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Iran to Filter 'Immoral' Mobile Messages
jb.cancer noted an article running on eweek about plans in Iran to censor phone messages sent within the country. At least it's not quite that bad here yet. But give it a few years!
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This First F***T P**T was sent using an Iranian proxy!
liqbase
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
first, CENSORED, then CENSORED and then, CENSORED!
What, exactly, would make the poster think that it would be possible that text messages in the US would be filtered for content? Has the US censored IMs, phone conversations, e-mail, or any other means of communication, or is this just the nebulous political FUD we've had to endure for so long?
Hmmm ... sounds like the anti-SPAM filters for email.
With the right language and some "ad hoc" grammar mistakes you could foolish the filter.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
At least it's not quite that bad here yet. But give it a few years!
What country are YOU posting from? There is hardly ANYTHING censored in the US- and yes, I recognize that you are attempting sarcasm, but it's rather pathetic. There are several dozen things that I wish were censored, but aren't, and that's a good thing too.
And yes, you can be executed in Iran if you perform Immoral Activities. Shall we wait for that to come to a US City nearest you, too now?
Well thank goodness for this. I know I'm often tempted to send out messages so immoral that I shock myself! So I'm glad there's someone with my best interests (and the best interests of society at large) at heart who is going to take the time to censor the messages I send. Isn't it nice when those kind people in the government relieve you of any need for self-restraint!
With the nuclear stand not getting them anywhere and the need to release the english mailmen mostly because the moderate ones refused to back them on that issue, it is not surpirising to see Iran leaders attacking their homeland ennemies again (they also recently banned "occidental" haircuts, a ban obviously targeted at the teenagers and young adults).
Ahh, i see you fall for the "drunken text message" trick too? Always gets me that one does, if it weren't for a 'sent items' folder on my phone i wouldn't know how many people to apologise to in the morning.
.
First, they came for the "inappropriate" text messagers. But I did not speak out, because I do not have a cellphone.
Then, they came for the "innapropriate" emailers. But I did not speak out, because I do not use email.
Then, they came for the "innapropriate" web-surfers. But I did not speak out, because I do not surf the web.
Then they came for me - and by then, there was no one left to speak out.
After all, look at the success we have filtering spam adverts for viagra, cialis etc. from our mailboxes.
They're also telling barbers there will be no more plucking of Iranian eyebrows under any circumstances. I'm not sure which clause of which Islamic law comments on the evils of plucking eyebrows or text messaging, but it looks like the Iranian government has a firm grasp of the literature.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
The Iranian government should define immoral messages as any message that is not grammatically correct, contains proper sentence structure, and is free of typos.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Don't know why they're bothering. You ever try to write "durka durka, mohammed jihad" with predictive text on? It's a bitch.
Work smarter, not harder.
In a few years you'll still be spouting this sort of paranoid crap, with no censorship taking place.
That sort of loony paranoia doesn't boost your side's credibility, any more than my side was helped by predictions that Bill Clinton would use FEMA regs to declare a national emergency and establish a dictatorship, or the right-wing paranoids who referred to the Oklahoma City bombing as "Bill Clinton's Reichstag Fire".
Why don't you focus on REAL government abuses instead? For example, the "if you have lots of cash then you must be a drug dealer" lunacy known as "Civil Asset Forfeiture", or the suppression of free speech in the name of "Campaign Finance Reform"?
it's full of stars...
Iranians take care of filth using some technology. Good.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
According to this article (well worth reading, despite the newspaper it is from), Iran's not that bad.
Sure, the elections may be dodgy, but it's democratic. Nobody seems to like the leaders as they don't represent the people and it's unlikely they'll be in power long. The people are pushing the boundaries in all walks of life. In fact they're far more Western than a country like Turkey. And as for the political situation, it doesn't sound unlike any other Western country - unpopular leadership, dodgy elections, etc.
But no, the Western media portray Iran as a country hell bent of destroying the West, destroying Israel (the viewpoint of one politician who doesn't have that power), and evil evil evil. But in a country with 40% of people under the age of 15, you really don't want to invade badly like in Iraq, and turn them ALL against you for the rest of their lives.
Now whilst the article above is but one story that gives an idea of life within Iran, it is counter to the rhetoric and fearmongering that is so popular within our media.
Hey you with the bushy eyebrows! Lemme guess, you're Iranian, aren't you? And no, your message never made it through.
Spammers work by making grammar and spelling errors that people recognize anyway. However, in the long list of countries that tried press censorship in the 20th century, all failed because there's always innuendo, sarcasm, satire, etc.
