Reddit Writes A Law: First Draft Of The Free Internet Act Emerges
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Re: Reddit Writes A Law: First Draft Of The Free Internet Act Emerges
#2I, for one, welcome America's new political overlords.
And I'm not joking. Reddit will become a powerful political force outside of the traditional electorate system, and I welcome the new voice.
Re: Reddit Writes A Law: First Draft Of The Free Internet Act Emerges
#3Testing
Re: Reddit Writes A Law: First Draft Of The Free Internet Act Emerges
#4proud of you.. you cat, bacon, narwhal loving bunch of weirdos
Re: Reddit Writes A Law: First Draft Of The Free Internet Act Emerges
#5Neat idea, but the current version of the document just looks like a jumble of loosely related points, somewhat like the laundry list of demands that somebody claiming to represent OWS posted on Reddit a few months ago. What does a damage cap on copyright infringement have to do with a general prohibition of censorship? Why does the document suddenly make up an arbitrary definition of derivative content? Closely related items should be placed together, but different topics should be grouped separately.
I'm also a bit skeptical about the way the document so quickly excludes "illegal data" from its purview. So much of the surveillance and censorship measures that people are worried about take place in the name of preventing and/or prosecuting illegal activity. Therefore, the scope of "illegal" must be very carefully defined in order to prevent gaping loopholes. Is downloading child porn "illegal" in the same way that uploading a copyrighted song is "illegal"? At the very least, cases involving damage claims in a civil suit should be distinguished from cases involving criminal prosecution.
Also, basing damages on the retail price of copyrighted works, multiplied by the number of copies produced, seems odd to me. If you upload 0.8% of a copyrighted file to 100 people over BitTorrent, how many copies have you produced? 0.8 copies? What if the infringed work is not on sale in the first place? What happens if you violate an open-source software license?
But I don't hang out on Reddit all that much, so maybe these apparent shortcomings have good reasons behind them?
Re: Reddit Writes A Law: First Draft Of The Free Internet Act Emerges
#6> Censorship is only permitted if content is found to be illegal content in accordance with this treaty.
> All false information stored to misguide, scam, cause damage, trap users financially, or mutilate collateral are illegal content.
The italicized text concerns me. Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because I can easily imagine an unscrupulous politician claiming (for instance) that arguments critical of government economic policy are "false" and are intended to "misguide" and "cause damage" to the economy and well-being of the nation.
The Constitution of the United States has been rendered effectively worthless by this very tactic—a couple of its clauses are routinely used to justify anything, because of their less-than-specific wording.
I suspect documents like this are a symptom of the cure rather than the cure itself. They can only be enacted—and can only continue to serve their purpose—as long as the citizens and their politicians support the documents' causes.
Re: Reddit Writes A Law: First Draft Of The Free Internet Act Emerges
#7> Censorship is only permitted if content is found to be illegal content in accordance with this treaty. > All false information stored to misguide, scam, cause damage, trap users financially, or mutilate collateral are illegal content. The italicized text concerns me. Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because I can easily imagine an unscrupulous politician claiming (for instance) that arguments critica…
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Re: Reddit Writes A Law: First Draft Of The Free Internet Act Emerges
#8> Censorship is only permitted if content is found to be illegal content in accordance with this treaty. > All false information stored to misguide, scam, cause damage, trap users financially, or mutilate collateral are illegal content. The italicized text concerns me. Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because I can easily imagine an unscrupulous politician claiming (for instance) that arguments critica…
It looks like it's becoming a "status quo" document because, for the sake of credibility, noone wants to stand up on copyright, privacy, censorship, and human rights. The "what if someone posts illegal content!?" questions dominate, just like in the Reddit meshnet plan.
We've been having this debate about the Internet for years and decades later, we're still not willing to stand up for the bad speech to save the good speech. (You can't have one without the other -- that's what that amendment was about.)
Yes I think it's that black or white.... Iran has shown us it IS possible to go back to the stone age, and the scary part is, the US and Canada BOTH have a 1984 bill in play as I write.
We've come a long way in terms of technology, but people are less willing to stand up for the free flow of information than ever. We are crawling back into Plato's cave.
As difficult as some information can be (and it's strictly that -- information -- bits -- not murder, or rape, or worse; not a physical act but merely the vapors of physical acts), I think I'd rather have the truth and an open sky than the comfort of a lie.
I'm more afraid of a world without Wikileaks than one with Wikileaks.
Re: Reddit Writes A Law: First Draft Of The Free Internet Act Emerges
#9> Censorship is only permitted if content is found to be illegal content in accordance with this treaty. > All false information stored to misguide, scam, cause damage, trap users financially, or mutilate collateral are illegal content. The italicized text concerns me. Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because I can easily imagine an unscrupulous politician claiming (for instance) that arguments critica…
It looks like it's becoming a "status quo" document because, for the sake of credibility, noone wants to stand up on copyright, privacy, censorship, and human rights. The "what if someone posts illegal content!?" questions dominate, just like in the Reddit meshnet plan. We've been having this debate about the Internet for years and decades later, we're still not willing to stand up for the bad speech to save the good…
>the US and Canada BOTH have a 1984 bill in play as I write
What bills are you referring to, specifically?
Re: Reddit Writes A Law: First Draft Of The Free Internet Act Emerges
#10This is why we can't have nice things; the message is getting overwritten every few seconds by a kids pasting in goatse and jailbait references. wisdom of the collective is neither when one party is overpowering.