Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites • Hacker News Board

Re: Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites

#231

Post by petre » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 8:27 PM UTC

ElFitz wrote: post #64

junaru wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then don't try to put discredit to the saying of an insider. The GP in question is a generic ramble about distaste for current government. You can apply that for each and every country - there's not one where citizens are happy with their leaders. And if this flies for 'insider knowledge' in France you really are f**d and, its not because of the government.

> The GP in question is a generic ramble about distaste for current government. For the last 4 presidents and their ~15 governments (20 years), both "left" and "right". But I agree said rambling remains quite generic nonetheless.

The current président de la République managed to trigger protests and strikes that are only rivaled by the '86/87 student riots. The yellow vest protest almost had the potential to turn into another May '68 style event. It almost always begins with police killing a French citizen of Algerian origin or by messing up with the fuel prices. Hollande was a total disaster and Sarkozy is a 2x convict by now, no need to say more.

Re: Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites

#232

Post by smolder » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 8:37 PM UTC

aaaaarrrrrfffff wrote: post #225

smolder wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangential, but, nowadays there are many digital spaces where saying "its not ok to hate cis white men" will get you a chorus of people saying "yes it is", followed by the boot.

Very tangential. Those sorts of spaces do exist, and likewise pockets of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogeny all exist too. Hating cis white men for existing isn't something that should be acceptable, and death threats are never okay. And there are stressors that they do face - the suffering of others does not invalidate your own. But at the same time, there are also plenty of spaces mocking and belittling…

> Very tangential.

Yeah, sorry.

> if a trans woman is talking about how a cute guy she was talking to at a bar stalked her and tried to beat her after she mentioned that she is trans, and someone chooses that moment to say that it's not okay to hate cis white men

Right, and I've seen that kind of antagonistic use of otherwise fair statements before, too, i.e. with "all lives matter". That's not the kind of situation I'm describing, though. Rather, some people unapologetically bash white cis men with no other context for fun, and then pile on if someone speaks up. It's intentionally toxic trolling. As you point out, every group, oppressed or not, will have some gross behavior in its ranks.

Re: Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites

#233

Post by slotrans » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

popcorncowboy wrote: post #206

taylodl wrote: post #61

Serious question - can governments put mandates on open source software? How would that work? How could it work?

Of course. Legislature can pass any laws it decides to. Open source software doesn't get some free-pass that allows it to dodge laws. Yes of course you can ignore, disagree and break laws. But they can and will come after you.

Come after who? And how?

Re: Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites

#234

Post by cmh89 » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:24 PM UTC

smolder wrote: post #204

cmh89 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a revisionist history. The early web was heavily moderated, just on a smaller scale. >Hate to say it, but once the tech elite ( or more like the money elite controlling tech ) started talking about minority, lgbt and women's 'rights', they all started censoring, deplatforming, oppressing. There's nothing stopping you from creating yet another "free speech" website. They typically fail because what the "t…

Tangential, but, nowadays there are many digital spaces where saying "its not ok to hate cis white men" will get you a chorus of people saying "yes it is", followed by the boot.

Okay? Like I said, people are completely free to build sites that have the moderation preferences they want.

I don't really see how this relates to what I said

Re: Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites

#235

Post by anthk » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:49 PM UTC

stackedinserter wrote: post #97

anthk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The browser was invented in Europe.

The modern browser as a full-featured application platform was invented and developed by US big tech, not Europe.

Without the old browser you woudn't have modern browsers. Oh, btw, FFMPEG add Qemu came from a French.

Re: Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites

#236

Post by anthk » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:49 PM UTC

pb7 wrote: post #113

anthk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The browser was invented in Europe.

The airplane was invented in the US so what has Airbus accomplished?

No one would say that we the Europeans invented the airplane.

Re: Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites

#237

Post by jcarrano » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:50 PM UTC

zb3 wrote: post #81

jcarrano wrote: post #44

Someone please explain: if I fork Firefox or Chrome and delete the censorship code, then I publish it online (eg. in github with a download link), then next time I go to France I will get into trouble?

Next step: mandating compiler vendors to modify compilers so that your code doesn't compile :)

Is it a law of history that those who seemed crazy ended up being right? I remember reading a couple writings by Stallman and it sounded quite outlandish and exaggerate then. Not anymore.

See, e.g. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Oddly enough, the French government has contributed quite substantially to free software.

Re: Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites

#238

Post by jcarrano » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:52 PM UTC

osmsucks wrote: post #123

jcarrano wrote: post #44

Someone please explain: if I fork Firefox or Chrome and delete the censorship code, then I publish it online (eg. in github with a download link), then next time I go to France I will get into trouble?

This is why computers should only be able to run government-approved software acquired from government-approved repositories. :)

We are almost there with phones, except the approval is proxied through Apple and Google. The PC holds on but who knows for how longer.

Re: Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites

#239

Post by anthk » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:54 PM UTC

extraduder_ire wrote: post #172

Until 1999 (had to look it up) france completely banned "unlicensed" use of encryption. Even to the extent that if you had a windows NT server and changed the region to france, it would replace your hashed password with a plaintext version when you next logged in. So, there is a history of boneheaded tech laws.

Even xor with rot13?

Re: Petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Firefox to censor websites

#240

Post by stackedinserter » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

anthk wrote: post #235

stackedinserter wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern browser as a full-featured application platform was invented and developed by US big tech, not Europe.

Without the old browser you woudn't have modern browsers. Oh, btw, FFMPEG add Qemu came from a French.

Without Arabic numbers you wouldn't have modern programming => arabs invented JavaScript.