Slashdot Mirror
French Court To Yahoo!: Dump Nazi-Related Auctions
frinsore, John Leeming and several other readers passed on word of the decision of a French court that Yahoo is responsible for making it impossible for French citizens to access auctions featuring Nazi-related items. As John writes, "It appears France is now defining censorship on U.S. Web sites; in particular, Yahoo! and its auction sites. For all those who have in the past believed immunity of action exists because you live in a different country or under different laws, this CNN/Reuters article is an interesting glimpse into future international jurisdiction problems for the Internet, and why we need to watch for the manner in which governments decide to deal with it." Here's NewsBytes' coverage of the same story.
I would be pretty disturbed if someone had death-camp memorabilia, I'd rather those be in museums, but there are a few legitimate reasons to have them, so why d*ck with them?
There's a great bar in Chicago on North Avenue called "The Exit" that has all kinds of death camp memorabilia (gas masks, etc.) hanging above the bar. It is a punk/fetish dive, and while I'm pretty sure all of the "paraphanalia" actually came from an Army Surplus Store (and not a Nazi death camp) the motif is pretty clear.
Does this offend people. Almost certainly. That is part of the idea (and part of the place's charm, as an aging punk dive). They also serve a disgusting mix of Jaegermeister and Schnapps called a "Dead Nazi."
Censorship is never the answer - if the paraphanalia is being used for hate speach, you merely drive such speach underground and outlaw legitimate uses, including such effective countermeasures as mockery and paradoy. Remember Castle Wolfenstein? Banned in Germany because of the swastika flags in the background, despite the fact that the hero (you) was running around shooting Nazis, rather the opposite of singing "Deutschland Ueber Alles" I would say. Clearly even the best intended and most justifiable forms of censorship run amok, given enough time and the diversity of human experience and expression.
The answer, instead of censorship, is to meet hate speach where it occurs head on, with intelligent counter-arguments, mockery, social stigmatization, and all of the other tools we as human beings have to encourage and even pressure people to change their offensive behavior without trampling on their civil rights.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I guess the this whole article answers this one: Ask Slashdot: Can Web Sites Go Offshore For Free Speech?
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
There are several things I'd like make clear for /. readers :
- this is not the french govt suing. Yahoo is sued by 2 anti-racist organizations
- this is not "France trying to rule the Internet". Yahoo France is a registered company here, and the problem was because these auctions were accessible from the yahoo.fr portal.
I usually don't agree with censorship, neither do I agree with racism or nazism. But due to various immigration and racism problems, France has passed several laws that forbids such things as "incentive to hatred racial" (sorry for the poor translation).
We have most of the same censorship problems that you experience in the US. The rules are simply a little bit different. As our history is.
Lots of things are allowed in France and are not in the US...
You might want to look up the dates of "The Battle of Stalingrad" and "The Battle of Kursk" before you spout off about sleeping through history class. You also might want to compare the relative troop strengths of the US and Russian Armies, and the relative troop strengths of the German armies in France and Western Europe in 1944.
The cake is a pie
An important point has to be made. Who's exactly been sued and condemned ?
;-)
Well, for once, France has not embarked in yet another overseas crusade as the article seems to infere. The defendant was not Yahoo.com (US) but its French subsidiary, Yahoo.fr. What is "innovative" in this decision is that Yahoo.fr, in France, has been found liable for facts taking place in the US.
The substantiation behind this de facto solidarity is not simply that Yahoo.com is a major investor in Yahoo.fr. It would completly contradict the European dogma on strict respect of national sovereignty and opposition to cross-border legislations (e.g. D'Amato act). Instead, it was found that, as Yahoo.fr points to Yahoo.com's services (including the offending auctions) and integrates them as a part of its own content, among things, as part of its search engines, Yahoo.fr is, as a consequence, a willfull contributor to the offense.
If Yahoo.fr's content was completly separate from Yahoo.com or if Yahoo.fr was making some serious effort to filter nazi paraphernalia out of its search results (and links), there would no offender to prosecute in France.
So why can't Yahoo.fr use a safe harbor disculpation ? First, there's no well-established doctrine about that in France, and that sometime leads to fairly stupid results. See what happened to altern.org last year. More compeling, the relations between Yahoo.com and Yahoo.fr are not simply passive, as an independant (and blind) search engine would be. This integration of US content in Yahoo.fr offer is a result of a voluntary and highly publicized strategy of cross-licensing and integration.
If an otherwizely independant French portal, say www.MonBeretBasqueEtMaBaguette.fr, had the same pattern of cross-licensing with Yahoo.com and was also actively indexing nazi stuff from Yahoo.com, the liability would be exactly the same.
The whole affair has nothing to do with an insidious overreach of sovereignty, and is in fact strictly Franco-Frenchy
No wonder people hate the French...
No, people don't hate the French. Anymore than they hate any other country. All countries around the world make mistakes. Look at the US. Look at Britain. My god look at the US and our censorship problems! The UK and us have ECHELON, for God's sake. Going on about what country is hated, or deserves being singled out for hate, is bigotry in motion - and it leaves you and your nationality wide open to be judged yourself. (BTW I'm a hard core American.)
Hell, During WWII 90% of the French people were yellow-bellied German collaborators. The whole stinking EU would be speaking German today if it wasn't for the USA bailing the 'Allies' out TWICE this century. The Euro-Peons deserve each other.
Oh, now this is a great way to express the principles by which we decry the racism of Naziism. By dissing the Europeans like this, and singing the "America is K-Rad 31337 and we Ruulz all over you weak europeans" jingosong, you're showing the world how bigoted you are. In fact, it is remarks like this that make America a hated country!
Of all the evil things Hitler can be blamed for, at least he beat the shit out of the French.
Oh I bet this troll thought that was funny. (Where are the moderators when ya need 'em?) I don't think the sad nature of this remark needs be explained...do you?
(I can go on for quite a while with more example posts, but I won't. Y'all get the point.)
The sad part is this stuff isn't getting marked or replied to as flamebait - at least it wasn't as of my writing this piece of protestdrivel. So where is all the anti-racism now? Speaking of stereotypes, don't y'all think this will reflect badly on slashdot posters as a whole?
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Freedom of speech is absolute. There are no exceptions. You have the right to say whatever you want, unless you are infringing someone else's rights.
This doesn't derive from some bullshit "endowed by their creator" crap. It derives from the simple fact that no one has any basis for a right to silence me. If you say you have a right to tell me I can't be a racist, it's your place to justify it. You have no more right to tell me I can't go around saying "aryans uber alles" than I do to tell the jehovah's witness they can't go around saying "refuse transfusions".
If those items are causing grief to any individual, that individual should grow some thicker skin, or should bury their head in the sand. The holocaust happened. Ignoring it won't undo it. There are neo-nazis in France. Telling them they can't use the internet to communicate won't make them decent people.
What you are advocating is mind control. It's forcing your particular world view on everyone. Isn't this exactly the problem with the nazis to begin with? Maybe we should burn all books advocating censorship?
If you think anyone, any county, any collection of bullies who call themselves "parliament" or "congress" or the "diet" or the "pope" has a right to censor anyone, tell me why. Where does he get this right? If the french have the right to prohibit sales of nazi memorabilia, do you think the Ayatollah has a right to prohibit the sale of Salman Rushdie's work?
Does anyone have the right to censor anyone else, or not? Only some people? How do we know who has a right to censor what? Do we come and ask you whenever it comes up? I mean, I'm glad you could clear it up that this particular instance is one in which the people we don't like should be censored, but what about other situations? Like, should people who say der Fuehrer is a little on the nutty side be sent to the camps as well? How about people who say Mao isn't all that great?
