Slashdot Mirror
Academics Take On Government Net Censorship
Anonymous Brave Guy writes "There's an interesting article from the BBC today about a group of academics at the University of Toronto who are working to investigate and break down government-imposed censorship of the Internet. Are they defending human rights, or simply trying to impose their own beliefs on people from other cultures? Incidentally, one of their people was responsible for the previous Slashdot discussion of 'five fundamental problems with open source'."
the more you try and control it the more behind your back methods will be created.
Are they defending human rights, or simply trying to impose their own beliefs on people from other cultures?
Is there really a difference between the two? Fundamentally, the acknowledgement of "human rights" is a system of belief, born out of our culture. Certainly there have been plenty of cultures which have not accepted any of the principles which we want to "defend" today.
On some level, the concept of "human rights" is a claim that our cultural beliefs are better, and more right, then those that do not agree with them.
Since there is no absolute source of right and wrong in the universe, our own beliefs are the best we've got. And there are certain things that we believe so strongly, that we are willing to impose them on others. What gives us the right to do this? That we are stronger. Nothing else.
We ought to see this for what it is, and stop feeling bad about it.
And in other news today, the Government announced that funding for the University of Toronto had been cut by 50%. A source that would not be identified believes that this is reliation for an effort by academics to reduce censorship of the internet.
An official spokesman at the Education Department could not be reached for comment.
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
"Are they defending human rights, or simply trying to impose their own beliefs on people from other cultures?" Censorship is imposing your values on others, stopping censorship is not. Stopping people hiding information does not force them to have your values.
I disagree. If what Saudi citizens find out about other places via the Internet causes them to reject their Islamic culture and heritage, then perhaps it's a culture and heritage not worth preserving in the first place.
There are plenty of countries that are online, for the most part uncensored, and are able to maintain their culture. Next lame attempt at an argument, please?
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
University of Toronto? Interesting, considering the "Canadian Content"-based censorship laws in Canada, where foreign stations are banned (censored) due to lack of "Canadian Content".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
When I worked at GTE the company got the contract to lay the fiber optic cable around the border of China and put in the network centers that setup a ring around China. Total control of all the traffic in and out of the country, or so they hoped. A career limiting move came when I wrote Chuck Lee, CEO of GTE, and said we were helping the same Communist government that gave us Tianamen Square and would continue to repress the Chinese people using this technology. But Bean Counters only care about profit and damn the people that get get screwed over in the process.
As a side note, I knew a lad working near me from China who had been at Tianamen Square the day before and then the day after the massacre happened. When he saw what the army had done to their own people he went home, packed and left for Hong Kong and then to the US.
Censorship is only one way the Communists will use to stay in power and shooting another bunch of college kids can happen again.
You are risking bringing the wrath of the Linux jihadists down on you. You are indeed brave.
If this were groklaw, your post would already be deleted.
... are real of course.
What is not real is the suggestion that human liberty and freedom is culturally dependent. That is a lie used by repressive governments to justify policies that really only serve their own interests.
There have been many attempts in Western nations to repress individual rights because of the "common interest", and these rightly strike us as barbaric. No reason to apply different standards to other countries just because they are different.
However... the day I see an electorate in a "culturally different" country freely and democratically vote for a regime that restricts human rights, I'll change my mind.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
"Citizens can't just accept technology at face value."
*looks at Windows-loaded PCs on Best Buy shelf*
Ohhhhh yes they can.
The coolest voice ever.
No it's not. If Islam was a dying thing, like say the aboriginal cultures in Australia, then perhaps there would be an argument there. But religions are always passing converts back and forth. At the moment, IIRC, Islam has some of the highest conversion rates TO it. Which means "Islamic culture" is really in very little danger of going away, and there's no need to "preserve" it.
Plus, cultures are evolving things. American, Chinese, Islamic, whoever. Compare the governments in the Middle East around 1500 to what we have today. You could easily make the arguement that getting rid of the Princes and opening the country up is REALLY preserving Islamic Culture. (preserving it from the corrupt clerics, of course) It's all just a front for cynical politicians to control their populations in the name of God. As far as I'm concerned, the Chinese have more moral justification, since they're just operating under the "It's my party..." defense.