There was a joke in the Soviet Union that went like this: a man is arrested because he was shouting in the street "that man is a disgrace, he made everybody suffer" and so on. In the KGB station he was questioned about who he had been shouting against. "Why, Hitler, of course!" was the answer. The KGB agents apologized and released him. When he was getting out the door, he asked "hey, by the way, who did you think I was speaking about?"
Unless the government controls the publishing hardware, there's no way they can stop people from using double entendre.
Well, that is one way to deal with iran nuke crisis, wait until they kill themselves off. It will be a race between the west and the east. Who will kill themselves off fastest, the west by not fucking enough or the east by chopping off their own heads.
Ah, the human race, and people wonder why we aren't visited by aliens. THEY AIN'T THAT STUPID!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Granted the submitter is trying to imply it will happen in the United States but I still ask, why does it matter to us what Iran chooses for messages in its own country?
It a repressive regime, what are we to expect? Does it violate their own laws? If there is an international law being violated do you really think they care? Its their country, let them govern it as they see fit. No one is losing their life over filtering.
Stop applying our standards to those in the rest of the world. There are things we take for granted many people never had, never wiil, and some probably don't want. Oh I am sure anyone can list a bunch of things ala Strawman style to refute that claim. It still comes down to, its their country, no one is losing their life over it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Since it's Taco that's posting this "hitbait". Is he doing it from Canada or some other country?
But it has luckily been fairly resistant to attacks. Both major parties are equally guilty of this. In the Clinton years, you had Tipper Gore wanting to apply "Explicit" labels to records and the DMCA, which prevents one from disseminating fairly obvious bits of knowledge. Under Bush, you have more of the same.
However, it's been a long time since I've seen a congressional hearing about anything that didn't have a member of Code Pink or some other lefty organization visible in the audience, covered in slogans. If we ever get to the point where they're kicked out before they start yelling and disrupting the proceedings, then I might start to get worried. Until then, this is just the same, tired hyperbole.
And I mean that with the most bitter sarcasm. Insightful? Give me a break! Every time there's a story on censorship you geeks race to try to be the first person to post a variation of the "First they came for..." theme. It's not original, nor is it insightful. It's tired and cliche. If you're really so disturbed by the Iranians censoring text messages, then why don't you go over there and raise hell about it instead of cowering in some server closet tapping out cliches on your keyboard and whoring for mod points?
First they came for the geeks, but I did not object because I enjoyed the fact that b.o. no longer filled the hallways of my office.
Then they came for the dweebs, but I did not object because I did not miss hearing I.T. war stories from days gone by.
Then they came for the nerds, but I did not object because I didn't have a nasally voice.
Then life was grand...
I'm so sick of the moronic editor comments here. "give it a few years" ?!
Seriously, come on. Freedom of expression is worth fighting for. It's even worth carping about on slashdot. Abuses should be publicized and not tolerated.
But what good does this hysterical hyperbole do? The difference between media controls in a country like Iran or China is an order of magnitude away from just about any Western country. Apples and oranges. A whole 'nother ballpark. Whatever other trite expression you want. Does anyone REALLY think that censorship of text messages is a few years away?
This nonsense just makes being concerned with freedom of speech/expression/whatever seem like it belongs in the realm of crazy people.
ur txt msgs cnsr u!
along with women's scarves and men's hair. Your foreign policy is shit, the economy is sliding into the gutter, your best brains are going abroad, your government has worse cronyism than Bush's, what do you do? Have a crack-down on those stylish scarves and some incorrectly trimmed hair. Yeah. That'll get the country right back on track to armageddon the Middle East.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Censorship in the US works rather differently. Watch Good Night, and Good Luck or look for the interviews with ex-Fox reporters about Monsanto. The government here rarely censors directly, with the exception of things it claims fall under the rubrick of National Security. Instead, most censorship happens according to the interests of major corporations, and isn't government sponsored. A lot of things are also censored almost by default--third party candidates barred from presidential debates, for example. There's a tremendous amount of social, psychological, political, and financial inertia that--while not technically censorship--make it very difficult to spread information or viewpoints that don't conform to the norm. (And the norm, sadly, is generally addressed to the Lowest Common Denominator.)
The censorship in the US is subtle--and of a different kind, so that in a sense it's not really censorship at all. You can still stand on a street corner and talk to the stranger next to you and not worry much about being locked up. Even if the stranger's a cop, or a Fed, for that matter.
(We won't censor the messages, btw. We'll build an enormous super-secret database of them. Is that better or worse than explicit censorship?)