Does it depend on where the people live? I mean, does the Ayatollah's jurisdiction to prohibit Salman Rushdie from writing only apply to people in Iran buying Rushdie's books, or to anyone anywhere buying a book originally written in Iran, or only off a website hosted in Iran?
As an atheist, I'm offended by about 99% of all religious sites on the web. Does this mean they should be taken down? As a libertarian, I'm offended by assholes like you who think they have the right to dictate their morality to the whole fucking world. Do I have the right to ask Rob to yank your account and delete this post?
The sad thing is that most of the people on the planet think that you are being reasonable. I wish I could live somewhere else. My options for other countries to move to are even being eroded as the UN and other international organizations further homogenize the planet. The US seems the best place to live right now, but that's sort of like saying "I'd rather have the picture of the man being beheaded on my wall than the one of the child being run over by a lawn mower".
Before you advocate this moralistic imperialism, I urge you to consider whether your morals are any more objective than anyone elses, and what would happen if everyone attempted to force their morals on everyone else like you are encouraging.
--Kevin
Seems like the US isn't the only country way over-extending its powers. Remember what we did to old Jon Johansen?
Stupid legal action like this needs to stop.
This may have an effect on Yahoos ability to make peering agreements with French telecom companies
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oh great! NOW they decide to stand up to the nazis!! where were they in the 1930s??
--
J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
Ejercisio Perfecto: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!
--
And Justice for None
- Website X hosted in Country A
- Country B declares some information in X illegal to access for citizens of B
- Court in B takes action, ordering X to stop broadcasting to citizens of B
X's options areHow about alternative, equivalent scenarios?
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
This reminds me of when the ADL asked Yahoo! to take down KKK websites.
Perhaps so, but Yahoo! isn't doing this. This isn't a matter of cultural hegemony. Yahoo! doesn't permit auctions of Nazi paraphernalia on its French site, out of respect to French law and French sensibilities. This case is about what happens on the US auction site, since French citizens can access (and presumably bid on) auctions there for such paraphernalia. These items are quite legal to sell in the US but illegal to sell in France.
Without national firewalls, there just is no way to prevent French citizens from accessing a US site, with the Internet as presently constituted.
Let me suggest that the onus should be on the French citizens who are breaking French laws in France. Consider that if a French citizen bids on and wins a US auction for Nazi paraphernalia, he or she then has the problem of actually receiving the illegal merchandise. It is preventing the physical act of importation that the French should focus on. And that's their responsibility, not Yahoo!'s.
That's the thing. France doesn't want Yahoo to censor THEM. They just want them to censor someone ELSE.
Personally, if some moron wants to trade Mein Kampf online or someone's selling old WW2 pistols, I could personally give a damn. My grandfather served in France during WW2. I understand the atrocities that went on.
I'm not saying "forget what has gone before". Quite the opposite. Remember, and learn.
The French government is trying to blot out a spot in history simply because they find it personally repugnant. All they're doing is making it easier for such things to happen again.
Banning sales of things, simply because they evoke emotional response from someone is ridiculous. That leaves EVERTHING open to banning.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
No.
Helms-Burton would, if not stonewalled by Clinton, ban entry into the US the officers of corporations which accepted property stolen from US corporattions by the Cuban Communists.
If you want to bash something, get the facts first.
Nice idea, but it ignores human nature, the nature that drives us to try to control our environment. The wild west that is the internet today will not stay wild forever.
I think a much more realistic assessment is that countries will react toward the internet in much the same way they have toward international trading. They will form the WITO (World Information Trading Organization). Trade in, and access to information is just as important as access to goods and will become even more valuable. The info will increasingly be essential to countries to secure goods and maintain the IP (information property) allowing an economy to sustain itself.
We have yet to take more than the first baby steps toward countries forming internet trade alliances. We have international groups forming standards that are often ignored by the companies making the stuff of the internet but this will likely change once legislators here and abroad start passing laws requireing companies to adhere religously to set standards in order to sell goods in that country complete with policing rules. We will than have other countries wanting to join in these markets and if they don't like the rules tough luck.
Mabey we will have a few markets worldwide but we all know the power of the allmighty buck and if the US or the EU pass these laws first that will set the trend. Soon countries (and their citizens) will become familiar with the idea of global laws and global a truly global marketplace complete with global governance.
Soon countries will have to sign onto more and more global decision making bodies (GATT, WTO etc) to solve disputes among them ultimately leading to global governance. It is court actions like this one by the French and many other by the US and other that will lead to these governing councils. Be it this year or in the next century it will happen.
The internet may actually unite the world rather than declare independence from it.
no sig.
You forget that the swastika was stolen by the Nazis. It is an ancient and sacred symbol for Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains. So I own pictures that contain swastikas, not because I am a Nazi, but because I am Buddhist. Maybe I should tell my Jewish roomate, and my Chinese roomate, and my Thai girlfriend to watch their backs because I might become a "jew/black/gay beating facism-loving jerk" at any moment, but my incling is that this is not a real danger.
Secondly, there is every reason to own Nazi artifacts if you are a historian. There is no substitute for a primary source, and the propaganda and imagery created by the Nazis is a very important cultural artifact. I believe the saying is something along the lines of "Those who forget (or attempt to push away) the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes." The Nazi era is a time I would just as soon not repeat; as such, I am very interested in remembering.
You've got cause and effect mixed up. The reason this is banned in Germany & France is that Germany & France had, before the bans, strong Nazi movements, and were also both ruled by Nazis. The US has never had a particularly strong Nazi movement.
It would be informative to remember that this party is severely punished every time they make anything close to a racist statement.
Cool. I'm Hindu, the swastika is a very important religious symbol, and has been for the past 3000+ years.
So does this mean that neither I, nor the 800+ million Hindus today can trade in our religious items?
Hold on, Buddhists and Jains also use it, though to a lesser extent.
So do we ban it just because a group of bigoted scum used it?
Hold on, weren't the Crusades and Inquisition carried out under the cross? The Frogs should ban that as well.
The problem is, as usual, political. Let me try to explain how I see it.
Back in 1945, when WWII was over, people said to each other: 'We do not want this to happen ever again' -- like they said after WWI :-( -- The Germans and their collaborators were punished and the Good Guys tried to get on with their lifes. And all was good because the Good Guys won. And they tried to banish all traces of nazism.
Then a second generation stood up and asked their parents: 'but what did YOU do in the war?', to which a lot of parents replied: 'I had very strong thoughts against the situation' or 'I once directed an officer the wrong way' or 'I has this Jewish neighbour, I helped him and en passant nicked all his valuables, I didn't like Jews anyway'. And this second generation scorned their parents for it, felt guilty about their parents and wrote way too many books about it.
And now this second generation is in control, and people ask them: 'what did the previous governements do?' to which they have to reply 'we helped the oppressors every way we could -- that really taught them a lesson'. And they get a lot of bad press about it.
And then some gov-related guy(m/f) in France sees that you can buy nazi-thingies in France. And he sees the questions arising: 'What is the french government doing against the rise of neo-nazis'. And now they can answer: 'we did everything we could'.
Of course, this is only a reason for their actions, not a justification of it. But please note that it's not just France -- a lot of (north-west) european countries could have done this.
(No, I'm not French)
It isn't trash.
Pretending that people have never hated other people won't keep people from hating each other in the future. They print Swastikas in history books and show them in museums so that people can learn what could provoke other people to such terrifying acts.