(disclaimer: respects all religions, disrespects all hypocrits)
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
THEY HAVE THE OPTION TO CHANGE THINGS !!!!
Tell that to the North Koreans who are horribly tortured for speaking out, or even being merely accused of speaking out.
Tell that to the Chinese students who wanted more freedom and met up with an army of tanks!
You sir are an idiot.
Every sane person, regardless of their culture, wants the right to express their own opinions and to exercise control over their own lives. Yours is just a pathetic excuse for the complicity our governments have in the oppression of those in other countries.
What I understand, freedom of expression is guaranteed in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression ; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of fronteirs."
[emphasis added]. So if there is any nation that is not a part of the United Nations, sure, imposing these restrictions on the freedom of the government of these nations would be imposing their own beliefs on these other cultures. This does not sound like what these people are doing, however. There is no excuse whatsoever for government censorship by any government who is a member of the United Nations(this means you, China, United States of America, and Canada).
Sure, one may argue that the United Nations may be unnecessary, outdated, completely irrelevent or otherwise, but as it stands today, we are obligated to fufil our part of the bargain, despite how sometimes we may disagree with it, or alternatively, decline membership to the United Nations and become a Rogue State, with none of the protections to you that The Declaration provides.
These guys sound down-right nuts, though. If a dictator is willing to kill thousands of his own people, what makes you think they won't assasinate you, if you actively mess with them? Kudos to their efforts.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Fascinating. I suppose you think you live in a country with free speech due to some sort of virtue on your part? Perhaps you have managed to overthrow a dictatorial government and replace it with a liberal one yourself?
Seriously, is it any surprise to anyone here that the government is involved in social engineering programs? They've always used any form necessary/available to bend our thinking into what they want their population to be, and as soon as the next far-reaching information/media service becomes available you can bet they'll be using that too.
Resistance is futile.
The most popular US news channel is banned in Canada. I'm pretty sure that SciFi channel is also banned; there are others.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
There is a universal morality. It's called, "The Golden Rule" and it has existed in every culture and philosophy. Everything beyond that enters the realm of manipulation with less-than-honorable intent.
I look at the issue of censorship and morality, and their various catalysts such as "cultural identity", "security" and "happiness" as a farce.
This reminds me of a true story. I have a dog. My neighbor has a dog. The difference between our pets is that I let my dog out. I make sure the dog is aware of the danger of the traffic on the street and I've taken care to make sure she understands the dynamics of her world. The neighbors on the other hand, never let their dog out his fenced-in yard. They don't walk him around the area; they "protect" the dog from the street by keeping him sheltered.
About a week ago the dog got out of the yard and was hit by a car and killed.
There is no security when you shelter people from the real world.
Corporations have never been particularly moral social strucutures. Since they largely exist to de-couple personal responsibility and liabilty. The primary purpose of a corporation is to protect the shareholders and the people running from mistakes, errors in judgement and grevious wrong doing. The idea of secularism has bankrupted the moral component of corporations is silly. Corporations have always existed to protect people from taking responsibility for unethical decisons. I suggest you read the history of the East India Company for a really good example of this.
Thalasar
Let's say we have this little thing called "science" that enables us to approach real truth - not just culturally-relative beliefs about something we call "true." Let's say with science we begin to have an informed vision about how people can live better than the beliefs of their local culture would allow. For instance, we can teach them how to dig latrines instead of shitting upstream of their water supply. We can also teach them how their local leaders are lying to them about what's true, in the scientific sense, when they persist in foisting culturally-relative beliefs about, say, the supposed inherent inferiority of women (perhaps they are the variety of Muslims who justify this with a claim that women "don't have souls").
... well, please get out of the way while those of us who know the power of science to actually discover and share real, useful, even salvational facts about the world give those children the chance to benefit from these truths, and perhaps - if those facts are about ways to establish human liberty and not just about how to build munitions - even encourage them to make their cultures less dangerous to our own.
