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German Parliament Enacts Internet Censorship Law
TheTinyToon writes that by a vote of 389 to 128, "the proposed censorship law to block child porn has been passed by the German government. Not surprisingly, a member of the conservative party (CDU) announced plans to also check if the law could be extended to include so-called 'killer games' like Counterstrike, only two hours after the law was passed. More [in German] on netzpolitik.org."
some of the blocks have a very phallic shapes. Like for instance:
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Eew... Think of the children!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
"Once the legislation passes, police officials will have to draw up a list of web sites that feature child pornography and send the list to all telecommunications companies." Might as well just make the list public knowledge. Anyone with the inclination to view the material will be able to find it easier with any list made.
I've got 101 mod points and you can't have them!
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation"
I'll leave you to guess who I'm quoting.
I'll see your hokum and raise you a boondoggle.
If you still needed proof that our political system is crap, this is it.
The vast majority of politicians who voted "yes" on this topic could not even explain the base technologies if you asked them. Nor do they understand how their censorship law works, or what its consequences are. Despite having this pointed out to them repeatedly.
It's becoming rapidly clear, especially with the economic crisis happening at the same time, that we're ruled by people who're simply not good at ruling, nor much else for that matter. Their expertise is in politics, i.e. getting into power, not in anything that matters once you are in power.
If anyone shoots them all, I'll be there to applaud. And yes, I write that with my name on it. These people have nothing to lose and they act like it. While I'm not for violence, I'm starting to believe that at least the danger of violence and personal consequences is required or else our politicians will destroy us all - or, if you think about climate change, kill us all.
Funny how it takes but weeks to throw billions at mismanaged banks, but it's taken years and no end in sight to agree on matters vital to the survival of the damn planet.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
In this news, we see the real issue: That the slippery slope of making some information illegal is too steep. The primary issue that free global flow of information will do is dramatically reduce the need for centralized government power at the country level, in many ways. If people allow their governments to start making some information illegal, even for good reasons, then the norm of censorship will be accepted and expanded.
Frankly, the main driver behind making such images illegal seems to be that we don't have the resources or the effort to catch people who actually harm children - so instead they make the next closest thing police *can* find illegal. This is lazy police work.
I believe that a free and open society would work best if there were no restrictions on *access* to information once it is available. Laws would only restrict behaviors: The bits are not the issue, human behavior is. Thus, no image or stream of bits would ever be illegal (as I see it), only *actions* that people take that directly result in harm to other people. This would make the job of police much harder, yes, but the benefits become obvious quickly when reading this news.
What is the deal with these people? What is their major problem with video games? Did their digital mothers get spawn camped and teabagged when they were children?
As far as I can tell, this is political incompetence and not a general feeling in the population. Gemany is smaller (80 million) and hence has about one quarter the school shootings that the US has (caveat: this is my personal pet theory). The politicians have zero understanding or idea on why these happen and blame something else that they do not understand at all, namely violent videogames. The general population does not care either way, so this is a topic politicians use to give the appearance of "doing something".
Incidentially, for the left wing leaders (SPD), this law could well be the beginning of their demise. There was a public petition against it with something like 135'000 signatures, which is very, very impressive. The way the government (left-right coalition) just ignored all expert testimony and all citicism could well loose them the younger generations completely.
Incidentially, ignoring all experts and all criticism is becoming a trend for the german government. A very dangerous trend with one stupid law being followed by the next. Especially the Internet is something these people are not using and do not understand at all. There are many that have web-pages printed out for them by their secretaries and that is the level they are acting on.
As to the nature of these "blocks": They will be DNS redirections, i.e. trivially easy to bypass. There is already one court decision freeing an ISP from doing such a block for other illegal content (3rd Reich propaganda, I believe), because the court found these blocks to be ineffectve. It appears it took the judge less than 10 Minutes to find out how to circumvent such blocks and he was not impressed.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The golden era is over. We're all doomed.
The exact reverse can be argued. Due to the empowerment the internet has given to Joe Public, the enabling technologies which continue to come to market and the explosion in independent self expression Governments around the world are panicking into passing legislation which they hope will get the Genie back in the bottle. But frankly, they're pissing in the wind. Human ingenuity will win out over the nay sayers maybe for the first time in history because the development of tools is in OUR hands and the infrastructure is essentially beyond the control of individual governments.
This takes a while to explain.
In Germany, too, there were killing sprees in schools. And just like everywhere, people were scrambling to find a reason.
Well, if you ask me, when you look for reasons, look where the sprees happen: In schools. Would you go to a school if you went on a rampage with the goal to kill people? I'd use the subway on a monday morning. Or the shopping mall right before Christmas. WAY more people to mow down.
They were not rampages. That was simply and plainly acts of revenge. Revenge for years of bullying, revenge for years of (preceived or real) favorism of teachers, revenge for being outcast, revenge for being picked on.
But you can't blame the kids that bullied, mobbed and picked on him. They were killed! Accusing kids that were shot is political suicide.
So you need a scapegoat. Without one, people keep looking for a reason. If you can present one, you have a reason and people stop looking.
So, what could we use? We need something our voters don't understand, won't miss if we outlaw it, and it would be nice if it's something their kids do and they don't approve of.
And since the music industry has the better lobbyists...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't wether to agree or disagree with your point. Rather I'll try to complement it.
"violent fantasies of power and grandeur" is, indeed, a natural wish that probably lurks into our reptilian brain. It is a natural inclination of humans and the cause of many evils. I can understand that the government tries to tune it down, but unless we do brain surgery on every newborn, it will fail.
It can, however, provide ways to fullfill "violent fantasies of power and grandeur" that harms no one, that doesn't require to invent ennemies in the population or to run in the streets with a crowbar. Games provide such a way. In a game I can kill hundreds of ennemies per second, I can manage a kingdom, I can wage a war, I can do kung fu, without hurting anyone. The government does not want less violent games, it wants more.
But some unfortunate people have a hard time discerning the border between reality and fiction. More frequently, some people will think that the self-image of power and grandeur that they build in games can be transposed in reality, leading to various violent behavior. What the government wants, in complement with violent games, is a mandatory psychology class for all students that explains the basics of human behavior. How ego works, the various bias we have when perceiving others and ourselves, the values we transpose from fantasies to the real world, and yes, what we tend to crave for: "power and grandeur" and how almost every media play on that desire to addict us.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
The way the government (left-right coalition) just ignored all expert testimony and all citicism could well loose them the younger generations completely.
It already did. So, by politician logic, they stopped caring about us at all.
The SPD (one of the two major parties) recently formed a technical consulting committee which helped the party leaders understand Internet and other modern technologies, and helped them campaign in these new mediums, etc.
Most of the committee walked out on them in disgust after yesterday's vote.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You've not read your history books, it seems.
Hitler's first steps in power were not to start war. It took him six years to attack Poland, even though he had always planned to do that.
What he did during those six years was consolidate his power by silencing dissenting voices. Censorship was one of the methods. Control of the media was another one.
Our german parliament has revived both of these yesterday.
Which means that no, we're not yet in a totalitarian state, but yes, the groundworks are being laid (again).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org