France's Citizens Expected to Help Build Internet Blacklist

Corrupt links to a Sydney Morning Herald article which begins "The French state and internet service providers have struck a deal to block sites carrying child pornography or content linked to terrorism or racial hatred, Interior Minister Michel Alliot-Marie announced on Tuesday." The article is thin on details, but what it does say is bad enough: "Under the French plan, internet users, via a platform, will be able to signal inappropriate sites and the state, receiving the complaints in real time, will then decide whether the sites are to go on a so-called black list to be passed on to internet service providers to enforce site blocks." It sounds like the perfect way to organize an especially malicious DDoS attack. The French government has never been shy about wanting to "protect" French people by censoring Internet content, though.

Comments

Michèle

[Mornedhel]

It's Michèle, not Michel. Wrong gender. (And damn you /. ! I shouldn't have to know HTML entities to type simple accents !)

Re:Racial hatred:europe::gun control:us

[Mr2001]

But the laws have not had that effect; crime has only gotten worse. Not so. Crime rates in NYC are far lower today than they were 20 years ago - the crime rate there is comparable to Boise, Idaho.

New gun control laws were passed in 2006; in 2007, the homicide rate was 20% lower than it had been in 2006 (although one can't be sure that's a direct result of the gun laws). It hadn't been that low since the 60's.