I would be interested to see the uniform my Grandfather fought in, and I would be just as interested to see the uniforms of the men he thought. Whether you like it or not, the symbols and the "hate speech" which went with them changed the world in ways that directly affect you every day. You are a fool to call your own history trash.
The difference between the cross burnings, and the nazi sales, is that one is a voluntary transaction, and one is not.
If the good citizens of La France don't want to see pictures and accounts of those voluntary transactions, then let them pull themselves off the internet, or configure all routers at the border to block yahoo's subnet.
Let them decide for themselves what they see, not what everyone sees.
I can agree with what you say, but there are big problems with the precident that it sets. I would be interested to know if this memorabilia had actually been sold to buyers inside France, and delivered. That would constitute clear violation of the law; you're introducing a banned substance into a country that outlaws it, tantamount to weapons or drug smuggling in the US. But if France simply objects to the listings being present at all, that creates a very bad and very chilling precident. It would mean that nothing could be posted on the Internet that violated the definition of decencey/legality in any country in the world. Because if France can stop the posting of things related to Nazism, Iran can stop posts defamatory to Islam. Israel can demand anything criticizing Judaism or advocating Palestinian militancy be removed. The Australian government can sue sights containing nudity wherever they sit for violating their new anti-pornography laws. It would amount to making the internet the jurisdiction of every country in the world, making it the most restricted medium in the world. It is the equivalent of saying that no book can be published that offends anyone, anywhere, because someone from there might see it. Not a good precident to set. There are, of course, considerations of the need for Yahoo to respect French law inside of France, but the way the article was worded it seemd that there had been very little that could be construed as a direct violation of the law. Respecting democracy does mean allowing nations to run their own affairs as they please, even if their values don't agree with ours. But respect for democracy must go both ways, and that gets hairy when dealing with asymetric situations. The US and Yahoo owe the French that respect, but France also is obligated to honor the laws and customs of the US- which in this case hold Yahoo blameless.
How the heck does 2 organizations from France sue a California-based company by citing French law? These auctions aren't even in french.
Not that Yahoo can't space the $1300 bucks, but why should they pay? Whats going to happen other than the over-hyped bad PR they're gonna get? I can imagine the French impotently trying to enforce this and push their laws onto other countries.
The internet is global, that doesn't mean every law from every country simultaneously
apply to every ISP. You connect to the United States you get United States content.
Oh man, read the post before you go postal.
You can think of it as a symbol of hate because of the actions of one group as long as you want to but until I die it will mean goodwill and prosperity to me. I would not do anything as foolish as wearing a swastika in public due to the ignorance of the populace at large of the symbols true origin.
"swastika (swst-k) n. The emblem of Nazi Germany, officially adopted in 1935. An ancient cosmic or religious symbol formed by a Greek cross with the ends of the arms bent at right angles in either a clockwise or a counterclockwise direction. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ [Sanskrit svastika, sign of good luck, swastika, from svasti, well-being; see su- in Indo-European Roots.]"
I am into the copy and paste.
otherwise we are attacking their freedom.
Actualy, yes, you are. Kiddie porn is illegal, therefore the people who want to distribute those kinds of pictures are not free to do so. Therefore, a law banning kiddie porn has restricted the Freedom of certain individuals.
The thing is, modern society will accept laws that may in one way or another restrict their freedom, in order to control a smaller minority who may be a threat to the majority. Placing people in prison is another example, you remove certain peoples rights from them in order to protect the rights of the majority.
Note for the knee-jerkers: I am not condoning kiddie porn.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Under US laws you can't sell or buy drugs. But you can do that in Netherland, so it must be a free speech issue for the Netherlanders not to be able to sell drugs to the US. Give them the right to sell drugs to the US.
Or you can also let the pedophiliacs buy nude kids picture or kids porno, hey if you don't do so you get over their freedom of speech
You don't know the French people but I assure you they (including all the geeks, pro free-speech and open-source advocates) agree with this law. We don't like seeing US people making money from the grave of millions.
French They have lost their freedom of for 5 years during WWII, comparing that the Slashdot against M$ case is pityful. But they support free speech and have a Nazi-like political party since more than 20 years. It's not the ideas, it's the symbols that are not allowed.
--- Bouh !!! ---
If you wants to regulate selling of drugs; regulate the physical transportation of drugs. You can not download mariuana through your modem! If you say you want to regulate drugs, and shut down websites, you are in fact lying - you are regulating speech.
If we don't stand up together soon, the governments will stand up over us. And we'l never have the chance again. I wonder what would happen if a group declared the independence of the Internet Republic, and themselves as its government (And of course created some voting website or whatever to vote for the next internet government). I wonder how the US and the EU and all the other countries would react?
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
I suppose I should reply to everyone in one fell swoop... First of all, the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan may have killed a few "MURDERING JAPS" (see above link), but it also caused as much death and suffering for _innocent_ Japanese, in numbers even greater than that of Bataan or anything else you care to cite. At any rate, this argument is trivial because this was during war, and the "all is fair" cliche happens to be quite true. As a racial minority, and having personally visited the Dachau concentration camp, I am against Nazi doctrine, but that fails to make it uninteresting. My argument has been that art is the sensual expression of a message, and what I illustrated was an example that hatred runs deeply through both sides. You should not censor work because you dislike the specifics of the same emotion.
--
--
E2 IN2 IE?
From France and the Final Solution:
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It's nice to see the French finally taking a stand against the Nazis.
I'm French, people of my family were taken by the Nazis, never to be seen again. I really have no sympathy whatsoever toward the ideals of the Third Reich.
But why won't my government let me analyze the political ideas on my own, listen to the debates and make my opinions ?
Censors seems to look down on the populace and consider them unable to make any decisions. Anything remotely relating to the German occupation of France is taboo and it seems that people in power will always dismiss any debate as being the seeds of hate : they decided that because Nazism is bad to us, there is nothing more to debate. The Truth is set in stone and anybody daring to defy it is catalogued as a revisionist defending Nazi ideas.
Please, it is precisely because I do not tolerate hate that I want it to be exposed. No one can understand how much nonsense the Nazi doctrine is until they are confronted with the reality of neo-nazi organizations. Let them express themselves if they want, let the debate happen again and my humble opinion is that the world will see once more that Nazi ideas are Hell and that revisionist arguments do not stand for even a second against the mass of collected evidence.
As someone once put it, "sunshine is the best disinfectant".
And if Nazi memorabilia can help people realize that Hell really happened and is not just a virtual propaganda construct, then it is even useful to the collective memory.
...is a one-world government. That way there is no such thing as jurisdiction - the whole world is under United Earth Dicta-er, Directorate jurisdiction.
See how efficient that is?
I say we have a no confidence vote for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Who's with me?
- Palpatine
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I think more important than the this specific case of auctioning of Nazi memorabelia is its exponential impact on the internet. Could China impose fines on any internet site for anti-communist publications? And why stop at countries. Setting a precedent like this could oepn a flood of govermental fines and regulations from companies and even states or cities.
Don't those who promote such measures of censorship realize that they only drive such activities underground? There they fester and boil until they explode in full political fury that is unstoppable. Witness Austria. Not a peep from them, then wham. Everyone of the EU is pissed and now Austria (and its people) are becoming defiant, telling the EU where to shove it. I hate all politicians.
Interesting move to pander completely to our sympathies by mentioning the victims, I'm sure they feel just as bad when they hear the word "Hitler" but we keep that around for some reason. Maybe because it would be hard to put WWII in the history books without it.
Nazi sympathizers buy these symbols? So? If they weren't for sale they'd just make their own, your implication that symbols empower neo-Nazis is laughable. Thats really your point here, do these symbols give some long-forgotten third reich magic to the users like some hackneyed TV plot?
