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What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

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Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#31

Post by dmitri1981 »

pnathan wrote: post #24

So this is what the West is tottering towards. What can be done about it? Does an alternative internetwork need to be formed? What will it look like? How will we pay for an alternative network? Who will use it? For those of us who really, honestly, no-kidding want free speech: what can be done from a technical angle? Thoughts?

Since we live in a democracy, there are elected representatives whose job it is to listen to voters. I think the best way to proceed is to put the cynicism aside and actually let them know how you feel about the issue. If you are really passionate about it, convince people around you to do the same. Quite easy really.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#32

Post by p0nce »

csomar wrote: post #10

Am I missing some point here? When Internet was censored in Tunisia, we would use proxies, https, sites like vtunnels... This became casual stuff even for the non-techie. So what's the point of censorship? Making access to the web a little bit harder? If you censor a video on Youtube, someone else can upload it to Facebook and watch it through HTTPS and diffuse it to many people. Aren't (the French Gov. and other Gov…

Well this is the _french_ government. There is .gov sites storing passwords in plain text here.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#33

Post by roc »

dmitri1981 wrote: post #14
nextparadigms wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would set a very bad precedent indeed, as other countries will later point to France as an example of how it should be done. Sarkozy wanted to get all the G8 countries on the same page, so they don't look out of place with their new censorship laws. That way if they all enforce the same kind of laws in the same time, they think people would just take it for granted that that's how it should be done, and that "if…

> Fortunately, there are elections next spring I would say you are mistaken in the belief that these policies exist because of certain leaders. In my opinion, they exist because the electorate is misguided in believing that this kind of 'censorship' is a good idea. Therefore, I would suggest that voting out the incumbent will not necessarily make the problem go away. I believe that the best way to deal with this is b…

> "In my opinion, they exist because the electorate is misguided in believing that this kind of 'censorship' is a good idea."

Or, a bit more cynically, they're paid to believe this kind of 'censorship' is a good idea.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#35

Post by dmitri1981 »

roc wrote: post #33
dmitri1981 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fortunately, there are elections next spring I would say you are mistaken in the belief that these policies exist because of certain leaders. In my opinion, they exist because the electorate is misguided in believing that this kind of 'censorship' is a good idea. Therefore, I would suggest that voting out the incumbent will not necessarily make the problem go away. I believe that the best way to deal with this is b…

> "In my opinion, they exist because the electorate is misguided in believing that this kind of 'censorship' is a good idea." Or, a bit more cynically, they're paid to believe this kind of 'censorship' is a good idea.

A slight misunderstanding perhaps. By electorate I mean the general public who elect the politicians. As far as I know they don't get paid to have opinions, unlike some politicians in a few cases.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#36

Post by Chris_Dollar »

Yes, many citizen groups stand up for the 1st Amendment and tell our representatives that Internet censorship is not feasible in a functioning democracy. The problem is that the Big Six (GE, News Corp., Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, & CBS) have a megaphone and bags of cash... so often the voices of the citizen groups get drowned out.

Couple that with the fact that the vast majority Americans form their world view from the television or the websites that the Big Six own. Sex scandals and Hollywood gossip is discussed, Internet censorship? Not so much.

And this is increasingly not just an American problem, as many people on this thread are pointing out. We live in a global society (thanks largely to the Internet), the challenges of the U.S. are increasingly the challenges of France.

The Internet has done a tremendous amount of good over the past 20+ years, but there is a flip side to this coin as well.

Check out this five minute documentary trailer (on KickStarter) that seeks to tackle some of these Internet censorship issues:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/akorn/killswitch-a-docum...

This documentary project is looking to get crowd-funded by small individual donations from the same citizens with the most to lose if we moved to a censored and centralized Internet.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#37

Post by roc »

dmitri1981 wrote: post #35
roc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "In my opinion, they exist because the electorate is misguided in believing that this kind of 'censorship' is a good idea." Or, a bit more cynically, they're paid to believe this kind of 'censorship' is a good idea.

A slight misunderstanding perhaps. By electorate I mean the general public who elect the politicians. As far as I know they don't get paid to have opinions, unlike some politicians in a few cases.

Huh. Well it wasn't a misunderstanding. I just completely missed what you'd written and read my own bias right into your comment.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#38

Post by Groxx »

csomar wrote: post #10

Am I missing some point here? When Internet was censored in Tunisia, we would use proxies, https, sites like vtunnels... This became casual stuff even for the non-techie. So what's the point of censorship? Making access to the web a little bit harder? If you censor a video on Youtube, someone else can upload it to Facebook and watch it through HTTPS and diffuse it to many people. Aren't (the French Gov. and other Gov…

Yes, because China has been so stunningly unsuccessful in its attempts.

There will always be ways around censorship. But by making it difficult, they can prevent the majority of people from doing so. And that's enough to make a lot of changes.

Re: What the French 'Civilised Internet' Looks Like

#40

Post by error »

dmitri1981 wrote: post #14
nextparadigms wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would set a very bad precedent indeed, as other countries will later point to France as an example of how it should be done. Sarkozy wanted to get all the G8 countries on the same page, so they don't look out of place with their new censorship laws. That way if they all enforce the same kind of laws in the same time, they think people would just take it for granted that that's how it should be done, and that "if…

> Fortunately, there are elections next spring I would say you are mistaken in the belief that these policies exist because of certain leaders. In my opinion, they exist because the electorate is misguided in believing that this kind of 'censorship' is a good idea. Therefore, I would suggest that voting out the incumbent will not necessarily make the problem go away. I believe that the best way to deal with this is b…

Could not agree more... spreading the counter message is best way to deal with it.
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