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B'nai Brith Pushes for Web Regulation

Baldrson writes: "Wired magazine reports that in late August, B'nai Brith Canada tried to get the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to pay attention to posts on the Islam Way weblog that solicited for volunteers to join Ossama bin Laden. According to the story: "...after media reports have suggested that Montreal and Halifax may have been meeting points for a number of the terrorists involved in the attack, B'nai Brith Canada is stepping up its efforts to get legislation passed to ban such Web activity.""

9 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Fruitless by eXtro · · Score: 4, Insightful
    There's a lot of things that are posted on the web which are objectionable, depending on your definition of objectionable. There are many things said in small groups of people that are objectionable. There are things said among large groups of people that are objectionable.


    Trying to censor a viewpoint, no matter how wrong the view point is, can not possibly work. If you manage to censor the web (nearly impossible - just go off and start a GeoCities page or my.yahoo page, then another and then another and...) you only move the hateful speech someplace else. Hate didn't originate with the world wide web, its been around for a very long time. It's always managed to find a forum and it always will.


    You're better off spending the funds that would be wasted on censorship on free books for libraries (especially grade school and high school libraries) in order to mold peoples brains into being more accepting of others.

  2. Unlikely this is real by shut_up_man · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I seriously doubt the authenticity of someone posting on a public noticeboard about joining the Jihad. It's most likely government agents, looking to round up the more gullible terrorists out there. Hopefully they aren't asking them to meet for training out the back of FBI headquarters though - a bit obvious.

    In the unlikely event that it is genuine, maybe boards like these could be a source of leads for the hunters...

    shut up man

  3. Don't censor out of fear... by asdhwesd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why try to actively censor the views of those who are promoting something objectionable? Why not use the money to set up a website that promotes the opposite viewpoint from a more objective and rational perspective? People don't want to be forced into believing something; they wanted to be persuaded. Spending money on persuading people, rather than silencing the opinions of some, and putting ones trust in Truth rather than in fear, is simply much more effective than any reactionary authoritative mandate.

  4. Re:Excellent by antek9 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, there is hope.

    Hm, it seems like those self-imposed 'real muslims' will succeed on all fronts they're opening: first by uniting all muslims by provoking a massive retaliation against Afghanistan, and then by teasing us devils into shutting down the filthy internet by ourselves. Don't even go there, remember: the Taliban forbid all net access in Afghanistan.

    The posters on the forum in question leave traces, just like everyone else, that's some more monitoring targets for the FBI/CIA. Only this time, don't lose attention.

    --
    A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
    Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
  5. Remember the Yahoo trial? by Nicolas+MONNET · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's a jewish organization too that was suing Yahoo in France. You know, "they" can't be wrong, "they" were mass murdered.

    You can't say anything about jewish orgs, because then you're accused of antisemitism. In the mean time, Ariel Sharon is *assassinating* -- by his own admission! -- Palestinians.

    Do we see B'nai Brith or UEJF asking for the censorship of conservative Israëli newspapers or websites, no I don't think so.

    Dont get me wrong, I hate muslim fanatics as much as the next atheist guy, and arabs don't have a monopoly on dangerous loonies.

    Ariel Sharon is the biggest threat to peace in the middle east, and maybe in the whole world, after Bin Laden.

  6. Re:Internet Regulation by sg_oneill · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Considering that this discussion is about what looks like from my quick perusal of the english language pages a fairly friendly missionary/self improvement islam info page, I reeeealy hope we aren't talking about bombing islamic web sites

    We haven't gone that far down the road?... have we? When we resort to barbarism Osama wins because he's better at that game that us. That's the secret.... Don't play at violence, play at JUSTICE!

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  7. B'nai B'rith censorship = Radicalization by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I am posting anonymously to avoid the certain backlash that I would receive from the pro-censorship forces at B'nai B'rith, and my synagogue.

    Unfortunately B'nai B'rith has become increasingly radicalized in recent years. The leadership has moved far to the right wing of the Zionist movement and taken much of the membership and Western Jewry with it.

    As a Jew I find this extremely disturbing.

    The censorship that B'nai B'rith promotes is almost exclusively against Muslims and Arabs. What happened to fighting for human rights and fighting against bigotry and racism?

    B'nai B'rith has instead become an organization that supports human rights abuses in the Occupied Territories (as documented by Amnesty International and others) and promotes bigotry and racism by its knee-jerk reactions against our Muslim and Arab brethren. The IslamWay site, which is a religious education site, is but one example.

    While it still does some good disaster relief work, it does not do so in Muslim areas of the world. That kind of work would go a long way to bridging the divide between Muslims and Jews created by the Occupation.

    As I understand it, philosopher Jurgen Habermas's work (having to do with post-WW2 reconciliation in Germany) tells us that until you are willing to honestly and openly see any conflict from your opponent's point of view and acknowledge those views as legitimate, then meaningful conflict resolution cannot take place.

    Remember, when governments get through censoring the Arabs and the Muslims there's nothing to stop them from coming for us too.

  8. Re:Don't ban it - encourage it! by Saeger · · Score: 3, Insightful
    (not-a-flame)

    You're both an atheist and an vegan you say? So, you deny the possible, however unlikely, existence of God(s), rather than choose the more logically neutral position of agnosticism; and you deny yourself the tender, juicy, delicious steaks that your canine teeth are in fact adapted for (evolutionary neutral) -- that's fine, more meat for us "belly-size-economizers". :-)

    Anyway, more to the point, if there's one thing us humans like to do above all else, it's imposing our self-righteous will on others, especially our children.

    The difference here is that our government is set up to NOT allow it to impose much of its will on free people (parents), but as parents are often fond of saying to their kids, "as long as you're living under my roof this is NOT a democracy!"

    ...as long as you're not raising, say, assassins...have at it! But when your kid rejects your attempt at a vegan indoctrination... don't be a dicktator. :)

    --
    Power to the Peaceful
  9. Re:Don't ban it - encourage it! by WNight · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's not flamebait, it's an opinion. Way to call for censorship.

    "You can't prevent parents from talking to their kids about religion."

    I didn't claim to be able to.

    But the fact that it's impossible to totally stop pedophila and child abuse doesn't mean we don't try.

    "So I can see that a religious parent might feel angry if they were forced to bring up their child an atheist or an agnostic."

    Yup. And I'm sure a molestor would be upset that he couldn't indulge.

    As an aside, you don't "bring a child up athiest", you simply don't bring them up religious and they end up athiest. Athiesm isn't a codified set of beliefs, it's the freedom from religion.

    "To people with strong views on religion, there are no 'neutral' positions."

    True, but why are the views of an adult more important that the safety of a child?