Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Africa's Worst New Internet Censorship Law Could Be Coming to South Africa

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 50 posts

Re: Africa's Worst New Internet Censorship Law Could Be Coming to South Africa

#21

Post by peferron »

buyx wrote: post #7

The only saving grace is that the Department of Home Affairs (of which the Film and Publications Board is part) is so incompetent that their reach exceeds their grasp, and it is relatively easy to circumvent their authoritarian tendencies. Until recently many South African Apple device owners had Kenya accounts to buy games (including most educational content) because of the Board's refusal to allow South African App…

In the short term you are right. However the legal authority to enforce censorship will be established. All it will take is for the Department of Home Affairs to become less incompetent and suddenly things will become very serious.

I think history has shown us that it's rarely a good idea to assume that people will remain incompetent, that puppet dictators will remain puppets, etc.

Re: Africa's Worst New Internet Censorship Law Could Be Coming to South Africa

#22

Post by iopq »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #17

Больше ада! Aka, worse is better. The idea here is: reasoning does not work. You reason for good things, against stupid laws, but you have no leverage. We'll have to walk thru pain, "fear and loathing", most of those laws will be passed somewhere, in a few years or decades they'll prove to not work. Then they will be gradually repelled. Now there will be leverage: "this law was tried in a country CCC and it went sour…

Bulk collection of data on Americans doesn't "work", but they sure love being able to do it.

Re: Africa's Worst New Internet Censorship Law Could Be Coming to South Africa

#23

Post by e12e »

tomjen3 wrote: post #8
coldcode wrote: post #2

Everyone wants to crush their citizens. Except Iceland, maybe.

They want to ban porn though. Any country left that actually cares about freedom, other than Germany?

Banning porn can be seen as wanting to ban oppression/exploitation. Freedom is not absolute -- because at some point one persons freedom interferes with another persons freedom (AKA your freedom ends where your fist meet my face).

A lot of people will pretend that porn is about freedom, that selling sex is about freedom, that selling drugs is about freedom... And while you can make arguments for all those things, that's not to say that any kind of legislation by definition is "anti-freedom". Legislation can be a means to enforce freedoms too.

Re: Africa's Worst New Internet Censorship Law Could Be Coming to South Africa

#24

Post by gpvos »

Apocryphon wrote: post #9
tomjen3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want to ban porn though. Any country left that actually cares about freedom, other than Germany?

Oh, the historical irony

Their feeling of guilt about their history is the reason they care about freedom at least a little bit more than others.

Re: Africa's Worst New Internet Censorship Law Could Be Coming to South Africa

#26

Post by _urga »

buyx wrote: post #7

The only saving grace is that the Department of Home Affairs (of which the Film and Publications Board is part) is so incompetent that their reach exceeds their grasp, and it is relatively easy to circumvent their authoritarian tendencies. Until recently many South African Apple device owners had Kenya accounts to buy games (including most educational content) because of the Board's refusal to allow South African App…

As a South African, the department of Home Affairs in the Western Cape is actually doing an excellent job regarding birth certificates, passports, ids etc. The bottleneck is in Gauteng.

Re: Africa's Worst New Internet Censorship Law Could Be Coming to South Africa

#28

Post by guard-of-terra »

PebblesHD wrote: post #18
guard-of-terra wrote: post #17

Больше ада! Aka, worse is better. The idea here is: reasoning does not work. You reason for good things, against stupid laws, but you have no leverage. We'll have to walk thru pain, "fear and loathing", most of those laws will be passed somewhere, in a few years or decades they'll prove to not work. Then they will be gradually repelled. Now there will be leverage: "this law was tried in a country CCC and it went sour…

Sadly, the notion that 'It was tried in and didnt work so we should avoid it' doesn't really apply to politics. Consider Australia's current internet censorship and metadata legislation, the same laws have been tried all over Europe, the US, Asia and a host of other countries and proved worthless, and yet the government pushes forward with them. Its simply for appearances, the leadership needs to look like its tough…

They have to be repelled somewhere in order to be proven worthless.

Re: Africa's Worst New Internet Censorship Law Could Be Coming to South Africa

#30

Post by thescrewdriver »

mhuffman wrote: post #27

I am all for multi-tasking, but you would really think that Africa would have bigger fish to fry right now, without worrying about censoring the Internet.

Ah yes, the good old republic of Africa. Who is the president of Africa?
Post reply on HN