Exactly why would a rational Frenchman care if an already neo-Nazi buys a Hitler youth knife? The screaming hysterical Frenchmen probably cares, but that doesn't mean we should.
In the end I'd rather have the choice between helpful and hateful speech than people like you deciding for me.
You've got cause and effect mixed up. The reason this is banned in Germany & France is that Germany & France had, before the bans, strong Nazi movements, and were also both ruled by Nazis. The US has never had a particularly strong Nazi movement.
Maybe you've got cause and effect mixed up?
This is, of course, a matter of opinion, but maybe the fact that they can make idiots of themselves in public has kept them weak, since it allows everyone to constantly point out the weaknesses in their ideas.
If you get out of practice arguing against Nazi ideas, your best rebuttal becomes: "Uh, but it's bad!" or "Hey, that's not allowed" which just sound less convincing than a point for point argument.
Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
BTW, to all of you who showed me I mispelled the subject, I figured that out about 3 seconds after hitting Post, so don't bother. :)
While you're right in some sense, we have to be sensitive to the fact that the law in this nation (and in Canada and England and Germany) says you may not publish/post racist material or things relating to racist material.
Those are the laws, period.
The issue becomes what a country does about them. Does the country say "well we can't stop it so we we'll do nothing", or do they say "you can't look at it and if you do we'll put you in jail" or do they say "we'll block access so this whole issue will be prevented". It has to be one of the three.
In this case, France is trying to do the sane thing which is to ask that the material be removed. Otherwise they will be forced to block access, put web surfers in jail or, like Germany did, if any of the Yahoo people go to France, lock them up.
This is the best that can be done in the circumstances as I see it. If they were to do anything beyond this, we'd scream bloody murder.
And as hinted, Yahoo may have to respect laws in France... well then maybe that's the solution. The web site must now adapt content based on... IP addresses? Well that's not really easy, nor is it assuring that I'm maybe not using an ISP somewhere else and happen to be in France at the time.
I'd like to see a suggestion on how the French government could deal with the situation that does not include breaking thier own laws or ignoring them.
- Serge Wroclawski
So you wouldn't object to a Vietnamese auction site that sold uniforms of US soldiers killed in the war over there either ?
You have a good point.
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
I hardly think that "It appears France is now defining censorship on US Web sites", complete with its connotations of "all international intervention is eeeeevil" is particularly fair comment, given, just *for example*, the US' continual involvement in Northern Ireland.
In fact, the feeling "ha, don't like your own medicine??" comes to mind...
~Tim
--
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
I understand that this may not be a good business strategy, but Yahoo! should just tell France to go (censored) themselves. The judge even went so far as to ORDER Yahoo! to cough up some cash.
It's pretty hard for them to control all the auctions that go on on their site... and even though they may be able to, who says they should?
C'mon, France, I understand that this is reminiscent of a horrible time, but give it up already. The sale of this stuff is harmless... just a bunch of items for collectors.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
"Technically anything is possible, but Politicaly? NO!"
___
As far as I know, they don't own property, machines, server space or anything like that in France.
That's wrong. Yahoo is a registred company here in France. And that's why there are responsible in court for the content they provide through yahoo.fr.
how will the French courts enforce it?
Well, I guess they would get financial penalties. Then, if they do not comply (or appeal), the french CEO of yahoo (according to company's registration) would be prosecuted.
Or Yahoo could try to disappear from France as a French company. But then, it couldn't own the "yahoo.fr" domain, which is quite an asset.
During the second big indiscretion of the 20th century, the Nazis availed themselves to all the tools an authoritative government can utilize (mostly because they had all the guns). Among the devices used was the suppression of anti-regime ideas in Germany and conquered lands.
Granted, it was a war, and even the United States resorted to censorship and other things that are no-nos under the Bill of Rights. Freedom was suspended in the name of preserving it. The Nazis didn't suspend German liberty in the name of preserving it. Their quest was power, and they won't surrender a bit of it in the name of common freedom.
Towards the end of World War II, France was a complete mess. The French were symbollically liberated when the Allies took Paris. Each soldier that died along the way died for the purpose of freeing the French and wiping this scourge off the planet.
What did the French choose to do once they got their country back in order? Ban pro-Nazi material. Regardless of how good or bad such material is, banning it defeats the purpose of that whole liberation thing.
Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez told the firm that the auctions were "an offence to the collective memory of the country" And censorship sits well with them? I guess two wrongs does make a right.
Its war memorabilia, do you think the people who buy it walk around wearing swastikas and saluting the fuhrer? Most of them are probably WW2 veterans. Does that mean that germany should ban any auctions of US war items? Why should you censor the past? Is it too scary?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
/*
and the very term "hate crime" is meaningless to me. [...] Hate crime: I kill a jew because I hate jews. Did I commit a crime? Of course, but it was not hating jews - it was murder.
*/
You must 1st understand the nature of the beast...
The term hate crime was created so that certain crimes could be dealt with more harshly _because_ of racial or religious implications. Murder is murder and whatnot.
However if you beet someone to a bloody pulp just because he got in your way that is a relatively minor offense. The courts go easy on you ( rarely more than a few months in prison ) because it is assumed you will simply learn your lesson and contain your anger next time.
However when a gang of Skinhead thugs beat the stuffing out of a nigger, the situation is different.
1st. The anger involved wasn't immediate and transient. It's something that has been carefully built for years before use.
2nd. The crime is more likely to be repeated because a Nazi honestly thinks he is on a holy crusade to protect his own kind from an alien invader of sorts.
For a real life example. If I have a quarrel with my priest ( How dare he not give a mob hitman absolution ? ) and come back to burn down the church then it's a simple act of Arson that won't escalate.
However what happens when 200 black churches ( in theory this doesn't exist. In practices American blacks and whites attend different temples. especially in the south ) are burned to the ground in one year ? It's considered an organized hate crime and someone caught for one is treated almost as a serial arsonist
or a conspirator on the others. This stuff can't generally be proven but you can sometimes prove that the color of the congregation was the motive.
and don't get me started on the Sphinx. The infamous "broken nose" was shot off with mortar fire by French or Italian troops because a broad flat nose on such a huge and ancient monument implies something they were not willing to consider. In theory this is an act of vandalism on par with painting a mustache on Mona Lisa ( never happened ). The racial implications add a lot to the crime however. The perpetrators wanted to claim the Sphinx and by extension the Pyramids as being the creation of Europeans or failing that space aliens. Nobody can claim a great engineer as inferior or less than human so destroy the evidence of that engineering and you can get by.
Lucky for us all, one of the newer and larger pyramids contained detailed documentation of how it was built. This was only recently translated. 150,000 full time workers for 15 years. As many as a million part time volunteers. Too bad the shiny tiles that covered the surface were all stolen. They are impressive now. Imagine when they sparkled in the sunlight ?
Note: Hate Speech and people who use it do not need to be suppressed. Merely watched from a distance. Invariably they escalate to Hate Crimes and are hence subject to imprisonment. They don't preach that "We whites must work harder and build more wealth and power for ourselves". Rather that "These [insert favorite grope here] must be driven back from whence they came at gunpoint because they are steeling our jobs and rapping our women and we don't care if there is no truth to any of this.
PS : It's not widely known but Nazis also killed all the Black people they found in Germany. It's only luck that there were not 6 million of them to make it a holocaust.
PPS : France is still asking too much.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
- France bosses U.S. around.
- U.S. ignores France.
