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Will Australia Follow China's Google Ban?
gadgetopia writes "A news report in Forbes says that China has blocked Google with its great firewall; now the world waits to see if Australia's Minister for Censorship, Senator Stephen Conroy, will do the same following his outrageous attacks on Google."
Politics might be stupid in Australia, like lots of places. But no, it won't go the same was as China.
We have transparency and rule of law.
However fucked out Communications Minister might be.
--Q
Let's hope that his "McCarthy" moment comes soon. Unfortunately these kinds of delusional windbags are all too often give far too much rope, and while their fall is spectacular, there are a lot of casualties along the way.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It took around a decade to discredit McCarthyism, and there's a small but significant group of right wing pundits who still defend him. While waiting for people like this to self destruct, it's important do your part and give them a good shove in that direction whenever possible.
It took around a decade to discredit McCarthyism, and there's a small but significant group of right wing pundits who still defend him. While waiting for people like this to self destruct, it's important do your part and give them a good shove in that direction whenever possible.
A new generation of McCarthy sympathizers is possible, given that the Texas textbook requirements have now been revised to show McC in a positive light.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
What about censorship of political, religious, and controversial viewpoints? This is about Freedom of expression and Freedom of communication more than it is about any single issue. If the blocking were voluntary so that people could decide individually if their internet should be censored, I could understand. If the black list were publicly available so that people inside and outside the country could audit what is being blocked, I could maybe understand. If the previously leaked block list hadn't included material that they had claimed wasn't going to be blocked, I could maybe, just possibly agree with you.
As it stands, you have a government organization which will have the ability to block any website that they want without warning or explanation. There will be no way for people inside the firewall to know what is and what isn't being blocked. And said government organization has already been shown to be either incompetent or nefarious regarding what is being added to the blacklist. It's a bad situation, and it in fact does trample on human rights.
when your economy is trashed by greedy speculation then fear and hysteria. that's what sent germany to the dogs: the great depression, the collapse of the financial world
aka, what the world just experiences in 2008 (on a much smaller scale, true)
but this historical parallel leads us to four observations:
1. the angry tea partiers, with their brick throwing and insane murderous anger, IS kristallnacht, on a smaller scale
2. intolerant deluded propagandized fools hording guns in the woods are the seeds of fascism, NOT our protectors from fascism
3. we need strong government regulation in the financial sector, and the assholes (greenspan and co) who dismantled the 1930s era (irony) protections need to be grilled a la congressional hearings and roundly castigated for their dangerous irresponsibility
4. hopefully the world, and the usa, can weather this horde of angry morons out of work, the seeds of fascism, without them crystallizing around some modern day hitler-like demagogue and mounting a political (and visceral: they love guns) challenge to civilization. and then let the retards fade away into history
interesintg note: many tea partiers receive government benefits (unemployment, medicaid)... while they rail against government aid. they go to tea party rallies... instead of looking for work. fucking ignorant hypocrites
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/politics/28teaparty.html
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That's exactly what we're claiming. Google believes that information should be free, not controlled by those in power for their own ends, and it has shown a willingness to fight for that freedom.
Before you say "But it's only kiddy porn!" just ask yourself how often bad and self serving legislation is passed under the mantra that it's "for the children"?
I read the internet for the articles.
There's the problem right there: In a free society it's supposed to be a stewardship, not a dictatorship.
I highly doubt most citizens of a free country want their government to restrict where they can go online, much less censor via a secret list.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
It took a decade, but times have changed. Information moves a lot more quickly these days, so I don't think it would take nearly as long to discredit a modern-day McCarthy. Remember that a lot of the support for McCarthyism fell away after the McCarthy hearings were actually broadcast, and people could see what was actually going on. That's where we got the quote, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" It would be much harder for a modern day McCarthy to do something similar.
McCarthyism was a matter of a power hungry person taking advantage of a real threat to increase his own personal power. It isn't a new thing, and has happened from time to time since the beginning of the country, and whenever it has happened, Americans have opposed it as soon as they realized what was going on. The solution is an alert and informed populace, and the result of the modern speed of communication can be seen in that Bush's attempt to consolidate power (based on the real threat of terrorism) was not nearly as horrible as McCarthy's or the federalists'.
On the other hand, if the population supports the power-hungry, then no amount of information will limit them. Fortunately for the US, the vast majority of Americans oppose this sort of thing when they are able to see it for what it is. I suspect Australians are the same.
Qxe4
First they blocked the child porn sites,
and I didn't speak up because I abhore child abuse.
Then they blocked all gay sex sites,
and I didn't speak up because I'm not gay.
Then they blocked all the sites that support terrorists,
and I didn't speak up because I forgot that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
Then they blocked all porn sites,
and I didn't speak up because I like my sex real.
Then they blocked all the all political sites,
and I didn't speak up because who reads those things anyway?
Then they blocked all the web sites complaining about the blocking,
and I couldn't speak up.
(Apologies to Martin Niemöller)
Do as you would be done to.
Our Minister for communications etc. might be an idiot, but we're still a developed Western democracy in which the majority of the population have internet access and Google has most of the search engine market share. Blocking Google would be the end of this government and the internet filter; not a single voter would support it.