European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run • Hacker News Board

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#11

Post by louhike » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 1:35 PM UTC

forgotAgain wrote: post #9

Like the governance in England where the government decides what you should be watching? Perhaps they'll uses the French model and make it illegal to say anything critical about the French government. Or perhaps they'll adopt the Turkish attitude of jail time for those who speak the truth (if Turkey gets into the EU). How are they better than the American model of Uncle Sam lurking in the background of everyone's liv…

As a french, I'm quite surprised about what you are saying for France. We have a lot of satirical newspapers, TV shows, etc. Where have you seen that?

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#12

Post by rikkus » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 1:39 PM UTC

Governments have some control over the 'managing' and 'running' of the Internet, via TLD control, blocking, filtering, surveillance and legislation (e.g. the cookie law in EU), but even with all these in place, they're not really 'running' the Internet. If they did, there'd be no newsgroups, no torrents and no porn. They're seizing more control as time goes on, however: See the death of Net Neutrality in the US.

I'd like to see governments pledge to back off from the Internet. Unfortunately I can't see that ever happening. Forever pushing for more governance means that the non-government-approved portion will get bigger and erect more walls around it. If governments want to govern, they need to be more accepting of the 'net in its natural state and deal with it on those terms, rather than forcing citizens to choose to be on the 'light side' or 'dark side' (choose for yourself which term applies to which).

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#13

Post by rtpg » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 1:41 PM UTC

no matter what the intentions, this sort of notion that we have to formalize the governance of the internet seems like just the sort of thing to bring about a "death by committee" when it comes to internet freedom.

Personally, I don't understand how the current governance of the internet is an issue. The only thing that enables stuff like all the NSA spying is that American companies are by and large the major providers of services. No amount of governance will fix that problem.

On the other hand, many European countries do have some pretty heavy-handed approaches to information regulation, which I definitely would not want to affect the status quo.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#14

Post by davidnu » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 1:41 PM UTC

higherpurpose wrote: post #8

mattmanser wrote: post #3

Wonder what they'll do it the US just says no.

They'll put more and harsher regulations on American companies until they say yes. So I'm fine with whatever decision US makes, because I wouldn't mind if US companies (and the US government by proxy) wouldn't have a monopoly on EU users's data anymore.

You want governments to decide market winners and losers?! the fact that US companies are successful in Europe and Europeans are less so is partly due to the fact that they don't suffer from the backwards economic views you're currently displaying.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#15

Post by naich » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 1:42 PM UTC

forgotAgain wrote: post #9

Like the governance in England where the government decides what you should be watching? Perhaps they'll uses the French model and make it illegal to say anything critical about the French government. Or perhaps they'll adopt the Turkish attitude of jail time for those who speak the truth (if Turkey gets into the EU). How are they better than the American model of Uncle Sam lurking in the background of everyone's liv…

Slightly tinfoil hat rant there. The UK government does not decide what you watch, what they have done is pressure ISPs to provide optional filtering (set up by the ISP), with the default set to on. I don't like this and argue against it. It doesn't help my case when bullshit like this gets thrown about.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#16

Post by Signez » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 1:42 PM UTC

forgotAgain wrote: post #9

Like the governance in England where the government decides what you should be watching? Perhaps they'll uses the French model and make it illegal to say anything critical about the French government. Or perhaps they'll adopt the Turkish attitude of jail time for those who speak the truth (if Turkey gets into the EU). How are they better than the American model of Uncle Sam lurking in the background of everyone's liv…

> make it illegal to say anything critical about the French government.

What?

I'm sorry but I think you don't know anything about France, french politics, citizens or whatever related to the Hexagon.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#17

Post by davidnu » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 1:45 PM UTC

louhike wrote: post #11

forgotAgain wrote: post #9

Like the governance in England where the government decides what you should be watching? Perhaps they'll uses the French model and make it illegal to say anything critical about the French government. Or perhaps they'll adopt the Turkish attitude of jail time for those who speak the truth (if Turkey gets into the EU). How are they better than the American model of Uncle Sam lurking in the background of everyone's liv…

As a french, I'm quite surprised about what you are saying for France. We have a lot of satirical newspapers, TV shows, etc. Where have you seen that?

What about that French comedian that has your government exploring ways to ban his act? his material maybe reprehensible but in the US he'd have first amendment protection. Your country also has draconian and stringent liable laws, and I don't want it to have anything to do with Internet governance.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#18

Post by patrickaljord » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 1:46 PM UTC

louhike wrote: post #11

forgotAgain wrote: post #9

Like the governance in England where the government decides what you should be watching? Perhaps they'll uses the French model and make it illegal to say anything critical about the French government. Or perhaps they'll adopt the Turkish attitude of jail time for those who speak the truth (if Turkey gets into the EU). How are they better than the American model of Uncle Sam lurking in the background of everyone's liv…

As a french, I'm quite surprised about what you are saying for France. We have a lot of satirical newspapers, TV shows, etc. Where have you seen that?

I'm French and I agree with him. There's no freedom of speech in France or at least it's seriously limited. It's easy to accuse anyone of hate speech for example and get him banned and fined. There's also offenses against the president and not to forget journalists getting mysteriously fired all the time because they were a bit too critical of the government.

France is also the biggest censor of tweets http://www.numerama.com/magazine/28312-la-france-fait-explos...

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#19

Post by veganarchocap » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 1:47 PM UTC

And here marks the end of what the Internet was supposed to be.

Re: European Commission proposes a reform to the way the Internet is managed and run

#20

Post by valarauca1 » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 1:48 PM UTC

louhike wrote: post #11

forgotAgain wrote: post #9

Like the governance in England where the government decides what you should be watching? Perhaps they'll uses the French model and make it illegal to say anything critical about the French government. Or perhaps they'll adopt the Turkish attitude of jail time for those who speak the truth (if Turkey gets into the EU). How are they better than the American model of Uncle Sam lurking in the background of everyone's liv…

As a french, I'm quite surprised about what you are saying for France. We have a lot of satirical newspapers, TV shows, etc. Where have you seen that?

The French Government had videos of Police officers mocking minorities removed from various news organizations.

Law for Trust in the Digital Economy (LCEN) Article 18 grants the French Government the ability to remove any content that may destabilize the public, hurt nation defense, or physically harm persons.

That being said currently France is ranked #6 out of all nations in terms of Internet Freedom, due to internet policing while being possible rarely exercised.