- France declares war on U.S. (even clones Napoleon to lead the French armies)
- U.S. conquers France within twelve-and-a-half minutes, changes the official language of France to Lojban, and gives the land to Canada free of charge, on the condition that the French language be outlawed in Quebec.
Problem solved.--LordEq
I'd like to see a suggestion on how the French government could deal with the situation that does not include breaking thier own laws or ignoring them.
Here's a bunch: Do like Australia did and forbid hosting the things inside the country. Prosecute those who actually traffick in these kinds of items. Require all French ISPs to screen out the material. Fine people who view it anyway. Do anything you want in your own country, as long as you don't start imposing your law on other nations.
What's that, you say? The above suggestions won't keep anyone from viewing the material if they really want to? Well, duh. Welcome to the year 2000.
"A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
"A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
- 'K' in Men in Black.
You are right that the Indian svastika was usually depicted in a manner different from that of the German one. But like anything in Indian art and mythology, there are significant variations on it to be found; I have seen non-curved swastikas in some Indian art that would be, to most people, indistinguishable from a Nazi swastika. As such, it would seem that there would be plently of people attempting to block certain pieces of Indian art out of ignorance of the symbols involved.
As for the French and their history. . . I have no doubt that there are reminders of their history around. Which first of all raises the question of why they are so eager to get rid of this particular reminder. If they are truly engaged in recalling all the events of their history, than one more reminder of the Nazi era should be no different than the other reminders that are part of a real investigation into history. Secondly, whatever there attitude towards their own history, there is significant scholarly work that can be done by cultural historians using Nazi artifacts. The greatest question of World War II is still, for the most part, unanswered. Why did one of the most educated nations in the world (Germany, which had more PHD's per capita than any other nation) go along with the plans of a delusional failed art school student? Nazi memorabilia gives us great insight into the culture that the Nazi's created. Understanding that helps us understand how the rise of Naziism happened, and how something similar could be prevented.
In any conflict, as one side's evilness approaches infinity, the other side's "Good Guy" index increases at the same rate.
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
A few quick points:
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
is to have the French Gov't take it up with the French citizens. Yahoo cannot be expected to A)look at every item posted to its web site, and B) have a list of what is and isn't acceptable to various countries. What if someone wants to post some Salman Rushdie memorabilia? Does Yahoo! have to block the auction in Iran? And what if someone sells a video of Tiananmen Square? Yahoo! blocks Chinese users? And that's only Yahoo! What about E-bay, web-sites, etc. Where does the list stop? The only way that users of various nationalities will be able to be blocked is by laws prohibiting _them_ from accessing and said information. Not that this isn't an incredibly heinous idea anyway. For once I hope that the US, in its incredibly arrogant fashion, tells the rest of the world to shove off. Internet access must be free and open to everyone.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
It's not going against German items in general but against items that represent the Nazi part of its past. These belong in a museum, together with some explanations for the visitors, and nowhere else.
Unless this law has been repealed, the MPAA had no right whatsoever to do the DeCSS thing. As for this article, I would have thougt that the US had a similar law since it has a legal system based on that of the UK, and it would be more important to the US after that little skirmish with England.
The whole point of free speech, is not to allow those in power to decide which views are acceptable, and which are not.
Fine, this stuff is horrible, and no good person would involve themselves in it (except for historical purposes). But it isn't hurting anyone, and there's no good reason to make it illegal.
Remember, the French government's hands aren't exactly clean. Remember their language purity laws? They aren't exactly in a position to be making moral judgements.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
If the Nazis occupied your country, killed your countrymen, killed and opressed you and your family, would you believe that people should have a right to carry Nazi and neo-Nazi symbols? Even if you're a so called Libertarian, can you be 100% sure how you'd feel after living through that?
Yes--and I'm Danish; they did occupy my country and kill my countrymen. Especially with a grandfather who fought in the war, and a great uncle who had to live in hiding for several years as a member of the Danish resistance, I am absolutely firm in my opinion that we should not stop anyone from carrying these symbols. Outlawing the Nazis would invalidate everything these two men were prepared to give their life for. Had either of them been killed by the Nazis, I would feel even more strongly about this. I want the Nazi scumbags in the open, where anyone can see how twisted and wrong they are. This is why I find the positions of France, Germany and others utterly wrong and immoral.
"A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
"A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
- 'K' in Men in Black.
I really think this is a bad move. Sites like Slashdot, Auction services and other user-driven forums cannot be restricted based on the provincial laws of every country that can view them. It's just insane. Let the people speak and slap them if they try to import something to you that's illegal.
I left CompuServe as soon as I found a flat rate PPP provider in my area, never to look back. I rather doubt the laws in Germany have changed, but perhaps they have. The underlying problem is still there -- companies doing business on foreign soil being bound by foreign laws and can affect all their customers.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Well, in some countries it's forbidden to own certain items. Can't speak for France, but in Germany it is like that. You're not allowed to have a Swastika flag on your house, or the Reichskriegsflagge, or something similar. That's a restriction of personal rights, but I'm totally for it. They're symbols for a part of German history that should be presented in the right context only. And the right context is one that explains what these items stood for. I could understand how Jews, whether from Germany or someplace else, would feel when they see people having the above mentioned flag presented. What possible interpretations of that presentation are there if not support for Nazism? And that's something a huge majority doesn't want here anymore.
But I see the problem that it's difficult to draw the line.
If it weren't for the good old US of A, France, Britain and the rest of Europe would have been living under Stalin. The US did not defeat the Germans. Russia did.
We just grabbed enough to keep the Russian army out of Western Europe.
The cake is a pie
I know a number of people that have Stalin posters simply because they are interesting works, not because they endorse communism or genocide, and it is perfectly fine to do so nearly everywhere -- why should Nazi media be any different?
--
--
E2 IN2 IE?
I am posting from a rather unique position. Would that it were actually unique in the true meaning of the word.
You see, I don't exist. No, really, I don't. I can prove it. Go ahead and find my ancestors.
You can't, they didn't exist. The village they lived in didn't exist either. Not ever, not nohow. Therefore, I don't exist.
In Romania the holocoust was so complete that at the end of the war it is figured there were, approxamately, NO Jews. No villages where the Jews had lived. No records of there EVER having been Jew in the country. Those that seem to remember there having been Jews must have been mistaken.
The eradication was chillingly total.
Of course I can't prove this myself. So far as I can show you there were never any Jews. Neat huh?
I have some idea of the way speach was used to promote the cause of Nazism. I ALSO have some idea of the way *repression* of speach was used by the Nazis.
Me, I'd rather have them giving talks in the public halls rather than skulking in the alleys. If their speach has that sort of power this place already isn't a fit place to live, but at least I'll KNOW it!
Seriously, there is really a problem here. We have the choice between two evils:
...), the servers just move to a country that doesn't have that law.
1) Any time you pass a law to restrict something (porn, casino, selling drugs online,
2) You end up with countries (like this case) trying to regulate what's happening in other countries.
The broader problem, be it with France, Germany (remember Germany and CompuServe?) or anywhere else, is that we seem to confuse a belief in the goodness of freedom of the exchange of information and ideas between individuals with the freedom of commercial services to propagate anything they wish regardless of national laws, cultures or sensibilities.
Germany in particular has some rather strong legislation against promulgating any images or items that are Nazi or Nazi-like. The French have strong feelings on this score as well, perhaps because they're still torn between the romanticized Resistance and Vichy's roundup and handover of France's Jews to Hitler.
Whatever the cause, an online venue becomes a "place," and apparently the French don't want certain kinds of "places" on their cybersoil.
