'Extreme' Web Sites Under Fire From UK Police

An anonymous reader writes "A conference on electronic crime, taking place in London this week, has thrown up some interesting news. Britain's top hi-tech police officer has demanded a crackdown on Web sites devoted to 'abhorrent' subjects such as cannibalism and necrophilia. What happened to freedom of expression online?"

Comments

Re:uh...

[hookedup]

ogrish

add a .com
There may also be a .co.uk site...

Gimme a "G" gimme a "O" gimme a "A" gimme a "T"

[turnstyle]

gimme a "S" gimme a "E"

What does that spell? some petition.

I'll say it again...

[composer777]

I think the answer I cut and pasted below this paragraph applies here. The poster of the article talked about freedom. It's best not to talk about freedom out of the context of reality, otherwise the discussion can become so abstract as to be devoid of all meaning. Before we can have a rational discussion about this, we need to be sure of what we mean by freedom in this context. In this context, we're talking about the "freedom" of people to discuss and plan certain highly unethical acts.) We no longer observe the "right" of people to enter into slavery (that's one freedom that we have taken away, because we understand that it results in less freedom), and in this case, it makes sense to make sure that people who frequent such websites don't try to actually eat someone. I'm not weighing in one way or another, as I haven't put a lot of thought into this particular issue, but we need to be careful not to always come down on the side of "freedom" before evaluating what we really mean by the word.

A friend asked:
"Why should people who earn more have to pay a larger percentage of taxes than someone else? Why should people be penalized for earning more?"

My initial answer was that asking questions outside of the context of reality often does not serve to increase our understanding of how things work, or which choice we should make. I followed up by asking him why I should have to have eight hours of my day controlled in a dictatorial fashion by someone else, why shouldn't I (and millions of other Americans) have complete freedom to do what I want with my working life? He tried to give an answer, but it summed up to, "that's the way things are." My second answer was, why should one man be able to be a dictator over millions of people. An example would be, why should a man, let's call him Joe, for example, be able to bark out orders to thousands of people, with the threat of them not being able to eat if they don't do what he says, and at the same time, be able to tell hundreds of millions of people what they are allowed to consume, sounds a lot like Soviet style Communism if you ask me. In this case, we'll call him Bill Gates Outside of the context of reality, such a question would make you say, "Well, one man shouldn't have dictatorial power over people, and have the choice over what they will be able to consume." Inside the context of our present day world, most would say,"Well, he's Bill Gates, and he's done X, Y, and Z, therefore, he deserves to have that control over Microsoft, which just happens to control vast portions of the software industry and just happens to have a scale of economy larger than most countries." Outside the context of reality, most people would answer my friend's question as, "Well, a man shouldn't be punished for earning more!" However, when we look at the real world situation and ask why someone in East St. Louis who can barely feed their kids and can't even afford healthcare should ever have to pay as large of a percentage of taxes as a man who has near dictatorial control over a vast region of the worldwide economy, with a company that has a net income that rivals the GDP of many 3rd world dictatorships (and democracies for that matter), we can evaluate the question properly, and say that in a society that cares about it's people, she shouldn't have to pay as large a percentage of taxes as Bill Gates.

Often times, those who win political debates are those who can spin the questions the best, so that those questions favor their own side, and make their opponent look like a fool, or unjust, cruel, etc. If we really want to reach a sane and just policy, we need to have enough facts and data, and we need to evaluate our answer in the context of those facts. Spinning arguments on their head to favor a certain ideology, while it may be a convenient way to win a debate against a lesser gifted opponent, is no way to reach a true understanding or to make an informed decision. In the lopsided version of reality that we have in America, where one man can't eat, and another gets vast sums of money, progressive taxation starts to make sense.

Re:I'll say it again...

[composer777]

>The fact actually is that someone like Bill Gates has exactly the amount of control that his employees and consumers give him.

Is that really what gives him control? When making an observation or correlating two pieces of data, we need to ask ourselves the question of how correlating these two pieces increases our understanding of how things work. In this case, you are saying that Bill Gate's control is a function of how much control people want to give him. By not describing things in further detail, and more specificially, by using the word "the" as in, "the fact is", you are implying that his power is primarily a function of how much power people want him to have. Is this really the most accurate depiction of reality? Or, can we perhaps come up with other more accurate explanations for why Bill Gates has the control that he does. Do people really arrive at a certain level of control because other people collectively decide that they want that person to have a certain amount of power? Is that really "the fact", as you say it is?

>At any point they are allowed to get another job or use other software.

In Communist China citizens can leave their jobs at any time. Of course, this increases the likelihood that they will starve or get shot, but they could still do it. For the most part, increasing the likelihood of bad consequences has the same effect of control over choices as guaranteeing bad consequences. Even the mafia will let people off the hook every once in a while, that doesn't mean that your freedom isn't constricted by their actions.

You also say that "at any point they can get another job". In a society with millions of people unemployed, is that an accurate statement? Or, perhaps if we're telling the truth, we'll say, "Sometimes you'll be able to get another job, and in some cases, if you leave, you'll end up bankrupt and unemployed. But, you can choose to risk bankruptcy if you want." We could also say, "They can choose to invest a lot of time in other software, probably more time and money than they would lose by paying for the copy of Windows, or they can give Bill Gates their money." Isn't the second statement a more accurate description of the range of choices that people have available?

>I know it isn't a popular opinion on Slashdot, but business is good. Businesses employee people and employed people can do more of the things that they want.

By that argument, we could say that Stalin and Hitler were good, since they employed people, and German citizens that were employed by Hitler could do more of the things that they wanted than those who weren't employed.

>People who run successful business should be taxed the same as everyone else; taxing them more discourages them from being more successful.

How do the wonderful people that run businesses, such as Ken Lay, Arthur Andersen, et al. get to where they are? If taxing the rich more than the poor effectively discourages them from being successful, then why are they rich right now, after all, don't we already have progressive taxation? Is that why rich people hate taxes, because they want encouragement? Or, is there perhaps another reason that they don't want to be taxed more? Fortunately, we don't need to talk about hypothetical situations. We can look at the real world. We can look at retirement rates of ultra wealthy businessmen who live in rich countries versus those who live in poor countries. You'll find that taxes have had no effect on people's desire to hang onto their success. There have been no documented cases of anyone deciding not to be rich due to progressive taxation. If you can find one case of someone deciding not to be sucessful due to higher taxes, then perhaps I'll give merit to your argument. In the real world, there are many cases of people that decide not to be succesful because of lower taxes. They make this decision because they weren't given the educational opportunity, to name just one factor, that others were given. So, they giv

Quick Correction

[composer777]

We can look at retirement rates of ultra wealthy businessmen who live in rich countries versus those who live in poor countries.

should be...

We can look at retirement rates of ultra wealthy businessmen who live in countries with high taxes versus those who live in countries with low taxes.