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US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

reuters.com

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Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#871

Post by MiiMe19 »

jjtwixman wrote: post #675
MiiMe19 wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American free speech laws are the superior option. A government that has the power to arrest people for saying "hateful" things is no better than China or North Korea. But at least you won't need to deal with people saying mean things (that you can block) on your computer (that no one is forcing you to use for social media) anymore, right?

Boring American arrogance. America wants to be free to spread fascist propaganda and child sexual abuse material all over the world, i.e., it's utterly degenerate culture. You are free to try, we are free to ban it. It's all good.

Fascist propaganda = i don't want 3 gorillion immigrants coming into my country every day.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#872

Post by mcv »

Argonaut998 wrote: post #543
arrrg wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people in Europe have a different view of freedom of speech and that’s fine. Not everything that’s a slightly different perspective on freedom of speech and what that entails and includes is tyranny.

I’m European and I do not. France and the UK especially come from the same liberal intellectual root as the USA. What we see today is a bastardisation of these principles in Europe. Only the US was smart enough to canonise it into law.

Yet the US has far worse attacks on free speech. And plenty of European countries also canonised it into law.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#873

Post by MiiMe19 »

basisword wrote: post #825
MiiMe19 wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American free speech laws are the superior option. A government that has the power to arrest people for saying "hateful" things is no better than China or North Korea. But at least you won't need to deal with people saying mean things (that you can block) on your computer (that no one is forcing you to use for social media) anymore, right?

>> A government that has the power to arrest people for saying "hateful" things is no better than China or North Korea. The US government is quite literally shooting dead American citizens in the street with zero consequences. You have a president who was found in civil court to be a rapist. He was impeached and had dozens of charges brought against him. He's unilaterally murdering people at sea and kidnapping foreig…

If the government ignored who people voted to president, it sure wouldn't be a free country would it? The eu "balancing" the right to freedom of speech is the same thing every authoritarian regime says. "We need to balance your right to speak to make sure you don't cause any disruption to the status quo (and knock us out of power)." Modern Europe is simply following the same line of thinking that every authoritarian regime has since forever. Just keep letting your rights get eroded.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#875

Post by Aloisius »

antonyh wrote: post #643
Aloisius wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing stops them from hosting it on fbi.gov, state.gov, etc. It's one thing to block some random .gov site unused for anything else, it's another thing to block a domain used for, say, filing flight plans.

As a Brit/European, would I notice or care if fbi.gov was blocked via consumer internet providers? I'd probably not notice if *.gov was blocked. I'm fairly sure government-level internet provisioning has a very different set of restrictions to the general population for those who need access to US Gov services, in the same way that I'm sure the Chinese state itself isn't subject to the rules of the Great Firewall.

The fbi.gov example is more about whether INTERPOL or local police would care since it would hinder collaboration on international investigations.

You are correct that if they only blocked it for consumers, it would be less of an issue, though that would be difficult for mobile providers.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#876

Post by ktm5j »

subpixel wrote: post #728
joenot443 wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole book banning thing is a little weird in 2026, IMO. It's exciting to think about, we all liked Fahrenheit 451, but a book not being bought for elementary schools doesn't really make it "banned" IMO. There are a lot of books which probably shouldn't be in schools. I don't think children should be given copies of Mein Kampf or Camp of Saints, nor the random dark fantasy novels which are so popular today. It fe…

As a parent, I believe there is no book that should be banned from being used by a teacher for instruction. I have the responsibility of ensuring that the school my child attends employs teachers who I trust to make effective and age-appropriate curriculum decisions.

I feel like you're making a silly distinction. I mean, we ban cigarette use for minors because it's bad for them.. are you against that too? You're admitting that you think certain books are inappropriate for kids, but saying that we shouldn't do anything about preventing their use in schools.. why?

Not every kid goes to a school with wonderful teachers. I think banning books for use in schools is justifiable.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#877

Post by ben_w »

weregiraffe wrote: post #866
ben_w wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some are as you say. My ego prefers to be the kind of person who ends up at truth over being one who has fooled themselves into thinking they have already found it, which makes changing my mind easier than others find it. I am pleased to say, others have also remarked that I am closer to this ideal than others they know.

>My ego prefers to be the kind of person who ends up at truth over being one who has fooled themselves into thinking they have already found it, which makes changing my mind easier than others find it. Yeah, that's what everyone says.

They really don't.

One of my childhood life-lessons, which took far too many examples to internalise, was all the people who are very happy to follow the crowd because it is the crowd.

In fact, what you're doing now suggests my approach is so alien to you that you yourself are right now not only not even telling yourself this but also labelling yourself as someone who does not say this.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#878

Post by ImJamal »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #637
lucasRW wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. That's why GrapheneOS left France; Signal is considering doing so to if ChatControl passes. Von Der Leyen and Breton clearly mentioned the possibility of banning X. And there are many other "signals". But yeah we get it, there's bad censorhip (Iran, China, Russia), and there is the good censorhip, sorry, i meant "protection of children", when it's the EU. :o)

> there's bad censorhip (Iran, China, Russia), and there is the good censorhip I understand that you're being facetious here, but this is literally true. Words kill people sometimes, and in the same way that my right to swing my arm stops where your nose begins your right to say whatever you want stops where my safety begins. Or to rephrase it, nobody can have free speech at all if others are allowed to threaten your…

I would be very interested in hearing some of these words capable of killing. I have only heard of such words in fiction so I am quite surprised to learn they are real.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#879

Post by ImJamal »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #492
schoen wrote: post #38

I just chaired a session at the FOCI conference earlier today, where people were talking about Internet censorship circumvention technologies and how to prevent governments from blocking them. I'd like to remind everyone that the U.S. government has been one the largest funders of that research for decades. Some of it is under USAGM (formerly BBG, the parent of RFE/RL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agen…

This is somewhat counterintuitive: The US is the only country I know where most newspapers and government services use strict geoblocks to prevent me from accessing US sites in Europe. Conversely, I've never had any problems accessing European sites from the US. I know this is for a different set of reasons (likely GDPR cookie law or similar), but it's funny that anyone thinks blocks like this are relevant. Most peop…

The EU has problems reaching non-US sites. RT for example. The block isn't on RT or Russia's side.

Re: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

#880

Post by ben_w »

weregiraffe wrote: post #865
ben_w wrote: post #784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, yes. There's also debate and ego-less teaching for the sake of truth-seeking.

Well, since nobody is ego-less, no truth is universally accepted, and debate is a means to pursue an agenda, what are we left with?

> and debate is a means to pursue an agenda

Scount mindset: the discovery of the truth to the best of our ability without fear or favour.

The metaphor is: A scout who tells the general his troops are strong when they are weak, that the enemy is weak when it is strong, is a bad scout.

The opposite is a soldier mindset: a soldier who fears to fight when ordered, no matter the strength of the enemy, isn't a good soldier.

You can call the search for truth an agenda in its own right if you wish, but it lacks the "primarily used to influence or persuade" aspect of propaganda.

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