Unlike these countries, in the USA we have fairly wide liberties (albeit threatened), because as a people we can be controlled and manipulated by passive consumption of television and whatever else passes for mass entertainment, like spectator sports. Notice that the people the big corporations are challenging are outfits like 2600 who don't and won't fit into the groove. American culture is sort of a universal solvent - it gives one a sense of empowerment but mainly empowerment to consume information, ideas, and opinions delivered by corporate boardrooms - unless you choose to step outside the box, and at that point things get uncomfortable.
Other societies vest other authorities as arbiters of what's right or wrong in their cultures. Would I prefer some Left-Bank deconstructionist 's views on culture to those of Steve Case? That's what we're up against these days. So yeah, we do have a problem, Houston, but it's deeper than laws and enforcement.
Dave
But that doesn't mean it isn't trash.
I would strongly disagree. Locked in a trunk in my dads attic is a bloodstained Nazi flag complete with five bullet holes, sitting next to a box containing a Purple Heart. You want to know why that Nazi flag is important to me? In December of 1944 my grandfather and his unit were tied up in some intensive fighting in France. One day his unit was crossing some fields when they were ambushed by several armored Nazi units. Although they were seriously outgunned they fought back hard and suceeded in destroying five of the units before the rest pulled back. Afterwards my grandfather climbed on top of one of the wrecked vehicles and pulled down the Nazi flag to keep as a momento...with the five bulletholes already added. Two days later his unit was entering a small French village when they were attacked by snipers, and my grandfather was shot in the neck within the first few minutes of fighting. His buddy, looking for something to staunch the bloodflow, found the Nazi flag, pushed it into the wound, and held it there until a medic could arrive to help him...probably saving his life.
To me, that Nazi flag is a symbol of the hell my grandfather went through to make sure we would continue to live in a free society, and of the suffering he endured because of it.
So please don't call it trash...to some of us it is much more. I would hate to think that we are entering a world where such an important momento to my family could be made illegal because it offends somebody. I would never consider selling the flag, but allowing governments to regulate momentos like this is a step in that direction.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
Now add to that the fact that many of those who buy Nazi regalia are neo-Nazi sympathizers, and you wind up with an even better reason for a rational person in France to fear those symbols.
:) At least I think I managed.
:)
Even though I don't like neo-nazism, or nazism - I won't try to censor it. True free speech doesn't limit hate-speech. If you start saying that "that and that should not be legal to talk about" - then its no longer freedom of speech. Yes, the nazis resisted freedom of speech - but we're just as bad, if we refuse them their *RIGHT* to speak about their opinion.
The only way to beat nazism (if that is what we want, that is at least what I want), is to argue against it. You have to *argue* against those who believe in it, and *convince* them that they are wrong. Trust me, its possible, I've managed it once.
I used to discuss with a neo-nazi at a BBS I ran. He was a revisionist, and a neo-nazi. Well, after a couple of years of constant arguments, and after I had shut down my BBS and moved from where I lived to Oslo (where I now reside and study) - I met this guy. He was no longer a nazi. He didn't believe in it anymore. I do think I had something to do with it, but he never admitted *that*
But, its possible to reform hardcore nazis. They just need to hear the truth. If you try to supress their opinion, they believe more and more in "Big Brother" who tries to hide the one Truth that they've discovered. The only way to convince them if is they're allowed an open argument - without shouting from people - like "Goto hell, you nazi bastard". That way - you never win. You'll have to argue, calmly - and refute each of their arguments, again and again (because they WILL repeat them, clining to their beliefs, for al ong time).
.. Point is - censorship is NOT the way to go. Free speech - even for nazis and other unpopular opinions - is the only way.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
What we need to do is get together and draft a declaration of independance -- of the internet, from the worldwide governments.
;-)
Governments keep on interfering -- the US government does it without even thinking about it, but France, Canada, the UK, and probably lots of other countries have meddled in our affairs as well.
If governments want something from us, they should *ask* for it, and negotiate for it. Want us to respect your copyrights? Convince us to sign on to the WIPO rules. Want us to censor people because you don't like what they say about you? Tough, we're not going to give you that
An independant internet would solve many other problems as well. Few people would argue that patents have no value, but in order to establish a patent on the internet one is pretty much obligated to register it in every nation in the world; with an internet government such a patent could be granted once at much reduced cost. Similarly, an internet government could pass useful laws including requiring standards compliance.
What it comes down to is that the internet both needs to have a governing body in order to enforce reasonable conduct on its members, and needs to be free of interference from external governments.
Geeks of the world unite!
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
If you look at the propoganda and imagery created by the Nazi's during their stint in power, it reveals quite a bit about the way in which they constructed a mythology around the party in order to rally people around them. Nazism is a great big ball of weird psuedo-occult-ism, borrowed Christian symbolism (The swastika, in addition to being an Indian symbol, was taken from a Christian sect from days of yore that used a crooked cross as its symbol), and militarism. Everything from the uniforms, to the posters, to the choreography of their mass rallies was designed to create loyalty and fear. Hitler had probably the most powerful cult of personality in existence, as evidenced by the fact that 50 years later there are still some people (educated people, mind you, if you consider anyone in the US educated) that advocate his beliefs and immitate his mannerisms and dress. The draw of Nazism for the average German was the image that it created. It was one part religion, one part army, and one part patriarchy. Only by studying what was produced by this group can we ever understand the particularities of their symbolism of power, and the way in which they manipulated public sentiment to get great masses of people to support unconscionable things and repulsive doctrines based on psudeo-science and psuedo-history (the idea of the 'Arian' race and people; the Arians are a Persian tribe, much of which migrated into India. Modern 'Arians' can be seen in the northern Indian population, and among the remaining Zoroastrian community in Iran. Probably not what Hitler meant.) So the insight is the understanding of how the Nazis engineered their rise to power that a historian might gain from examining these artifacts.
Now, is Yahoo auction the best place for such things? Debatable. But the effort to get rid of them has a generally restrictive effect on investiagations of this sort everywhere, and particularly in France. Certainly, there will be some people who will use scholarship as a shield for anti-Semitism, as modern 'scholars' of Holocaust denial attempt to do. But I don't think that justifies across the board attempts to stop people from studying what remains of the Nazi era.
Nazi memorabilia, neo-nazi liturature, etc. are banned in Germany and France but perfectly legal in the US.
The neo-nazi movement is stronger in Germany and France than in the US.
Coincidence? No.
The cake is a pie
Even on the Internet, there must be respect for law and repect for individual country's laws.
In the US for instance, we have laws about child pornography which may not exist in other places.
In France, just as in Canada, England and Germany, racism is against the law.
Whether you agree with this law or not does not change the fact that it's not up to Americans whether they agree or not. It's up to the French citizens how they decide to run thier own country. That is how democracy works.
If you respect democracy, then you must allow countries to run thier country the way they want.
The fact they recognize that the Internet is international only shows how complicated this issue is for everyone.
I doubt that all these negative posts would come if we found the US government was going to some small nation with a child pornography or snuff film sale.
- Serge Wroclawski
...Remember "Helms Burton" (spelling?), when the US decided that other countries could not do buisness with Cuba (anybody knows what happened to it?).
...), the servers just move to a country that doesn't have that law.
Seriously, there is really a problem here. We have the choice between two evils:
1) Any time you pass a law to restrict something (porn, casino, selling drugs online,
2) You end up with countries (like this case) trying to regulate what's happening in other countries.
I don't think one is better or worse than the other. The only way out is to have uniform laws, which I don't think is likely to happen in the near term.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
I heard someone (George Will?) on a talking-head show describe Nazi and Soviet memorabilia as "pornography of violence". Ultimately, it comes down to the same free-speech question as pornography of sex.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Do we have to go through this again?