If you are a post-modern simpleton, who believes that everything is constituted by belief, that one belief is as well-founded as another (because none are founded at all except in social practice), and that suffering from ignorance should be the accepted plight of children born into particularly ignorant and anti-scientific cultures
Because the only other alternative is to wipe out the ignorant, religious savages as they get better at coming after us to enforce their own anti-scientific, anti-human (as we know it) belief sets. And as much satisfaction as some of us might take in battles fairly won against truly evil (because ignorant) populations, surely the satisfaction is sweeter if we can transform them to something approaching civilization (even as we are only approaching civilization, and have not reached it yet - witness the Bush anti-science agenda).
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
"Human beings are composed of two divergent forces. Homeostasis and Transistatis. Homeostasis is a force to maintain the current situation, and transistasis is the force of change. We're consantly fighting an internal battle with change." (ok, not an exact quote, but I get the idea don't I?)
To quote some other famous philosopher, "the only constant in the universe is change". Cultures, religions trying to resist change are fighting a losing battle. Now, it's granted that certain things are more likely to change than others, but that's up to the people who believe in them. Humans, like every other organism on this earth, are constantly evolving, adapting, changing to match their environment.
With this in mind, it's counter-intuitive to try to be static, resist change. Especially when the only method you have to resist change is to deny it, ignore it, and even prohibit it. Censuring the internet is simple evidence of this: Governments in countries like Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, etc, wish to "preserve" their existence by denying the existence of other ideas. From the beginning they should have known it was a losing battle.
The trend towards enlightenment through education seems to be unstoppable.Sure you have occasional hiccups (like the dark ages) but in the end, "change is the only constant" and those who oppose change, or the possibility of change that knowledge brings, are fighting a losing battle, and they know it.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
As for my country (UK) i think i speak for everyone when i say "dont even fucking think about censoring the net! - you can stop pedophiles but thats as far as it goes, period"
once its peadophiles it has begun and it will only get worse - not defending them at all but go after people who access the stuff not block access to it (seems like the best policy) censoring even one site is a first step on a slippery slope
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
1. Islam is the fastest growing religion on this planet, so why worry about the Internet?
2. Muslims live and thrive in countries with open access to the Internet (like US, Canada, India); if they are just fine with it, what's wrong with Saudi citizens having open access to the Internet?
This censorship by the Saudis wouldn't have anything to do with trying to preserve the royal family's hold on power now, would it? Naaahh.. I didn't think so.. ;-)
IIRC, it's more than just a "Canadian content" thing. In Canada there are laws restricting the manner in which corporations can advertise to children. (i.e. no using some super-duper character to sell cereal). Not such a bad idea considering children are so easily influenced.
Being on the largest undefended border makes controlling all those dang signals (tv/radio) a little difficult.
It is pretty much established that the reflexive paradox will come up in any complex system. The paradox has created a great deal angst for top thinkers like Goedel [sp], Cantor, Russell, etc..
Unfortunately, we keep building this paradox into the base of our systems of thought. I personally think the one thing Aristotle and Socrates did right was to acknowledge that their definitions were never really complete, and to procede from there. The systems built with the paradox as a central feature seem a bit mushy to me.
As I recall, Goedel's contribution was to show that the paradox will show up in any system sufficiently complex to include the whole numbers.
...is the idea that if they would only hear the message, they would embrace it. They should have the right to hear our ideas, just as we have the right to hear theirs.
That does not imply that they have to listen, that they have to embrace the concept of human rights any more than we have to embrace the wonders of "strong leadership".
If a society can only exist under censorship - to keep them uninformed of the alternatives, is that right? I don't think so. That goes for countries and sects alike, seeking to cut off their members' contact with the outside world.
The problem comes when you try to impose it on them - as is the case with Bush now down in Iraq. Perhaps the majority of people in Iraq want an islamic state, that they have heard our Western ideas and rejected them.
