Omnimaga
General Discussion => Other Discussions => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: pimathbrainiac on December 03, 2012, 04:50:49 pm
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https://www.google.com/takeaction/
Take a long look... If my interwebs are censored then THIS MEANS WAR!!!
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By design, the Internet isn't supposed to be regulated. Therefore, it's a pretty stupid move.
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stupid government ruining the interwebs!
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That's no good D:/me signs
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/me agrees!
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I saw news of this earlier last month. Honestly, if they truly restrict the internet, I predict two things. The first will be the emergence of "Darknets" as I've heard them called. Basically "Private Internets." The second, once those are eventually suppressed as a knee jerk reaction, there will be general public dissent and a prevalent feeling of repression. There might even perhaps be rebellion fueled by organisations like Anonymous.
Edit: Btw, this conference began today. :s
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the government is doing that....again?
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Grr, looks like I'm gonna have to get out my flaming avatar again x.x
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yup, and, if this doesn't work out, there will inevitably be another round. there are plenty of countries all over who hate their populations knowing anything about the world outside, and are doing their very best to prevent their citizens from realising how poorly they are being treated (see the former soviet union, modern china, and, just recently, iran completely cutting itself). couple that with governments composed of leaders who have no idea how modern technology works and who are being bullied by massive corporations trying to save their obsolete markets, and there is hardly anybody for internet freedom left in any position of power.
/me predicts that the masses will be outraged at first and then forget a week later and go back to playing doodle jump.
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My school, or probably just the company that gives them internet, blocked militantplatypus.
Not just “blocked: reason: gaming,” but “blocked: reason: .militantplatypus.”
Now I have nothing to do during computer science class
Oh yeah, and I support Google's position
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Since SOPA/PIPA failed, now they're trying to push these two things silently via a new name, and if it's blocked again they'll just switch to a new name again.
This really sucks. I heard that in UK, government blocked a site called PromoBay, which is very legal because all it does is featuring indie web artists without providing a single download link (unless the artist submit one). It's just a music blog, kinda, yet UK is blocking it.
if those laws get through, then Internet will end up being regulated the same was as in China. If those laws ever pass, I hope there are big protests organized in affected countries like the ones during the Arab Spring.
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With SOPA/PIPA, nobody protested until Google/Wikipedia/other sites blacked out. Hopefully people will pay more attention this time...
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I wish big medias talked about it more rather than just hiding it somewhere in an hard to find technology news section. It would have even more power.
Maybe people need to step up and organize protests on specific dates (even if it means skipping classes and not going at work) through social medias (Twitter/Facebook), like they did with the Arabic Spring protests.
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Huh? What's going on? I hadn't heard of this yet. So are they trying to censor stuff again and is Google supporting anti-censorship?
I wish big medias talked about it more rather than just hiding it somewhere in an hard to find technology news section. It would have even more power.
Maybe people need to step up and organize protests on specific dates (even if it means skipping classes and not going at work) through social medias (Twitter/Facebook), like they did with the Arabic Spring protests.
Aww man I don't want to skip class. I've had perfect attendance for so long.
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I signed. If this ever passes, you can expect an hacker revolution really soon. :mad: You'll be sure every government that voted for this f*cking censorship will get violently attacked. :devil:
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/me wishes that the governments of the world were less power based...
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/me wishes that the governments of the world were less power based...
I would actually argue that that would be counter intuitive. The issue is the ideology of those in power, not the medium they act through.
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I'm not saying that government shouldn't have power... I'm saying that government should not attempt to GAIN power for the sake of gaining power...
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Ah, I see. I agree, it's a shame that governments out there see things as such.
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I'm not saying that government shouldn't have power... I'm saying that government should not attempt to GAIN power for the sake of gaining power...
It's not "gaining" power to say you have claim a right you already possess. I think you're misunderstanding the position of governments and the powers of the ITU.
First of all, governments have every "legal" right to do pretty much whatever the heck they want on their territory, so long as it doesn't violate human rights. Now, the UN has declared that everyone has a right to protection against "arbitrary interference with his privacy." All of the UN agencies uphold this view, including the ITU. Note that this is an essentially meaningless right. For one thing, all that's necessary to get around it is a legitimate reason to violate your privacy. For another, the UN and all of its component agencies have no legislative power. None. The UN can make recommendations and set standards, but it cannot change the laws of any of its member countries unless they agree to the laws for themselves. The UN, and hence the ITU, fundamentally cannot regulate the internet. It has no power to do so.
All of that said, nothing prevents any of the member countries from regulating their own networks unless it is their own internal laws. They have every ability to regulate their own portions of the internet as and they've had this power from the beginning!
Finally, the meetings won't be over till the end of next week, but all I've seen of their schedule is that they'll be putting out standards. Let's say the worst happens and the ITU edits the treaty, which is then ratified in the US, (or wherever) and becomes a law. Well, it doesn't overrule any other laws in power and legally, the US government can't do anything more than before. As for the question of them using extralegal methods, they already do.
These talks are only really important from the aspect of showing how the international political community is looking at computer networks. Beyond that, it's a lot of hype over nothing.
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And yet, the government does not have a right to regulate the interwebs because it is not public, and it is not owned by anyone...