.fr domain at your router, and be done with it.
.com etc. domains that are physically located in France, not to mention folks dialing long distance or using VPNs.
Fine; Yahoo, block all access to the
Refuse to take any action beyond that, because it is not even theoretically possible to track
--
The law on how you express your opinions won't do much (from the article: Under French law, it is illegal to exhibit or sell objects with racist overtones). The same ideas can be expressed without being immediately obvious, just like the nazis didn't exactly win elections in Germany on the 'kill-the-Jews' platform. They did it by pushing socialist work reform and initially exploiting sentiments of national pride, not racial hatred.
I think it's much more dangerous to allow partial exposure to certain ideas; better to expose them in their full foolishness. Even worse, technically under French law, you can kiss goodbye any chance of buying Hegel, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Twain, or any numerous others with 'questionable' content.
This is not just a question of sensitivity to racial issues; it's a way to ignore anything even remotely unplesaant, and, IMHO, is going to create serious problems in the future.
"Oh Bother", said the Borg, "We've assimilated Pooh."
Now now..dont flame me yet..
Freedom of Speech must be the most raped and over-used right on the Net. I am not surprised. We use it so commonly, everytime someone takes offence at the content on a website or at a particular post on a Discussion Group, or in this case a Yahoo Auction site.
First off Slash dot doesnt consist people from the United States alone. Our nationality doesnt unite us.. our skills does, what we believe in unites us. I am grieved by some of the posts by Slashdot members which boast about what United States could do to France which are totally irrelevant to the topic at hand and most of all childish and doesnt befit a Slashdot member to make such a comment. We are not bound by our nationality, if we were this Discussion group would have gone to the dogs long ago. This is a Discussion group, because it is what it is.. a discussion group.
Yahoo has every right to keep the Auction site up and allow them to keep selling those items, but those items themselves are remnants of a god forbidden era, which no one would like to return. If those items or the auction of those items are causing grief to any individual or to a group in particular then Yahoo is morally responsible to take it off. ITs true that its not humanely possible for Yahoo to keep track of content published by its member sites, but it doesnt free Yahoo from the responsibility of removing offending content and kicking out the offenders once its found out.
Internet is a community without boundaries. Lets keep it that way. I am worried about all this talk about laws not being applicable in here, as Internet transcends human boundaries.. but if this is to remain that way, then both sides should comply.
Rapid Nirvana
Stanley Fish wrote a fascinating essay called "There's No Such Thing As Free Speech .. and It's a Good Thing, Too," which is reprinted in a book of essays with the same title. His basic point is that defenders of free speech always delimit the boundaries of what kind of speech is acceptable. For example, Milton's Aeropagitica, a 1643 essay in favor of religious tolerance, goes through pro-free-speech arguments that any modern reader would find very familiar, and then, about three-quarters of the way through, says that of course, none of this applies to the Catholics.
Thus, "free speech" is like "fairness" or "merit". Different political factions present their spin on what the term means. Whichever faction gets its definition widely accepted then gets to present itself as the champions of virtue and can put its opponents on the defensive.
Fish's essay is not available online, but I found an interview excerpt here with his main points.
--
"But, Mulder, the new millennium doesn't begin until January 2001."
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
If it weren't for the good old US of A, France, Britain and the rest of Europe would have been living under Stalin.
His quote:
Otto: Well, would you like to know what you'd be without us, the good ol' U.S. of A. to protect you? I'll tell you. The smallest fucking province in the Russian Empire, that's what. So don't call me stupid, lady. Just thank me!
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
I think there are a number of things you have to keep in mind before you jump to the conclusion that France is being fascist for making such a demand.
1. I know you Americans value free speech above everything in all cases, but that is not necessarily how other countries see it. Many countries have anti-hate laws. Those laws exist for a very good reason. Hate speech most often promotes murder, assaults, cross-burning, etc, of minorities. It makes those minorities feel intimidated and frightened. Many countries see the consequences of some speech as far outweighing any "rights" that someone may have to make that speech. Free speech is not an inalieable right. Remember that even in the U.S., it's illegal to shout "fire" in a crowded theater.
2. There are cultural differences here. The French are not Americans, and you should respect their opinions too.
2. France is especially sensitive about Nazi-symbols given the history there, and I think it's understandable. Keep in mind that France was occupied by Nazi germany for years, and that their citizens were made oppressed and helpless by the Nazis. If the Nazis occupied your country, killed your countrymen, killed and opressed you and your family, would you believe that people should have a right to carry Nazi and neo-Nazi symbols? Even if you're a so called Libertarian, can you be 100% sure how you'd feel after living through that?
3. There is little practical reason to own a swastika or other Nazi or neo-Nazi symbol. Chances are about 99.99999999% that if you own such a symbol, you're a hate-mongering, jew/black/gay beating fascism-loving jerk.
I just want to keep this in perspective, and say that this is not a case of outright no-good censorship like when the government wants to take away your right to read "indecent" materials. To many, hate speech is just as dangerous as yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
I tink historical testimonies belong to museums (possibly virtual ones), where they can be publicly displayed and explained, and not to auction sites.
The events that occured in WWII were horrible. Necessary precautions should be taken place to make sure they do not happen again. What I do not understand is how preventing French citizens from purchasing this war memorabilia will do so. If there is a risk of similar events taking place again, it is unlikely that it will be in the name of nazis and that it will be inspired by war memoribilia. So I guess my question is how is it that this censorship prevents racism?
I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with Nazi memorabilia? I'm not a Nazi by any means, and don't even agree remotley with their politics or the atrocities of WWII.
But what the hell is wrong with trading the Nazi relics of the war? Some of us are history nuts who collect anything from WWII. Some of us keep momentos of teh past around for people of the future to learn from.
Not allowing people to trade relics doesn't mean that it will all go away. Alowing someone to own a relic of the Nazi past doesn't make them an instant Nazi. I really don't even see why there's a problem here.
Justin-- Object known as a camera. Vintage uncertain, origin unknown. - Twilight Zone
Does anyone remember when this thing we cal the net was a free exchange of information? You know, before the whole censorship thing began running rampant. I understand that some people can be offended by this auction, and I understand every reason why. But, simply becaue your offended by something doesn't mean I can enjoy it. If you dont like Yahoo because it is offering Nazi Memorabellia, then for gods sake, go to Ebay, or any one of several other online auctions. Or maybe, just maybe, go read a book and realize that the items up for auction here are from a time when a group of people decided to tell everyone else what they could and couldn't do-say-think-beleive.
censoring a nazi..... kinda hypocrital dontcha think?
"I mean, All you can definately say about a fellow who thinks he's a poached egg, is; He's in the minority." James Burke
Yes, we Americans defend free speech. Even when we find the subject matter distasteful, the right remains. Who was it that said something to the effect "I disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"? I can't recall.
The Americans who died in World War II died in part defending freedom. Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental liberties our country is founded upon. Not that the majority of Americans seem to even care about such liberties any longer.
Though I may dislike the message of racists, they do have the right to express their opinions. Freedom goes both ways, you can't abridge someone else's freedom and expect your freedoms to be unaffected.
