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Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

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Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#71

Post by pjc50 »

dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

Even the "liberal" states have never had unlimited freedom of speech and broadcast to the same extent as internet libertarians would imagine.

The ECHR Article 10 recognises this:

"1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."

.. which is how Germany can have its ban on Nazi symbols.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#72

Post by pjc50 »

JBReefer wrote: post #65
dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

A huge chunk of millennials are non longer believe in free speech [0], and everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great. Between the insanity of the current government/far right, and the rise of the far/tankie left, I'm not sure that liberalism is long for this world, even in the West. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...

> everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great

Hardly. Especially on the left. Including such issues as the ban on breastfeeding photos, ban on trans people using their names, and widespread failure to ban hate speech.

(I'm sure I've seen one case of someone recieving a pile of death threats, reporting them, getting told they were "not offensive", then reposting them as an image to say what sort of garbage facebook tolerates .. and then getting that post deleted by facebook. But not any of the original abuse.)

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#73

Post by scottmf »

gsnedders wrote: post #45
digi_owl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are times i wonder if politicians use EU as a "trump card". This in the sense of getting it into a EU directive and then turning around to the nation, stating as it is part of an EU directive their hands are tied...

There's a long list of cases where the UK has done this…

Could you share some?

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#74

Post by dalbasal »

JBReefer wrote: post #65
dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

A huge chunk of millennials are non longer believe in free speech [0], and everyone seems to agree that Facebook et. al's censorship of objectionable content is great. Between the insanity of the current government/far right, and the rise of the far/tankie left, I'm not sure that liberalism is long for this world, even in the West. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...

Interesting survey, but political opinion surveys are tricky and I think it's hard to say anything concrete.

The ideal "find your words despicable but defend your right to say them" is not all that common in practice, never has been. It's an idealist's position.

I'd guess that the results have more to do with political leanings on the underlying issue, than the free speech one. IE, the more concerned with hate speech, the more illiberal they are in the survey. Change "offensive to minority groups" to "spread lies about the President," and I suspect a different spread.

It needs to be courts who defend these things and they'll do it, if the laws are there.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#75

Post by anotherbrownguy »

dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

>western liberal freedoms

I'm sure China would happily adopt "western liberal freedoms" if didn't mean opening their citizens to brainwashing by western media and all their data being accessible to the CIA.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#76

Post by forapurpose »

icebraining wrote: post #17
pmyteh wrote: post #12

Non-EU readers should bear in mind that the presidency of the EU is much much weaker than that of, say, the US. It's rotated around the countries on a schedule, and has mainly agenda-setting authority. That is, countries who hold the presidency will use it to try to get movement on some issues that they care about, but it doesn't have anywhere close to enough power to get something passed which the other member state…

True. One wonders what Estonia, or its government, has to gain from this, though.

> One wonders what Estonia, or its government, has to gain from this, though.

As a guess, it's due to the threat to Estonia from Russia, which includes Russian cyber attacks and propaganda. Russia has used propaganda operations very effectively in Europe and the U.S. If the U.S. has trouble protecting itself, imagine Estonia's situation.

In response to the same issue, earlier this year (IIRC) I read about a similar call for government oversight of Internet publication by someone high in the UK government (but I didn't hear about it again after that).

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#77

Post by leggomylibro »

dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

It's not like the USA has ever had unlimited free speech; it's still illegal to shout 'fire' in a crowded building or make certain kinds of threats (generally the specific kind.)

China thinks it should be illegal to say something that threatens the stability of the governing party as an institution, so they control information more heavily. But it's not yet clear what they've proven in the past 60-odd years. Remember that their centralized system did also lead to things like the 'Great Leap Forward'...

People still call the 250-year-old USA an experiment, and apparently it still has some surprises up its sleeve. So what does that make the upstart PRC? Certainly not a bedrock reaching back to Neo-Confuscionism and beyond.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#78

Post by dalbasal »

anotherbrownguy wrote: post #75
dalbasal wrote: post #49

China’s example is massive. China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable.. Proof of concept for non-liberal systems. This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake.…

>western liberal freedoms I'm sure China would happily adopt "western liberal freedoms" if didn't mean opening their citizens to brainwashing by western media and all their data being accessible to the CIA.

How sure?

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#79

Post by pmlnr »

program_whiz wrote: post #60

Is anyone surprised at this? The internet is a single point which governs the majority of information and communication for the people now. Someone who is in power can potentially eliminate threats and increase their own power/wealth. I would be more surprised to find the opposite -- that the powerful had privately written a memo telling others that privacy matters more than their own power/wealth/safety. Its like al…

> The internet is a single point which governs the majority of information and communication for the people now.

That is because instead of building mesh networks out of our routers, mobile phones, home servers, raspberry pis, we, in Europe, are waiting on the {government,council,leadership,isp,bigco} to do it for us. It would be more than possible to build city-wide networks in the UK and cross-city connections with, for example, long range ubiquity, without and ISP or corporation or BT involved, but nobody seems interested, because nobody care any more. Virgin blocked a few more sites, "meh".

I know this sounds like a rant, but I'd really love to see a worm which turns every wifi capable device into gigantic mesh network and see how ISPs panic.

Re: Leaked document: EU Presidency calls for massive internet filtering

#80

Post by pmlnr »

chatmasta wrote: post #64

> upload filter Your upload is my download. A user uploads an HTTP request to a server, and the server uploads an HTTP response to the user. Of course that sounds unnatural compared to the user downloading the HTTP response. But the difference between upload/download is purely semantic and only distinguishes the intent of the user. Regardless of terms used, data flows in one direction, then back in another. The only…

> A user uploads an HTTP request to a server, and the server uploads an HTTP response to the user.

Direction-wise, this is true, connection-wise, it's not. There is no active connection initiated from the server to the client; it's one long connection that is client->server, only the direction of the data changes.

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