From our point of view, they are making a big mistake. But I believe it is also their right to make that mistake. You can only offer them choices, not force them to choose what you want. Not without becoming what you liberated them from.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I live in Dubai, which is the financial capital of the UAE. As net censorship goes, it isn't as bad here as it is in Saudi Arabia or Iran. The censorship is generally applied to "home" based Internet access, while access is open for office based Internet. Initialy, internet access was unproxied, but some neighboring countries complained about having access to "Questionable" material (anyone who has ever studied Middle Eastern politics understands how poisonous it can be), so BAM came the proxy and all the headaches that goes with it. My problem with censorship however is that it encourages the very behaviour it was intended to stop. Whenever I try to visit a site that just happens to blocked, I get so irritated that I can't help but try to defeat the proxy. Worse, there are plenty of legitimate sites that are blocked because of poor filtering parameters. There are plenty of ways around the proxy though, so its more designed to keep children out and clueless adults (The same clueless adults who are afraid of the BIG BAD net). Censorship has nothing to do with "preserving" religious values, it has everything to do with power and maintaining control by witless clerics and hypocrites. Islam flourished when muslims hungered for knowledge, it only started to decline when clerics decided that muslims already knew enough and didn't need to know more. In the UAE, we have this proxy just to shut the neighbors up, I am looking forward to the day when it finally goes down.
You are right that Freenet is very frustrating to use, but I'd rather that something like it exists and be developped so that when we start to really need it, the kinks have been worked out. That's why I run a node although I don't actually browse freenet; it's a kind of donation to what I believe is a worthy project.
It's the same everywhere, really. The first people who bought hybrid cars didn't get machines that worked as well, were as fast and efficient as those we have today (have you seen the 2004 Prius? or the 2004 Civic Hybrid? And soon there'll be Accords and Camrys) and they had to pay a higher price/deal with more problems, uglier designs, etc.
Same with the people who buy version/revision 1.0 of video cards, motherboards, etc. More bugs, higher priced, etc.
But without the early versions, we wouldn't get the killer apps later on.
I'm sure that better routing/whatever will be developped for freenet, and with bandwidth and storage becoming cheaper all the time, the network will be more efficient than it is now at equal number of nodes. It just takes time to get there... Of course there could be some theorical bottlenecks to the project that can't be easily solved without changing some of the fondamentals, but maybe that's possible too without compromising the goals too much.
My 2 cents (canadian).
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
If you read the documentation and the mailing list you'll find there are a few simple steps you can take that will dramatically improve the performance of your node:
Yes, you'll get some key lookup failures, but it's a lot better with the above. More problematic, I think, is the type of content that's available on Freenet. Anonymous and unblockable publishing and retrieval means anything and everything can appear, no matter how illegal or reprehensible. That's the price you pay for totally free speech. I'm still not entirely comfortable with that, and a lot of people think that price is way too high.
China is poised to become the most economically powerful nation in the history
of the world. You had best care very deeply about goings on in China.
I can only assume this display, "The Chinese people PUT their Goverment in Power PERIOD..."
is an innocent expression of ignorance, and not a troll. If every single
person alive in China during the revolution were still living, they would only
comprise about %25 percent of the population. Seeing as the revoltion ended
in 1949, this is not very likely. But let's, for the sake
of argument, say they are all living. That leaves one billion living human
beings who were born and raised under the rule of a totalitarian regime.
Were you alive when The Peoples' Army crushed the protesters in Tiananmen Square?
Try this one, this one, this one, or this one
You asked "...WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I CARE ?" You should care because if you are
ever in a position where you feel it is your duty to oppose a dictator,
you better pray you get more help than they did.
-- "It was as if the paint factories had decided to deal direct with the art galleries." - Thursday Next
You are either assuming that "there is no member of set S such that T" is itself a member of set S, or that all truths are morals (if all morals were truths but not all truths were morals, then it would be possible to have objective truths but no objective morals). You have failed to establish either of these. A statement about moral right or wrong is not inherently a moral, any more than a statement about dogs is inherently a dog. And "the set of real numbers R is closed under addition" is true but not a moral statement.