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The internet is owned by citizens and corporations. those citizens and corporations are under the jurisdiction of whatever government rules in that particular corner of the world. therefore, governments control the internet (as far as laws and regulations are concerned).
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And yet, the government does not have a right to regulate the interwebs because it is not public, and it is not owned by anyone...
Wrong. For one thing, there really isn't a conception of public and private internationally. What there is are government granted rights according to a country's internal laws, like I said before. Secondly, governments are explicitly tasked with regulation of their resources, even private ones. You can't buy a bunch of land and mine it to make illegal explosives, even if everything comes from your "private" property. Same thing applies to the internet, except this isn't a law or even a recommendation thus far. It's an optional standard.
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The internet itself is not owned by anyone... Not to say that no one owns individual space on the internet, but the internet itself is like a company with stock... whoever owns the most stock owns the company... (A lot of times one needs to own over half the stock, and NO ONE HAS DONE THIS TO THE INTERNET!)
Also, it's called the WWW for a reason... There are standards, yes, but not much regulation (and by that I mean sites blocked by the government), except in communist countries... Why? Look at the name... World Wide Web, meaning that if there is any jurisdiction, it must be global... and since there is no global government (the UN does not count because not all countries are part (e.g. Taiwan)), treaties (like the major one being revised at the ITU) are made between countries that participate actively in the internet...
This does not mean that those treaties have an effect on the entire world... just to the participating countries right???
Wrong! The treaties have no binding effect AT ALL because the governments involved have no jurisdiction over the entire world! The only way that the treaties would have effect is if EVERY country had a say... Why? It's called the World Wide Web...
Does this mean that participating countries won't abide by said treaties? Not at all. They will abide... but until ALL the countries of the world make a GLOBAL law regarding the internet and treaties involving the usage there thereof, the treaties can be broken easily by participating countries...
Why be worried? Because the US is trying to negotiate/compromise with countries that (while not technically breaking any global laws) are using national jurisdiction with a global entity to restrict it... The US is starting to board their metaphorical boat, and now they might "give" [up] internet freedom in order to "take" peace with China, Iran, etc...
We can always break out of the treaties, right? Well, it depends on which direction the country will take within the next (this is an arbitrary #) 40 years...
In other words... Schrödinger's Cat situation! We should be worried and not worried at the same time...
/me bows
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IMHO Internet should be only regulated by the respective site owners. Eg this site has rules, Youtube has rules, Reddit has rules, government-owned sites have rules. There should not be any law allowing governments to silence, let's say, independent music promotion sites (such as PromoBay), while shitty commercial crap like Baby or Friday can get away with it. What shoud be regulated is terrorist attack plans (and by terrorism, I don't mean Syrian Government's definition of it, I really mean 9/11-esque stuff), scamming/phishing/counterfeit item sales, illicit drug dealing, death threats and any plan to physically assault/put in danger the life/lives of someone or a group of person. Anything that is already illegal outside the Internet, kinda. I'm not even sure if verbal racial slur, bigotry and other hate speech that isn't threatening should be regulated; I think that should be left to the decision of respective websites. But again, maybe bigotry/racial slur should be monitored so if it escalates into threatening stuff, then it can be spotted immediately.
My main concern with governmnent-regulated Internet is that the ones with lots of money will also decide what is allowed and what's not. Eg,the music example above: What if commercial labels forced government to shut down every indie artist site/store with the excuse that they're hurting label sales? Or what if Government decided to do this on their own to "boost economy"?
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/me agrees
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Wrong! The treaties have no binding effect AT ALL because the governments involved have no jurisdiction over the entire world! The only way that the treaties would have effect is if EVERY country had a say... Why? It's called the World Wide Web...
Does this mean that participating countries won't abide by said treaties? Not at all. They will abide... but until ALL the countries of the world make a GLOBAL law regarding the internet and treaties involving the usage there thereof, the treaties can be broken easily by participating countries...
What? Whose jurisdiction would such a global law fall under? There isn't a global government to HAVE laws in the first place. That's why international law is such a vague field.
As for your point that the internet is a global network, that's irrelevant. Roads are also a global network. They can still be regulated by every government where they fall within its borders. The only difference with the internet is the question of "where are the borders?"
What shoud be regulated is terrorist attack plans (and by terrorism, I don't mean Syrian Government's definition of it, I really mean 9/11-esque stuff), scamming/phishing/counterfeit item sales, illicit drug dealing, death threats and any plan to physically assault/put in danger the life/lives of someone or a group of person. Anything that is already illegal outside the Internet, kinda.
This comes back to the borders question as well. Who has jursidiction where? Take this site, for example. It's a site catering to a fairly international audience, served on an international cloud, administrated by a group with two different nationalities, started by a person with a canadian nationality. Whose laws apply here? At various times, you could point to either Canada or the US and easily make arguments for the other.
Secondly, those "real life" laws are precisely the issue. The methods governments have in real life don't necessarily apply online, which is why they're modifying their laws to reflect the internet better.
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A global law would be under individual countries to enforce, but if a country were to disobey said law, then the country would be punished...
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By whom? There's no global supergovernment with the power to punish. The closest thing is the UN and they *don't* have that power.
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Ahhh... but a punishment could be that the country breaking the law would be excluded from UN decision making for x time... What about Taiwan, etc.? How about no UN recognition as a country for x time...