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Greetings,

First of all, I absolutely agree with you. Censorship is never the right way to go after ideologies of debatable morality. The only thing it's gonna achieve is make its proponents feel persecuted, and as such, it legitimates their views.

Thing is, you absolutely CAN'T touch those anti-racism/antisemitism/whatever laws. It's a very, very touchy issue over here, and some organisations will scream bloody murder if you ever even want to open the debate about it. (Note that it's the same organisation -- *not* the government -- that had the Yahoo auctions censored, for example). If you want to open the debate then you're obviously a racist antisemitic extreme-right wing nazi and should be dragged out and shot. So the debate is never opened. Heck, Sharon called Chirac an antisemite when France stopped supporting his attacks on Palestine.

And it is growing into a REAL problem. People are so afraid of being thought of the extreme-right that they'll never speak up, but brood in their corner instead, and then (other) people act all dumbfounded when the extreme-right candidate suddenly makes it to the second turn of the presidential elections.

While opening the debate will allow to laugh the extreme-right into oblivion in a matter of minutes, to everyone's benefit. Sigh.

Oh well. Now you can mod me (-1, Flamebait) for obviously being an antisemitic nazi bastard. :/

(Posted anonymously, for obvious reasons -- I dared open the debate, so now I'm gonna play it safe and hide.)

If there's any stupidity in this court decision, you owe it to the fucking retards at UEJF.ORG, admire their fucking retarded home page with that ridiculous photo, it's entertaining. UEJF means French Jewish Students Union. They're a bunch of crybabies who want people to believe that THEY were in the concentration camps. Nevermind they're 20 year old and still covered with acnee. Anyway, voice your contempt on their online forum that they never read anyway.

The decision is not final, Yahoo is going to appeal, and AFAIK their legal argument was along the lines of "we can't do it" or "we're not responsible for it" (IE it's Yahoo, France that was sued when it's Yahoo, CA. that did it). For the appeal, I guess they will switch legal strategies; basically, the "law" invoked does'nt stand very well as it's only a government decret, whereas, per the constitution it should be a full fledged law as it restricts freedom of speech.

As for our friends at UEJF, let it be known that this bunch of losers are famous for suing like mad monkeys. They have sued the antiracist activist Costes when the incriminated work was, obviously and irrefutably so, sarcastic, a parody, etc ... (it said "give white women to arabs" or something).

A big bunch of whiney, arrogant losers. Let them know what you think. Call them at +33 1 47 34 62 00. Fill their forum with junk. They deserve all the shit they get.

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If there's any stupidity in this court decision, you owe it to the fucking retards at UEJF.ORG, admire their fucking retarded home page with that ridiculous photo, it's entertaining. UEJF means French Jewish Students Union. They're a bunch of crybabies who want people to believe that THEY were in the concentration camps. Nevermind they're 20 year old and still covered with acnee. Anyway, voice your contempt on their online forum that they never read anyway.

The decision is not final, Yahoo is going to appeal, and AFAIK their legal argument was along the lines of "we can't do it" or "we're not responsible for it" (IE it's Yahoo, France that was sued when it's Yahoo, CA. that did it). For the appeal, I guess they will switch legal strategies; basically, the "law" invoked does'nt stand very well as it's only a government decret, whereas, per the constitution it should be a full fledged law as it restricts freedom of speech.

As for our friends at UEJF, let it be known that this bunch of losers are famous for suing like mad monkeys. They have sued the antiracist activist Costes when the incriminated work was, obviously and irrefutably so, sarcastic, a parody, etc ... (it said "give white women to arabs" or something).

A big bunch of whiney, arrogant losers. Let them know what you think. Call them at +33 1 47 34 62 00. Fill their forum with junk. They deserve all the shit they get.

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The French government is not simply objecting to these items being sold to French citizens.

This is NOT about the French government. This is about a crappy jewish student union abusing the law and justice to get free publicity. Nowhere in this case did the govt intervene or comment. Some losers (UEJF) sued, the tribunal is hearing their request, there is no sentence yet, there is no govt intervention, there is not much actually yet.

Let's begin with facts, if you please. A local French court has issued a questionable judgment. The matter has not even been to appeal, nor has any official (cabinet minister, for instance) declared he supported the decision.

Given those facts, it seems that some people are overreacting a bit. Every time some wacko US court issues some wacko decision about the Internet (look at the DeCSS cases), we do not see messages such as "The US is stupid, the US government is a bunch of morons, they do not get the future of the Internet, they are still in the 50's where there was director Hoover of the FBI.". When I read that some southern US lawmakers were proposing laws that would make it an offence to question publicly the quality of food produced in their state, I did not run a story saying "US government imposes censorship on their citizens, chances of a military dictatorship soon!".

What is the current situation of France with respect to the Internet is as follows:

• laws that were designed for the written press or television are awkwardly applied to Internet-related cases;
• laws on encryption (>128 bit requires authorization) are not effectively enforced;
• the government (executive branch) is moving many services online;
• businesses are moving services online (that is not that big of a change, France has had online commerce for the last 15 years or so).