What the Saudis are doing is not so much attempting to preserve their Islamic culture and heritage as perpetuate it by restricting access to alternatives. As another poster pointed out, cultural preservation is the domain of museums and heritage societies. Legislative attempts to perpetuate culture and heritage fall afoul of the first amendment in the USA with some frequency -- are these legislative attempts at cultural status-quo-maintenance "valid" in Saudi Arabia because they don't have such a first amendment type of thing in their present culture?
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Are they defending human rights, or simply trying to impose their own beliefs on people from other cultures?
People who don't want to circumvent censorship aren't being forced to as the writer seems to be alluding to.
"Here, have this censorship circumvention doodah."
"Noooo!"
"Well, you're getting it anyway!"
"Noooo, I want to use the censored version of Google and be unaware as to the state of my government!"
espo
The standards of public conduct are different the world over. A government has the responsibility to enforce what its citizens feel is appropriate. Now, the government should not *define* what is appropriate, the citizens should. Thus if the majority of people in saudi arabia feel a web site contravenes prevailing standards, then yes, the government would be right in 'banning' it. Hopefully the people are well enough informed to make a proper decision here.
I strongly disagree.
Governments maybe be elected by the majority (where there is actual elections, unlike in Saudi Arabia), but they are there to represent and protect everybody, not just said majority.
That's where the concept of human rights exists, though. I guess that in some places they could actually consider freedom of speech a hurtful thing and in good faith - from their point of view - restrict it "for the good of everybody".
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
Please. Kiddie porn and snuff films are not censored. They are images of illegal activities and prosecuting their distribution is censorship in the same way that making murder illegal is oppressing your right to free speech.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Control what people know about and you control what they believe. This is the fundamental purpose of censorship, to control what people think. Information control is people control. When you can control what people know and believe controlling what they DO is trivial. This is why there were not constant wide-spread violent revolts in places like the USSR where most of the population believed the leftist lies they were spoon-fed every day. The few who didn't were easy to detect and for them the gulag awaited.
Here in the west, particularly in America, there is a concept known as freedom of speech. We hold the right to speak one's mind as a fundamental freedom that exists independently of whether the government protects or even acknowledges it. What most people don't realize is the fact that it implies and is dependent upon an even more basic right, and that is the freedom to make up one's mind. The freedom to think for oneself. The freedom to choose what one believes is the foundation upon which all liberty rests. After all, what use is the ability to express your thoughts and ideas when those are being determined by someone else?
Censorship is an attack upon freedom itself. The idea that by fighting it you are somehow imposing your views upon someone else is one of the most despicable lies I've ever heard, and one of the most perfect examples of the pot calling the kettle black.
It is censorship itself that seeks to impose beliefs upon people. Those who fight it work to ensure the freedom of others to make up their own minds and decide for themselves what they are going to believe.
Any culture that depends upon protection from outside influences and ideas in order to survive is a culture that is doomed to perish, and should. The reason is because the degree to which a culture must be so protected is the degree to which it is based upon lies.
A culture is a set of defining values, beliefs, and ideals held in common by a group of people. A culture is therefore valuable and beneficial to the degree to which it reflects objective truth and contributes to the well-being of those who are a part of it. Those who believe that cultures are somehow inherently precious or valuable are missing the point. The very purpose of human culture is to ensure the survival of the individuals who belong to it. Culture exists to bring individuals together and unify them as a people for the added benefit of all who are a part of it. If a culture does not do this, or does not do this as well as another culture that is competing with, then it should and will either adapt or perish. There is nothing tragic about this. The exposure to and subsequent adoption of new ideas that are more closely aligned with reality, and therefore improve the lives of everyone so exposed, is nothing to cry about.
I fully support this group's efforts to fight censorship. I don't think they go far enough however. Graeme Bunton seems to think that Saudi Arabia censoring the internet in order to preserve its islamic culture is a valid endeavor. I don't. Ideas should stand or fall based upon their own merit. Cultures, being made up of ideas and beliefs, should be held accountable to the same standard. As I said before, if a culture has to be protected from outside influences in order to survive, then it is a culture that is to that degree based upon lies. As someone who seeks to know and live with the truth, I see no reason to protect lies no matter who it is that believes them or why.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
"Are they defending human rights, or simply trying to impose their own beliefs on people from other cultures?"