Currently eBay US has a policy with regards to potentially offensive material, which says in part:
"eBay has always exercised judgment in allowing or disallowing certain listings in the best interest of the community. Therefore, eBay will judiciously disallow listings or items that promote hatred, violence, or racial intolerance, including items that promote organizations (such as the KKK, Nazis, neo-Nazis, Skinheads, Aryan Nation) with such views. eBay will review listings that are brought to its attention by the community, and will look at the entire listing to determine whether it falls within this rule.
eBay recognizes that some older relics of organizations that promoted hate, violence or racial intolerance are legitimate collectible items that serve as a reminder of past injustices or horrors. Obviously, the past cannot be erased, and such relics can serve as important reminders and educational tools in a community that can learn from the past. Therefore, relics of groups such as the KKK or Nazi Germany may be listed on eBay, provided that they are at least 50 years old, and the listing is not used as a platform to glorify or promote the organization or its values. Listings of such items that are not 50 years old will be removed when brought to our attention. Sellers must state the approximate age of the item within the description. "
(Found at: http://pages.ebay.com/help/ community/png-offensive.html)
Therefore if the item is over 50 years old and has historical value it is OK to be listed on eBay. I know for a fact, as an eBay employee, that all Nazi memorabillia is banned from being listed on the eBay Germany site and eBay members who are registered as living in Germany are actively blocked from bidding on such items, irrelevant of which eBay site they are listed on.
The actively blocking users is the same for the eBay Adults Only section. Any member who has registered as living in Australia, is unable to access the eBay Adults Only section, whether they are willing to provide age verification or not. This policy helps eBay to comply with other countrys' laws outside of the US. The eBay Australia site simply does not have an Adults Only sections.
So technically it is certainly possbile to block certain users, living in a particular geographic region, from certain areas of the site.
This ruling will certainly prove interesting for eBay as they are planning further international expansion into Europe in the near future, including one particularly relevant nation.
Brought to you by the author of such childrens' classics as "Some Kittens can Fly!" and "All Dogs go to Hell."
Yahoo should just do a name lookup of all the incoming connections and if the name ends in .fr
to refuse connection.
An effective way to make sure French people don't see something that offends them on Yahoo.
Nonsense! Genghis Kahn appeared in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. And he was one of the good guys, no less. Therefore, he must be all right!
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
There is a translation problem here. In French, gouvernement means the cabinet of ministers at the head of the executive branch, which in American gets translated as the administration (whereas in French, the administration is the set of government agencies).
The executive has apparently nothing to do with this case. As it appears from the press, two private plaintiffs, noprofit associations, sued Yahoo on grounds of a restriction of the freedom of the press law that prohibits incitation to racial hatred. A judge issued an injunction against Yahoo. The matter has not been fully judged yet, neither appealed. It is therefore totally premature to speak of any official French policy on the Internet. This is only a single judgment by a single judge in a local correctional court.
Damn it, I thought I saw some Mongolian artifacts for sale on Yahoo the other day. Don't the French realize the Mongols slaughtered millions of innocent men, women and children? They wiped out entire towns in the worst, bloody ways possible.
Apparently the French endorse the actions of Genghis Kahn.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Okay, maybe I'm dumb, or missing something, but couldn't a country-of-origin code be embedded in the options section of the IP packet header? I believe that there is a state telecom monopoly in France, so...
Couldn't the French government mandate that country-identifying data be added to every packet leaving Franch? Then, they could say to Yahoo, "You have the ability to discern French visitors from non-French. Comply, or ______" where _______ is probably a whoppingly large amount of money. At that point, it would be a reasonable request, and probably legally enforceable.
I suppose such a system could be easily extended to any other country that has a state telecom monopoly--which is just about every country in the world, I think--though I don't know if it would be a better world.
Please tell me if I'm wrong here. But if I'm not, please consider solutions of this type before you type, yet again, that the Internet is naturally borderless, or whatever.
From the CNN article:
"Under French law, it is illegal to exhibit or sell objects with racist overtones."
Isn't this the same country that prohibits buisnesses from posting signs in English and forbids the adoption of English words, all in the name of preserving the "purity of the French language?" How is that not a violation of the spirit of said law, if not the word?
Then again, hey, what's that over there?
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"If God were truly omniscient and ubiquitous, He wouldn't have created such dumbasses."
--Ted Rall on creationists
Apparently France "realizes" that you can't beat fascism with liberty, equality and fraternity, and instead decided to fight fire with fire.
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
US Interstate Gambling prohibitions
http://www.compar.com/news/news1vs11.html
The United States leaves the legality of gambling (gaming) up to the states. To allow one state to outlaw it while another state condones it, a complex web of federal legislation makes interstate gambling illegal, until the casino lobby petitions for another loophole. This isn't just between casinos, the Feds and you: VISA and MasterCard have been sued for allowing illegal transactions, as if they could monitor it.
International Free Speech prohibitions
http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~sha llit/afraid.html
"Here are just a few of the historical limits to freedom of speech that many countries have imposed: Libel and slander. Obscenity. National security. Invasion of privacy. False advertising. Age limits. Solicitation of murder. Fraud."
Providers such as CompuServe and Yahoo! have already become familiar with the technical and legislative issues of geographical censorship. If Yahoo! has a presence as a company in France, the corporate whole will likely move to follow the restrictions that a French court may impose, as far as they're technically able.
It's been said before, but people don't seem to get it. The US Constitution's First Amendment just guarantees that the US Government won't unduly hinder free speech. It says nothing about what your employer or service provider may choose to hinder, it says nothing about what International Law may choose to hinder.
(The Internet is not borderless. =anagram>
Distort the terrible nonsense.)
[
we seem to confuse a belief in the goodness of freedom of the exchange of information and ideas between individuals with the freedom of commercial services to propagate anything they wish regardless of national laws, cultures or sensibilities.
The confusion seems to be on your side. This is not a cultural imperialism issue.
In this particular case, France wants an American corporation to enforce French laws with regard to servers in the US. Moreover, it's not like Yahoo sells Nazi paraphenalia: it just provides a place for individuals to sell them. There is no "commercial service" which "propagates" something -- there is a marketplace in the US which some people in Europe think breaks their local laws. So? It's your laws, you enforce them. If France wants to ban the French from accessing Yahoo auctions, let it set up a national firewall that greps for words like 'Nazi' and we'll see how far it will get.
I see no difference at all from, say, China ordering Yahoo to make all anti-Communist information on its servers unaccessible to all Chinese.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
And all of this is truer 10 times over and more for religion. The unbelievers are brutally slain in the name of the assassin's preferred God(s). Any writings or speech or even thoughts that is counter to the local faith is met with similar burtalization.
Six million were killed by Nazis and Nazi believers. But hundreds of millions were killed in the name of various religions. Which is the more dangerous philosophy again?
How can you condemn Nazism more than religion when the former has killed less than the latter?
Oh that's right, you're one of "them". And your religion tells you you're right (absolutely) in persecuting others. Your belief controls your definitions of right and wrong. Therefore the belief, naturally, can never define itself to be wrong under any circumstances. See the power play and the mind control tactics here?
Go ahead. Persecute me and prove my point. Moderate me down and oppress the free speech you all claim to support. Tolerance was never meant for those you disagree with, right? Just a trendy buzzword that has little meaning when it really matters.
Do I expect you to say you believe in Nazism? No. But if you truly support freedom and tolerance, then you must say that you support my right to support Nazism or the KKK or Grape Nuts or whatever you may not personally agree with.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If those items or the auction of those items are causing grief to any individual or to a group in particular then Yahoo is morally responsible to take it off
Taking offense and causing grief is completely and utterly subjective. Small voices simply never get heard, only large organizations with influence are the ones that are heard. So it really comes down to this:
1. Every complaint should automatically be taken as valid, to be fair, and that content should be unquestionably removed.
OR
2. Only large organizations with influence should control content.
I'll take neither, thank you.