Holland is known to be tolerant of gays, Amsterdam especially. Yet the word "homo" is a curse word and not a light one either. In english where you call someone a bastard, even a fucking one, in dutch the person is called gay, same for a stupid idiot or a mean person. Gay each and everyone of them.
A transvestite was recently beaten to death and two male newspapers reporters who pretended to be a gay couple found out just how gay people are viewed, especially by that other hated group, muslim immigrants.
And yet, I could take you on a tour and you would see none of this.
Not that it matters. The people of Iran do NOT matter, the goverment that rules them and that they support (through action or inaction does not matter) is what counts on the world stage.
Many americans claim to be against the iraq war, in fact some sources claim the majority. So how exactly was Bush RE-ELECTED, how the fuck did he get elected in the first place and why are there no efforts to stop the war or at least hamper it?
I would have find the article you linked to a great deal more convincing if the reporter had dressed up as a jew. Or if he had been a she and refused to wear a headscarf, notice how ALL the women in the photos wear one?
White male known to be a reporter from britain is shown a positive face of Iran. Wow, yeah, amazing.
Life isn't a bioware RPG you know. There is no physical representation of the "good" or "evil" of a people. I am reasonably postive that death camp guards on their day off do NOT sprout horns and lurk in dungoens and beat foreign reporters to death for fun.
In fact isn't it amazing racist or at least culterists to claim that "Iran's youth wants western fashion therefore they are not our enemy"? Some of the bloodiests wars in histories have between countries that outsiders could not tell apart.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Nancy Pelosi, Dennis Kucinich, and Howard Dean are such raging conservatives that it makes my stomach turn sometimes. If you perceive both parties as being conservative, you must be pretty far out there.
You dont know a jack about iran. Islamic Revolution guards rule that country. They are financial (own many big companies) military ( they have their own military) secret service (of their own) apart from the government. Nothing revolutionary guards organization does not allow passes through. Democratic my butt.
Read radical news here
Some of my friends are quite lazy and will not deviate from the first suggestion their phone's dictionary gives them. I've become quite adept at deciphering what predictive text words are likely to correlate to, and that "Safe? sub" is likely to be "Paddys Pub"
I suspect the Iranians will be able to cyber their "citags" and "dual" their "yet" "aunts" just as well as anyone else. Then there's l33tsp3ak, backwards text, intentional misspellings, number sequences, and the like.
I thought they didn't like the taste.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Do you remember when slashdot was a bastion of intellect, back before it was overrun by paranoid 8th graders?
Iran is degerating into a feudal theocracy. nasty place for women, gay men or anyone with a brain & no beard.
Anyway, just tell those wayne cars they cannot censor text messages, so they can just far cough, the stew peed ar swipes!
Sorry you can't send that message because it contains lyrics used in a song and sending those words as a text message is a copyright violation. -The RIAA
a competitive advantage for creative perverts.
In the good old days of censorship in the US, code for female genitalia included: fish, jelly, lemon, coochie, coffee grinder, and honey dripper. "Mojo risin'" wasn't about casting a hex, it was a reference to male genitalia. "Jelly roll" was, of course sex.
The Andrews Sisters were a WW2 era girl group that sometimes covered blues songs in an extremely non-blues, up-tempo close vocal harmony style. I heard a piece on NPR recently where they were singing about how much they love "fish for dinner", which in the day must have been unintentionally hilarious to people who understood blues slang.
So listen up:
Male genitalia can be referred to as: bald headed hermit, bone, broom handle, country cousin, crack hunter, dipstick, gizzard tickler, gravy-maker, gully-raker, joystick, kidney scraper, little brother, middle leg, Old Blind Bob, one-eyed milkman, peacemaker, pink flute, private member, rump splitter, Sir Martin Flagstaff, sugar stick, tally whacker, tube stake, tug mutton, wedding tackle or willie.
Female genitalia can be referred to as: baloney flaps, bean, box, catcher's mitt, clap farm, coin slot, front bottom, fur burger, honey pot, hoo ha, jelly, kebab, lemon, meat curtains, pink taco, pocket, tater, whisker biscuits or yum-yum. Obvious variations can be built from these: fish taco, vertical taco, haddock pasty.
Coitus can be referred to as: balling, banging, beast with two backs, boinking, bonking, bow-chika-bow-wow, bumping uglies, buttering the corn, chasing the tail, cooking sausage, docking the thumb drive, doodling, down time, drilling, exchanging DNA, fluid mechanics, funny business, game time, giving a good seeing to, grinding coffee, hitting it, home run, horizontal folk dancing, how's your father, laying pipe, monkey business, nailing, next stop tuna station, on the job, playing doctor, plugging, plowing, riding, roasting, rock and rolling, spelunking, spinning the cheese, squeezing lemon, or taking the big onion.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Check it out. They're a little out there, and they'll never have any success, but they exist.
