, be very afraid.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday July 11 2019, @09:00PM
The counts of the indictment are luxury, bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect to elders, and a love for chatter in place of exercise. … [quoteinvestigator.com]