I think it is a mistake to assume that you cannot defend basic human rights simply because the leaders of other cultures refuse to grant these rights to their citizens. The concept that morality is relative, and that there is no objective standard for morality, is flawed. It assumes the majority of people in a particular area, based on history, have the right to impose their collective will on the individual. Instead, the world need to recognise the objective morality of preserving basic human rights, even if the majority in that region (although usually it's a ruling minority) object. Freedom of speech is a basic human right, and no govt. has the right to to take it away, especially if it is critical of the govt. in question.
Vote for Pedro
They're worried about imposing their beliefs on another culture?
The point of their exercise is that members of a given culture (their governments) have imposed their beliefs on the people of that culture. It is up to the PEOPLE to decide what the "culture" is - NOT the government.
In any event, there is NO culture worth "preserving" if it cannot "preserve" itself, by definition. (And the Iraqis are proving and preserving daily by shooting US troops.)
These people need to get straight on this or their efforts will be half-hearted and useless.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
No, because that would be an example of the majority imposing their will on the minority. In other words, mob rule. The government should take steps to prevent the tyranny of the majority.
Canada is the most repressive developed nation in the world, from the perspective of free speech.
...and they're subject to some of the most onerous speech restriction in the western world.
... in good faith, he expressed or attempted to establish by argument an opinion on a religious subject." It also does not prevent public debate over gay rights, because "no person shall be convicted of an offence if ... the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true." The only stipulation in there that might prevent opposing arguments is that a person's statements must be true.
Does the DMCA mean anything to you? Guess what! We don't have an equivalent. (Yet...)
Their citizens haven't legal access to foreign media sources
I doubt you've ever been here. I get CNN, Al-Jazeera, Fox, PBS, and many more. In fact, most television stations here are not Canadian. I challenge you to find ANYTHING that would back up your statement.
Actually, we do have more speech restrictions than Americans. I'd hardly call them onerous, though. At least, when it comes to hate speech. As I mentioned earlier, we don't have a DMCA to mess with other forms of speech. Here's the section of our Criminal Code that deals with the subject of hate speech.
Bill C-250, which some people on here have been wailing about, makes a single change to the Criminal Code: it adds "or sexual orientation." to subsection 4 of section 318.
Contrary to the beliefs of tinfoil hate (sic) people, this does not muzzle religion, because subsection 3 of section 319 states that "no person shall be convicted of an offence if,
Because first they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, and did nothing.
And then they came for the black men, but I was not a black man, and did nothing.
And then they came for the women, but I was not a woman, and did nothing.
...
And then they came for me, and there was no-one left to defend me.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Those who believe that rights are arbitrary are usually those who believe that human beings have no particular nature but are in all important ways products of their culture. Generally these folks also believe that rights are an arbitary gift of a culture/society. There is no understanding of rights growing out the nature of human beings and what that nature requires to function well and happily. So to these folks the right to speak and communicate ones ideas and opinions is a mere cultural artifact, and inexplicable gift of society, that one cannot demand if one was so unfortunate as to be born in a society without such. At leeast one cannot demand it as a "right".
Similarly, no one can fight against the absence of rights they consider the norm because rights have no basis and no universality among human beings. So these folks consider seeking to guarantee the rights of others in other culture as "cultural imperialism". To be consistent, if rights are the gifts of society, then the society may take away what it gives.
I can only hope that if we lose some of our rights in the US that some "cultural imperialists" rise to our aid! Rights are derived from the nature of human beings. They are not free arbitrary gifts of the state to be granted or withheld by its whim. Persons who do not have certain inalienable rights are living under some greater or lesser degree of tyranny against their own nature as human beings. Any who wish to help them gain and keep their rights should be applauded rather than being sneered at as "imposing their culture".