Yes I'm talking about YOU, Taco.
We all love to bash Bush and hate America, often with good reason... but please, at least give it *some* thought and make sure there's at least some shred of evidence before blindly and mindlessly criticizing everything USA.
Freedom of speech and lack of government censorship is one of the few things that America still has the best of, more so than anywhere else - even the wondrous paradise called Europe. Here you can express support for an unpopular political ideology or make fun of a crazy religion and still expect to keep your freedom. Not so in many parts of Europe; you can be arrested for doing just that.
Living in Israel, I'd love to believe you. But seeing as: ....your posting is basically crap.
- most of the countries round here are full of Muslims and they aren't pushing for a Caliphate (not caphilate you ignoramus)
- and the fact that most of the Muslims in Europe actually ran away from the traditional societies they lived in previously (and seems they liked it enough to stay in Europe)
However, it would be an interesting variation on the "we buy your oil, you buy our goods" relationship. It would be "you keep the oil, and we take all your loonies to make sure you don't get toppled". Sounds quite reasonable actually and certainly cheaper than a land invasion.
29 mpg. YMMV.
Isn't this kind of crap easily gotten around with leetspeak (substituting similar numbers/symbols/creative misspellings for the original words)?
So, is histroy going to repeat itself???e volution
Among the reasons stated for the revolution:
Focusing of government surveillance and repression on the People's Mujahedin of Iran, the communist Tudeh Party of Iran, and other leftist groups, while the more popular religious opposition organized, grew and gradually undermined the authority of his regime;
Wikipedia..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_R
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Anyone else find it ridiculous that we're seeing all the reports of how oppressive Iran is to it's people? WHO CARES? Honestly. If the people there didn't like it, and were fed up, they'd fix it. I'm seeing this as a preamble to invasion/attack.
Get everyone talking about how horribly oppressive the government is so they don't feel so bad about blitzing them.
Not happening here.
You're nothing; like me.
IMHO, the most insightful thing about your post is that you've only hit Score:3, Insightful. I guess Slashdot isn't so different to the general population either.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Really? I remember a time nobody would tolerate the military-guarded, razor-wire-fenced places called "free speech zones." Well, I'd like to believe there was such a time. Maybe it's just that nobody had the cojones to pen up protesters before now.
But while we don't filter the message, we are starting to filter the meduim. What about the threat of the NSA reading your internet communication, the threat of RIAA lawsuit or campus police if you fire up Bittorrent to download Ubuntu 7.04, the threat of being brutalized by police for civil protests?
By some subjective measures, there may be more to lament in losing the ability to say what you once were able to here than to lose the ability to say things you were never able to in Iran. Those text messages would probably get you arrested in Iran, and would have for quite a while now. Fark, 4chan, and Something Awful have a few stories about posters that had the Secret Service or FBI showing up for a little chat or three. Iran's censorship is lamentable but understandable, but the chilling effects in this country are becomming alarming.
Not saying we should have an alarmist attitude, but "an order of magnitude" we might not have.
The first Censored text message within Iran: gr8 all ah null
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
right on
It might work.
A court in Dubai has ruled that a man can divorce his wife by sending her a text message. Abdel Salam Mohammad Darwash sent a message to his wife's mobile phone which simply read: "Why are you late? You are divorced."
Two hours after sending the message, Mr Darwash regretted his message and the couple went to court to determine whether or not they were in fact divorced.
Under Islamic Sharia law, a man can divorce his wife by a stating "I divorce thee" three times. If he makes the statement only twice, the husband can change his decision within three months. Women do not share this right. The Dubai court found that a text message is a valid means of communicating the statement.
http://www.out-law.com/page-1763
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I saw this on bash.org a while ago, and I thought of it the instant I read this headline:
...
<Cobra> so i was watching a pr0n
<Thunder> wait
<Thunder> why u guys always say pr0n instead of porn ??
Thunder has been kicked by Guardian (No porn on this channel !)
<Cobra>
<Cobra> so i was watching a pr0n
You are kidding right? Do you know how many cases in court right now name people who never fileshared, or couldn't have? Our very own NewYourCountryLawyer is involved in a big one, check out his blog. Then there is the mindshare that media companies get when they tell you filesharing is wrong. How many people are turned off by OSS because it relies on "file sharing?" How many times do you hear from your students who think they know law that Linux distributions are illegal because they are copyright? I know I have to correct that misconception a few times a year.
