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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.
You can't sell Nazi paraphernalia in Germany precisely *because* it is part of their history. They are a civilized nation today and a member of the enlightened European Union. They are sitting proudly on their white horse of superior morality, giving valuable advise on liberty and democracy to the US, Russia and China. They don't want any unpleasant reminders of their not so distant path. As they say, Aus den Augen, aus dem Sinn.
Not buy'n it.
And hell, even if it were a concern, I'll take the risk. And if society doesn't act to protect these children, then it will be those kids who are at risk.
I have no sympathy for freedom of speech arguments when it comes to child-pornography and other such forms of snuff-films.
And you're right: false positives in the criminal justice system is bad. When an innocent person goes to jail for a crime he or she did not commit, that is a stain on the justice system itself (along with a terrible injustice for the individual involved).
Censoring child pornography is not to protect adults who like to watch the stuff. It's to protect those kids who were abused in front of a camera for profit. They have a right to privacy. And that right trumps your supposed right to unprotected "free speech."