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

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

#61

Post by tomp »

GunlogAlm wrote: post #26
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…

> in England where the government decides what you should be watching ISPs voluntarily (yes, voluntarily) agreed to ask new customers if they want to block certain categories of content (gambling, violence, adult material, etc.). This is not censorship. At first I could understand some people being ignorant of the situation and assuming it was some Firewall of China for porn, but now it's taking the piss.

Nobody is seriously saying that this is censorship. The main worry is that it's a slippery slope that promotes, technically and culturally, censorship in the future.

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

#62

Post by Shivetya »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #33
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…

"Government control of the internet, by any government, will inevitably lead to censorship." You may be right about that specific point. So what's the alternative? Corporate control? UN? If the net is governed by some form of institution, then that institution will need widespread legitimacy. I'm not saying that the current controllers have that, but a transfer of governance won't happen without it.

The UN is the last organization on earth to be given control or dominion over the net just based on the results of the Human Rights Council.

Its fine where it is, at least the US leadership can be picked on with near impunity if not vilified by the press to get a reaction, other countries less so

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

#63

Post by mercurial »

patrickaljord wrote: post #18
louhike wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.num…

> It's easy to accuse anyone of hate speech for example and get him banned and fined.

Are you trying to say that laws against hate speech are a bad thing, or that they are abused in France? If they are abused in France, I'd appreciate relevant examples. Not Dieudonné, as this unfortunate character has made his bread and butter of antisemitism the last few years.

> There's also offenses against the president

Fair enough. I'd like to point out, though, that the last person to be condemned for "offense to the head of state" had to pay 30 euros after insulting Nicolas Sarkozy. That's not exactly financial ruin, but I'd like this law to go away entirely.

> journalists getting mysteriously fired all the time because they were a bit too critical of the government.

Which ones in particular?

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

#64

Post by morkbot »

anuraj wrote: post #55

The biggest threat to internet is from governments. Time to think of an independent, autonomous internet that is dynamically formed and cannot be controlled or monitored by design

...and in that new, great Internet you will get the natural monopolies, same as we have them today (Google, Facebook), only this time they won't be under supervision of any democratic government.

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

#65

Post by psykovsky »

fidotron wrote: post #51

These noises are inevitable and will grow. The root problem is the load of nonsense that was peddled about the net being resilient to nuclear war etc. When really it's too centralized. The killer transition that needs to occur is to move DNS from being authoritative to being a matter of opinion. (Rather like having multiple got repos instead of a central SVN server). This would solve a lot of problems, but prevent th…

You realize you kind of described Namecoin? The future is now?

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

#66

Post by lmm »

powertower wrote: post #36

Isn't the "management" of the internet already kind of off-hands by the US gov and somewhat open (I'm not talking about the spying stuff). Especially with regards to the draconian ways other countries treat it (China, Iran, etc). So what the EU really is saying is that they want to lock things down a bit further. The want more domain-name control, more gov level blocking and filtering, more surveillance, more data re…

Or they don't want the domain root in the hands of a private company that keeps selling ever-crappier TLDs to make money, making the net worse for everyone? Just a thought.

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

#67

Post by bachback »

waps wrote: post #41
Implicated wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*when

Exactly what they have been doing all along : complain about NSA spying. Wasn't that obvious from the press release ? > In the wake of large-scale Internet surveillance and reduced trust in the internet, the European Commission today proposes a key reform to the way the Internet is managed and run. The proposal calls for more transparent, accountable and inclusive governance. This is the justification. What do they w…

great post. are you working this?

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

#68

Post by [deleted] »

Shivetya wrote: post #62
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Government control of the internet, by any government, will inevitably lead to censorship." You may be right about that specific point. So what's the alternative? Corporate control? UN? If the net is governed by some form of institution, then that institution will need widespread legitimacy. I'm not saying that the current controllers have that, but a transfer of governance won't happen without it.

The UN is the last organization on earth to be given control or dominion over the net just based on the results of the Human Rights Council. Its fine where it is, at least the US leadership can be picked on with near impunity if not vilified by the press to get a reaction, other countries less so

[deleted]

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

#69

Post by yxhuvud »

atmosx wrote: post #27

I'd like to see a system based on the bitcoin protocol handling the TLD (namecoin?): You can't block it, you have public access to the registration data and with US, China, Russia and the EU involved, it's hard to achieve a 51%-attack.

You mean like peercoin?

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

#70

Post by davidnu2 »

mercurial wrote: post #59
davidnu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> What about that French comedian that has your government exploring ways to ban his act? Well, what about him? France is not the US, you have hate laws here. Nobody is trying to ban him because he is criticizing the government. That's not parent is saying anyway: Perhaps they'll uses the French model and make it illegal to say anything critical about the French government. Last time I checked, the Figaro and le Poin…

Exactly right, the problem is that you're not the US.

"Hate laws" are censorship. "Hateful" speech is equally protected under the US constitution, and any political movements it might inspire will not be infringed upon by the government.

The fundamental problem with "hate laws" in the context of speech is the definition of "hate", totalitarian governments tend to widen that definitions in order to suppress adversaries, this might be theoretical in your case but it's still an attack victor.

The Internet must be built on the example of the "freest" framework available and that is the US's.

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