Yes, it is. You have read the reports on the NYPD infiltrating peace groups, right? If we start hassling people for lawful activity, no the activity doesn't become unlawful. However, how many people might just give up because, franky, they don't want to deal with that crap. If the police show up at your house, or God forbid, the Secret Service, do you really want to explain to your neighborhood, friends, and employer why? (seriously, two Farkers got raided by the Secret Service, and it wasn't for threats against the president or for counterfeiting, it was pretty much just off-color remarks and an unspecific threat) That's a chilling effect. It would make a tenured professor at least think twice before saying or writing something.
Now, I'm in the same opinion boat as you, and frankly not even imprisonment will make me censor myself in important (and most non-important) matters. I suspect you are of the same mind. However, censorship isn't just removing our words, it's containing our message. We don't have problems with it like Iran, far from it, but we do have problems with it. And while armed guards and razor wire don't stop your speech, it sends a message to citizens here that the government has the right to control what was once lawful speech, and it sends a message to citizens in Iran that not even the US is free from the heavy hand of government speech restrictions.
Yeah, give it a few years, and we may be cutting peoples heads of with scimitars too! Is this level of retarded analysis really what slashdot is all about? Yes. Classic slashdot dreck.
Those websites weren't censored, they chose to take down copyrighted material to avoid a potential lawsuit. They CHOSE to take it down. They could have gone to court, and they could have won. They CHOSE to avoid FINANCIAL consequences.
If you think this is the same as genuine government censorship, you're too oblivious to what real censorship means to form a useful opinion on the subject.
What's so surprising here? This is the same country that regularly executes gay teenagers guilty of anal sex. They neighbor countries where it's basically legal to beat and rape a woman in the street for being Christian. Talk about harsh.......
If the jury is prepared to die in the event the accused is exonerated, then yes - let's have the death penalty. If there is no death penalty for the wrongful administration of the death penalty, then that is an even bigger hypocrisy. We have the benefit of education, centuries of judicial experience. Some emotional restraint on the state's part is necessary. Besides, warehousing humans is cheaper than the over-extensive due process (necessary appeals to avoid the inevitable mistakes) necessary in death penalty convictions.
This will exclude EVERYONE from the army. In fact you are disqualified. You feel that the "poor" people are less then you, so you would not persom to full potential because you'll feel they are underqualified, inadequate etc etc.
BUT poor people you claim are the majority, but poor people feel rich people like you are pampered snobs. So they wouldn't perform well.
You can't have any combination of race since ALL races think something about ALL other races.
And what about rednecks vs city slickers. West coast vs East coast. Democrats vs Republicans?
By your logic you would have at most an army of one because be honest, deep down we ALL feel everyone else is just a tad inferior to ourselves. Be honest, I do, and you do. The problem is that I am right. :)
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
For a while the EU NBC (I think) also aired the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno". In the ads it ran an advetising campaign were it showed the benefit of ads sponsered programs by comparing a full colour thick ad filled newspaper with a thin black&white non-ad filled newspaper. Same with a news show. There were others as well.
Now this was an ad, even the most rabid american would agree on that. What I put to you is that this was propangda of the same level as shown in other parts of the world and NO not limited to the soviet union, nazi-germany or the UK (in no particular order of evil).
I am even willing to go further, most ads are not just ads for the product itself. At the most obvious level this is well known. A ford car ad is ALSO an ad for cars in general, an ad for a musical could ALSO get people intrested in going to other shows.
But there is another level, an ad can also be seen as an ad/propagana for the consumer society/capatalism. You got old proganada films from long gone societies that show you all the good things the people can enjoy if only they follow the way of life. Does western tv not show exactly the same, follow this way of life and you too can have a car, a big house, a beautifull husband/wife, dog, cat, kids, no piles etc etc?
Offcourse since the western way of life actually manages to deliver to a lot of people (or at least seem too) people don't see anything wrong with it. While there is a difference between propaganda telling you can have X and you can't and telling you can have X and you can, it doesn't change the nature of the message.
Now ask yourselve this, WHO advertises/tell us that western media are free and uncensored and in the best interest of the people?
Ain't it funny that the big coorperations that own the media happen to tell us that the system that gives them their power is good for us?
It might be, just because their is a huge profit to be made on dental hygiene does NOT mean brushing your teeth ain't good for you, it is just a tiny bit suspect.
In the west there is censorship. State mandated censorship and this includes the US. Restricting access to a person based on anything is censorship. 18+ sites anyone? Banning access to kiddieporn sites?
