Slashdot Mirror
EU Considering Regulating Video Bloggers
Aglassis writes to tell us that recent proposed EU legislation could require anyone running a website featuring video content to acquire a broadcast license. From the article: "Personal websites would have to be licensed as a "television-like service". Once again the reasoning behind such legislation is said to be in order to set minimum standards on areas such as hate speech and the protection of children. In reality this directive would do nothing to protect children or prevent hate speech - unless you judge protecting children to be denying them access to anything that is not government regulated or you assume hate speech to be the criticism of government actions and policy."
Another question is: should this work? I am not a historian, but wasn't the whole point of broadcast licenses to prevent frequency interference? Is that really relevant with the way things work on the Internet today?
Once again the reasoning behind such legislation is said to be in order to set minimum standards on areas such as hate speech and the protection of children.
As for protecting the children, I think they'd be more interested in regulating MySpacesterKut et al. I mean, that's where all the pedophiles are gathering, which represents an ACTUAL threat to children, rather than the viewing of naughty videos, which represents... well, no real threat at all. I mean, WTF?
But more to the point: anytime someone wants to do something "in the interests of the children", doesn't your bullshit detector go off like crazy? Mine did, so I thought this through:
1) Hate speech and naughty content can occur equally as well via the media of text and pictures. Video doesn't necessarily add anything to either one. In fact, any smart, savvy Holocaust denier will tell you that text is a far more efficient and cost-effective method of defaming Jews.
2) Text (chat, specifically) is really the ONLY thing for which you can make a halfway-serious argument about the protection of children online. The idea that videos will somehow threaten children (they'll come get you in the middle of the night!) is just inane.
3) Broadcast license fees open up a new revenue source for the government, which can be used to directly tax internet content (which so far is nearly unheard of).
I mean, this is practically a QED: It's about money, specifically taxes.
That was the whole point, preventing people from stepping on each others frequencies. The stuff having to do with foul language and whatnot was a nice side benefit- after all you can't let people curse on the airwaves if they are public, can you? So you get rid of foul language without specifically curbing speech and it's a nice middle ground as long as you have to impose a broadcast licensing system anyway.
But we have gotten used to the side benefit and lost track of the original purpose for the licensing infrastructure, which is almost gone. The only reason to have broadcast licenses anymore is to control what people are allowed to say and which words are to be included in the infamous unutterable seven, and to collect the fines levied on people who say the wrong thing.
Wow. That was the quickest reverse slam on the US I've seen on Slashdot yet. The article has nothing to do with the US, the person you're replying to didn't mention the US, yet you managed to make it all about the US. Well played, asshat!
Come now, you don't think this legislation has anything scientific reasoning behind it, do you? It's just a convienent way for the govenment to exercise control over free speech and raise revenue.
I think someone is being influenced by the RIAA. If you can manage to get this passed, then they could start regulating all of the media including ALL music, and video. Think about it. They mentioned other Countries will also go along with this plan. What better way could they come up with to halt it all? First the media, next is wav mp3 and so on. Total control in the end.
Not at all! We are talking about people who are "designated enemy combatants". They may have been captured anywhere, at any time, and may not have committed any crime at all, let alone war crimes.
Jose Padilla, for instance, was arrested in Chicago, when he got off the plane at O'Hare airport. Not on a battlefield at all.
The Bush regime would like you to think this: "these repressive laws apply only to dangerous criminals - if you aren't a terrorist you have nothing to fear". But until people have had a chance to defend themselves, how can you possibly know that they are criminals? Answer: you can't. Well over 200 people held as "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo have been released and allowed to return to their homes. These people turned out NOT to be enemy combatants after all, didn't they? But it took years for this to be established, not least because they were unable to offer any defence to the charges which were made against them because they did not know what the charges were! How can you offer an alibi to disprove a secret denunciation? "I wasn't there your honour!" "I didn't do it!".
On the basis of secret "evidence" (oxymoronic - secrets are by definition not "evident"), Guantanamo inmates were held in pretty ugly conditions, for years. Shackled, abused, some of them literally beaten to death. Some of them despaired and committed suicide. They are denied the basic human right to justice which the US constitution supposedly guaranteed. This is legalised now! Now, under US law, you are no longer innocent until proven guilty. The president can legally just pick up the phone and "designate" you, and you can be "disappeared". What's to prevent abuse? How you can have any confidence that these disappearances are even based on good intelligence? Going by the record, I wouldn't trust the intelligence agencies to sit the right way on a toilet seat.