As for free speech, basically everything is permitted (in any language, contrary to what some punchdrunk US journalists may have written) as long as:

• you are not libelling (like accusing somebody of a crime without any clue or proof)
• you are not advocating crimes (you can't do a public call to murder)
• you are not advocating racial or religious hatred;
• you are not putting into doubt the nazi crimes.

This is obviously flamebait, but still... actually it isn't France as a whole that thinks it is living in the pre-net world, it is the government, and the two plaintiffs in that lawsuit, the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism and the Union of French Jewish Students.

For the government, it simply does not understand what the Internet is all about. I don't think that's really specific to France. Any government will try to use its existing laws to "regulate" the Internet. In France's case there are laws that outlaw auctions against auctions of nazi memorabilia, so we get this lawsuit.

The Union of French Jewish Students clearly does know about the Internet pretty much like RIAA and MPAA do know about it. They have an already long history of suing websites they dont'like. Of course, when it's a hosted homepage, they'll go after the host rather than the individual who created the page.
Interestingly, a lot of their members seem to be law school students.

They're also tolerant people who will call you a nazi if you disagree with them. You might do a little babblefish on their website. Don't miss the forum, half of the messages are about how they censor it on a regular basis. Censored messages include one by another French anti-racist organization who was explaining his reasons for not joining in the Yahoo lawsuit...

I have much more respect for the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism. They really stand for their beliefs and do a lot more to promote their ideas than just suing websites. The problem here IMHO seems to be that this organization is ruled by rather old people (at least, those that speak on tv are old) who might indeed think that they are still in the pre-internet days.

Well I got a bit carried away. My point is, you shouldn't tag a whole country as "bad", "defensive" or whatever because of the wrongdoings of some of its citizens. Or if you really want to do that, please don't forget that Mr Bill Gates is American.

UEJF, one of the two groups who filed the suit against Yahoo, is a jewish students' association. I asked a few jewish friends of mine, and they shared my opinion on them: that they're a bunch of crybabies who is using their heritage in a sad, sad way -- to boost their future carrier probably, as most of them are law students, actually.

When I first learnt about the lawsuit being filed, I jumped to their website and expressed my disapproval and my concerns in a rather polite manner. In less than an hour, I was called a nazi, a collaborationist and fascist ... Really nice people.

So I suggest that you all go to their forum and voice your opinion on this, here.

UEJF, one of the two groups who filed the suit against Yahoo, is a jewish students' association. I asked a few jewish friends of mine, and they shared my opinion on them: that they're a bunch of crybabies who is using their heritage in a sad, sad way -- to boost their future carrier probably, as most of them are law students, actually.

When I first learnt about the lawsuit being filed, I jumped to their website and expressed my disapproval and my concerns in a rather polite manner. In less than an hour, I was called a nazi, a collaborationist and fascist ... Really nice people.

So I suggest that you all go to their forum and voice your opinion on this, here.

I read the press trying to get a few hard facts on the said court ruling. All I got is from imprecise sources such as newspapers, so take it with a grain of salt.

• The ruling is a summary injunction (référé), which means that it has been issued by a single judge.
• The matter has not yet been appealed to a court of appeal. We should probably wait until such things get appealed to the supreme court (cour de cassation) before we conclude that French jurisprudence has been defined with respect to sites abroad selling forbidden material. Unfortunately, with the current overload of the supreme court, it should take several years.
• As with the Georgia Tech case, the lawsuit was not brought by the government but by private nonprofit associations, LICRA (International League against Racism and Antisemitism) and UEJF (Union of Jewish Students of France). Therefore it is wrong to conclude anything from this case about the position of either the president, the cabinet, the national assembly or the senate. They apparently ask for reparations in accordance with article 48.2 of the (revised) law on the Press of 1981 which allows a nonprofit association whose statutory goals include fighting racism to ask for reparations even though the association is no direct victim.
• Apparently, the motive of the lawsuit is article 24 of the same law, which prohibits inciting discrimination, hatred or violence against a person or a group of persons because of their origin or their belonging or non-belonging to an ethnic group, a nation or a determined religion (punishable by one year of prison and/or a 300,000 FRF fine, not precluding the civil damages). Means of such incitation to hatred include drawings or emblems (article 23).

• Whether or not a nazi emblem promotes racial hatred;
• Whether or not a French court can order an US company to comply to its rulings (apparently, the matter will have to be brought before an US court); of course, Yahoo France must comply.

Furthermore, as far as I know, are exempt from the ban prints of such items for education or scholarly research. I do not know where this comes from legally. Surely indeed, some public libraries, including the National Library of France have printouts of Mein Kampf available for readers!

I therefore think the Slashdot community should wait and see further progress in the case; jumping to conclusions is clearly overreacting.