We are told this is good for us. It might be, but I would still want to know what the motivation is of the people telling us this is bad.
In Iran it is easy to see the motivation, control. In the west it is harder. OR could that just be because we in the west have been brainwashed into this?
A tiny current issue in holland right now is animal sex. Human sex with animals. The act and records of it ain't illegal at the moment unless the animal is hurt. I believe we share this with the parts of the US but for some reason holland is now claimed as the home of animal porn (GO DUTCH!)
There are now proposals to make this illegal.
What is my point? WHY should this be illegal (other then the animal cruelty thing, wich is already illegal, and lets face it, a female horse is NOT going to even notice when a human male fucks her, no not even if you are black)?
Because society tells us it is so, christian culture to be precise. Japanese culture has different routes and there animal porn is also legal. What is intresting to see is the different reaction, while both cultures have a "ewh" reaction, only in the west do you also get a moral reaction. The japanese just find it disgusting but not sinful.
I am generalizing to the extreme here
BUT who is currently telling the dutch people about this news event? The media. Newspapers owned by a handfull of publishers and tv stations often with known backgrounds (wether christian or progressive does not really matter, they have an agenda).
What is 'good' in holland is that for now we are still fairly balanced. For the EO (christian loonies who are extremely left-wing liberals compared to american loonies) there is the VPRO (so liberal it makes the most liberal american seem like a the
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There, did that make sense? When "they" define what is immoral ANYTHING you do can be judged as being immoral. In fact, you nick is immoral. Please hold out your hands so I can chop them off.
What do you mean my post is immoral, I NEED MY HANDS!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That's not censorship. Censorship is the Government throwing people in prison for saying things that don't harm anyone directly. A corporation not publishing something that it doesn't think its customers are interested in has nothing to do with censorship. People not listening to you is not censorship.
You have the right to express your opinion without being arrested and thrown in prison for it. You do not have the right to shove your opinion down my throat, or anyone else's.
I don't reply to ACs
"I bet you think murder is legal too, after all, you can CHOOSE not to murder people, so it must be legal, right?"
No moron. First, one is CRIMINAL, one is CIVIL. So your moronic analogy fails on that basis.
That being said, where did I say anything about illegal or legal? Those website chose to take down the material because doing so was cheaper. THAT'S ALL. How your idiot ass finds a comparison to murder in there I'll never know.
"it's the victims' fault for complying with the law instead of fighting it?"
Sorry jackass, but no way do you get to bitch about being a victim if you fail to stand up for yourself when given the opportunity. If they were really victims, GO TO COURT AND PROVE IT. It's not like they'd be the first to fight the DMCA in court and win. So what exactly were they afraid of? Oh, right losing money. They made a CHOICE. Are you fucking blind, I said that in my previous post. If you want to claim victim status, you have to stick up for yourself.
I don't know why I'm responding to you, because your "murder" comparison is too stupid to justify, but I felt the need to explain to you why you're wrong.
Which you are. And you're an idiot.
I heard from someone who travelled in the Middle East that you are practically assaulted with X-rated homosexual pictures and video clips from strangers on your cell phone over there.
f dey txt lk kdz hre, n01 wl undRst& em Nyway!
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Or those websites could go to court (govt) WIN and get the court (govt) to make plaintiff pay their legal fees. You left that part out because it completely invalidates your argument.
But here's the real point you're missing. In government censorship, government says YOU CAN'T SAY/WRITE/DISPLAY THAT. If they dislike it enough, they have the power to stick a gun in your face and, potentially, remove your ability to say anything EVER AGAIN.
In the example given, a THIRD PARTY says WE DON'T WANT YOU DISPLAYING THAT BECAUSE IT'S OURS. Then they enlist the GOVT to to decide the merits of that argument, while said websites ALSO get to enlist the GOVT to decide the merits. THE GOVERNMENT IS A DISINTERESTED PARTY, instead of the instigator of the action. And if you lose? You lose stuff. Not your freedom, not your life, just stuff.
I think you missed the ENTIRE point.
Sorry.
... Slashdot is adding a 'Behead' moderation tag.
Have gnu, will travel.
I can't even figure out what people are sending me in SMSes half the time, and you're going to tell me that a country is going to be able to parse out immoral messages from these messages... Hah!
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
"No. Both are illegal, both are the government's responsibility. The difference between criminal and civil offences isn't important unless you want to disagree with me but can't find a real reason."
How about this real reason, criminal= take away your freedom, civil= take away your stuff. To those of us who understand what prison is versus what money is, it's a very real distinction. But clearly you're too stupid to grasp that.
