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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.
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...
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.
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.
Agreed, I hope Yahoo tells them to get stuffed, and that this serves an example to overseas sites threatened by stupid US laws.
An "world government" would not fix this - it would just make it worse. The Europeans will want anything related to nazis banned, the US will want anything related to anonymously sharing files and encryption banned, Australia will lobby for everyone to use censorware (god bless my fucked-up country), moslem countries will want anything derogatory about their religion to be banned, China will throw fits everytime someone mentions their government in less than glowing terms. I wouldn't wish that job on my worst enemy!
Why can't people be tolerant of other people's beliefs? Yes, even neonazis - otherwise you are just emulating them. That's right - the French government/legal system is emulating the very group they are trying to condemn - how's that for irony?
P.S. My favourite quote:
So a swastika badge and a white hood have "racist overtones". What happens when the next cult uses a flower or a tree? - I guess we'll have to ban those as well.
"There are only two things that are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former."
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
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
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
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.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.