"We're talking about censorship. When the government makes it illegal to say certain things, that is censorship."
No, dumbass, YOU are talking about censorship, the rest of us are talking about the DMCA and takedown notices. They are not the same. And since the cases for the websites were never made, nothing was declared illegal. So you lose there. More importantly, this isn't the government saying you can't say things, it was a company saying the websites infringed on their stuff. Your inability to see the difference does not negate the difference.
"And why is it cheaper? Because the government constructed a legal system that makes it very expensive to defend yourself,"
No moron, it's FREE to defend yourself. To have someone qualified do it for you (like surgery, mechanical work, dentistry etc.) you have to pay for a professional. Please rant about the "medical system" making surgeons so expensive that the well motivated individual can't operate on their own brain, and how that's a huge loss of freedom. That has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE LEGAL SYSTEM and everything to do with basic economics. God damn man, how stupid are you?
"The victims were scared into being quiet by the government. That is censorship."
No, you lie here again, the GOVERNMENT had nothing to do with it, it was the THIRD PARTY. THEY initiated the action moron.
"Your claim was that's not censorship because you can choose not to publish the offending material. That is exactly equivalent to saying that the government doesn't punish people for murder because you can choose not to murder anybody. It's ridiculous logic."
I agree it's ridiculous logic, so why would you use it? At least you admit it. That was not my claim though retard, my claim was that it was not censorship because the "offending parties" could choose TO display it, if they believed they could win a civil action or were willing to pay the fees necessary. In true government censorship, they put a gun in your face and tell you to shut up or get locked up, you DO NOT get a choice. Your analogy is both imbecilic and wrong.
"I triggered that emotional response and you felt the need to flame me because the cognitive dissonance causes you pain. At no point did you question whether I was actually right or wrong, I doubted American Freedom[tm] and therefore I'm subject to your anger and scorn."
This really has nothing to do with "free" vs. "not free" and everything to do with reading comprehension, i.e your lack of it. You have my scorn because you post an incoherent response to a well reasoned position, topped off by a hyperbolic comparison that doesn't apply. You triggered my response because you're a moron who attempts to argue about something he hasn't bothered to comprehend, while simultaneously acting self-righteous. As to whether you're right or wrong, you're not even coherent or intelligible. WTF makes you think that you could be right about anything when you CAN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND THE POST YOU'RE REPLYING TO?
You're still an idiot, only now you're an idiot with some information. Use it, or remain stupid like you are, I couldn't care less. I suspect your ignorance is a choice though, not an accident. There's really no other way to explain the gross errors in thinking and reason you've displayed. No one could remain as stupid as you without a conscious effort to do so. I mean, fuck man, you managed to be wrong about every single thing you posted. EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING YOU SAID WAS WRONG. How else is that possible but through conscious effort?
And I'm Canadian, you fuckwit.
"Muhammad, you fargin suminumbatch. You....." ...we'll have to censor that.
...okay, let that one through.
..censor the message. Then kill his family.
"Destroy the infidels"
"Vote against Ahmadi-nejad"
They should just do it the good ol' merkin way. Let them type whatever they want... read the messages.. complain about them reading OUR messages... charge per syllable THEN throw some advertisements in.
Where does porn come into play?
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
Note to self: remember to empty SilentSheep's "Sent Items" folder too next time.
The government should only issue "civil unions" to people who apply gay straight or otherwise so long as they are living together as an economic unit. If two college roommates spend 4 years living together in the same house, economically they are basically married, they share the same bills, property, etc. Let them pay taxes and have the legal muscle to handle things like changes to bills, statuses, whatever in the event the other is away or incapacitated like any other married folk.
Marriage implies more than cohabitation - it implies a long-term commitment, one that's probably too easy to get out of today. Such relationships predominantly have positive benefits for society, one of which is stable family units and productive children. We need children, now more than ever. Children learn different things from mothers and fathers, so it's best if we can provide them one of each (obviously there are cases where this doesn't work out correctly, but good for everybody for trying their best).
To encourage such arrangements we provide benefits to make it easier to engage in them. We also have penalties for breaking such arrangements - see also 'alimony'.
From what I've seen and heard the homo- and hetero-sexual advocates of Civil Unions want all of the benefits and none of the obligations. Nice of them for trying, but as a society we're not obligated to give (willingly or under threat of force) our money to anybody who asks for it - we get to decide as that society who we think deserves it, and our payback is part of the equation.
Some of them simply want to do it for selfish financial reasons. Some of them are trying to force acceptance of homosexuality as a government-sanctioned 'proper' way to behave, whatever that means to anybody. No matter what the reason, it's agenda-driven -- otherwise they'd just get a set of contracts and Powers of Attorney drawn up - and if enough people were in the market, Staples would have a do-it-yourself kit for $40 on CD.
I have some friends who "don't believe in marriage", for whatever reason, but they have such contracts/agreements setup with their domestic partners. Some of them did so decades before the current debate was raging in the media. Yeah, maybe they need to meet with an attorney every decade to make sure things are up-to-date with current law, but none of them are asking me for a hand-out.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It already happened with Christianity, so indeed why not with Islam.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Only desensitizes people to the issues at hand. How peoples' minds were changed by "Bush is Hitler" slogans?
I said "what makes you think it's possible" in the political sense. As in, how long would a mechanism that censors communications last here in the US? Of course it's technically possible. When I said "have they ever done it?", I was referring to the story submitter's phrasing, since it would imply that we had taken steps in the direction of exercising prior restraint of private communication.
So, bzzt you fail basic reading comprehension.
And of course the people in power are ruthless, greedy scum. What type of person tends to want to have that much power? Tick. Tick. Tick... Ruthless greedy scum!
Political FUD is everyone's right, I agree. I just don't see how an article about Iran doing something so draconian is seen as yet another opportunity to ham-handedly bash the administration.
But keep on crying wolf, by all means. Nothing desensitizes people to actual bad things like droning on endlessly about imaginary bad things. Wonder why people weren't more pissed off about Abu Ghirab? The left had been accusing Bush of running secret death camps for years beforehand. Wonder there's not more outrage about Iraq? The left was declaring it a Vietnam even a few months before it began.
Sounds like it's time to publish the addresses of all the Cultural Council Members so people all over the world can help "test" the censurship.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
29 mpg. YMMV.
Of course, the fact that the west is full of pissed off Iranians who HATE the theocracy, many of whom are now rather wealthy, will only exacerbate the situation. There are more than a few Persians in the USA who have enough money to arrange for a couple of satellites to hover over Iran in geosynchronous orbit, providing free routing for any encrypted data that dissidents care to send.
Islam is not spreading anywhere. Islam is terrified of being overwhelmed by Western ideas and 'culture'. And with good reason. Within 3 generations, all organized religion will be finished.
UMG vs Lindor: So bad, all of the VERY circumstantial evidence against Ms. Lindor is being thrown out. The examination of her HDD provided no evidence against her. Media Sentry flagged her, and the expert from the RIAA was shown to be a total fraud. By far this is the most interesting case. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/#UM
Capitol vs Foster: Again, really bad, so bad it seems the RIAA pissed off the judge with "questionable motives." You don't want the judge to use those words, they tend to be rather forgiving people. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/#Cap itol_v_Foster
SONY v. Merchant: My favorite of the bunch. Not only did they name a dead man as defendant, his lawyer wrote possibly the most hysterical letter I've read in a long while. The lawyer agreed to everything, securing the HDD, getting two experts, etc, but threatened the hell out of the RIAA, including pointing out they have no standing to practice law in California. Read it, it's great. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007 /03/model-letter-for-lawyers-representing.html
I can think of two more times off the top of my head where the RIAA had their cases dismissed with prejudice (means they couldn't provide near decent evidence, and are not allowed to bring suit again). That's at least 5 cases that have made the cable news networks. Ray Beckerman's blog is a good place to look. He defends people against the RIAA for a living, and is a pretty decent guy. A biased view to be sure, but a good place to start.
You're not aware of the term "context" are you moron?
Clearly not. I'll never understand why idiots like you can't discuss something "in context".
Or, right because you're stupid.
We were discussing this incident. You're discussing rape. Rape is not censorship.
Do you see now why you're too stupid to live?
Did you not read the article? - it's MMS they are talking about.
"You're the fucking idiot, you asshole. Self-censorship is even more insidious than the overt kind."
Too bad this isn't censorship, self or otherwise. It's an economic decision. Perhaps one day when you're not busy mindlessly wedging Bush related nonsense into every discussion you can find you'll educate yourself enough to know what that means.
In the meanwhile, you're busy saying stupid shit that no one reads because your first statement is retarded, and so gets you dismissed.
And rightly so.
STFU now. Yes I mean self censor.
I heard an interesting comment on NPR the other day by a criminal defense attorney. He argued that victims right laws add a second "thumb" to the scales of justice, one obviously not on the defendant's side of the scale. The state already represents society's interest in criminal matters. Why do crime victims need additional representation?