Ireland May Be Next To Censor the Internet

An anonymous reader writes "According to the Irish Times, the government of Ireland — the country that recently made blasphemy a criminal offense — has had extensive talks regarding the censorship of the Internet. Details are a little sketchy, as the documents requested under the Freedom of Information request were denied; however, '...the ongoing high level of discussion on the subject is indicated in the detailed description of each refused item in the list of materials returned by the [Department of Justice].' Ireland seems to be following the well-trodden path blazed by the Land Down Under, justifying censorship with 'won't somebody think of the children!' (and the copyright holders)."

Comments

Blasphemous!

[spammeister]

I think that FSM and other "religions" that rely on the internet to "spread the good word" would be in all rights able to get this law struck down on some sort of trumped-up blasphemy charge.

Re:Blasphemous!

[thijsh]

All religions are created equally, some more equal than others...
It will be fun for a laugh, but if they try they'll see how objective people really are around religion. FSM supporters might even get jail-time because the have invented a religion purely for blasphemous purposes in the judges eyes.

Re:Blasphemous!

[sznupi]

"Think of the children!" would recently seem to be blaspheamous for too significant part of Irish religious "elite".

Though maybe not, taking various meanings of "think" into account...

Re:Blasphemous!

[thijsh]

When you have religion dictating what to do with/for/about children I always think: these are the same people that are against planned parenthood, want children to go to church (and the risk of buggering is a bonus) and preach abstinence and other fables to children. There has been a shitstorm about catholic child-abuse, but it's only the tip of the iceberg because a lot of people still think they will betray their faith/god/pope when they talk about their pedo-priest... that's the saddest part: not that it happened but that religion is so involved people are scared for their soul while it should be the priests that fear the flames...

Re:Blasphemous!

[PakProtector]

They claim they are eating and drinking of him, that isn't the same thing as actually doing it.

To them it is. That's the point. They are necrophages — I don't know if cannibalism technically applies since, in their minds, while he was fully human he was also fully God. So all Catholics are at the very least necrophages, and at the most anthropophages.

So don't turn your back on the damn cannibals, for you are delicious in wafer form when served with wine.

Re:Goodbye Internet

[courteaudotbiz]

If the Web 3.0 is the censored Internet, may I stay at version 2.0 please? Or is it like Sony: "Your version of the Internet does not allow you to connect, so please update to 3.0?"

Re:Goodbye Internet

[codegen]

If you don't upgrade you are a terrorist (or a pedophile)!!

Punishment

[wisnoskij]

And I suppose that the punishment to speaking against God will be stoning to death?
So what happens to all the citizens of Ireland that do not believe in God? I would guess that practicing any other religion is considered blasphemy...

Not a major problem!

[osullish]

I'm Irish, and at the rate this country is falling apart, they'll be nobody left here to access the internet in a few years. This is typical of the current Irish government, faffing about with silly non-existant problems, while failing to tackle the major problems like the economy, the collapse of the banking sector, the arse falling out of the property market, the child abuse scandal involving the catholic church, the alcoholism of the country, the violent crime thats becoming more prevalent etc. We're €81,000,000,000 in the red due to the cronyism of the banking and construction sector and this is what we waste our time with!

Re:Not a major problem!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Why would any sensible person opt to tackle hard problems(especially hard problems that might involve saying upsetting things: for instance "the arse falling out of the property market" almost certainly means that past politicians, and lucky investors, rode a speculative wave, and you are the poor bastard who either has to say "Sorry suckers, it was all a bubble." and get ripped apart by people who believe that they have a natural right to ever-increasing property values, or try to prop up the bubble just a bit longer with some ridiculous tax-credit scheme.) when they could "tackle" easy but emotionally salient ones?

Re:Not a major problem!

[Nathrael]

Well - your country's ruling party is called Fianna Fail for a reason :P .

The Irish fear Nigerian scammers

[Vinegar Joe]

They're always trying to steal their Lucky Charms.

Asinine...

[MikeRT]

Each religion blasphemes the deities of the others, even in subtle ways. Muslims blaspheme Jesus Christ by denying his divinity to Christians. Christians blaspheme Yaweh in the eyes of the Jews by calling Jesus his son. Both blaspheme Allah in the eyes of the Muslim by most of their beliefs about Mohamed and their religious texts.

Re:Asinine...

[john83]

Each religion blasphemes the deities of the others, even in subtle ways. Muslims blaspheme Jesus Christ by denying his divinity to Christians. Christians blaspheme Yaweh in the eyes of the Jews by calling Jesus his son. Both blaspheme Allah in the eyes of the Muslim by most of their beliefs about Mohamed and their religious texts.

Yeah, we know.

Re:Asinine...

[Moryath]

A little thing called "truth" gets in the way of a lot of this.

For instance, if you examine the truthful historical record, Mohammed was a rapist, murderer, pedophile, and habitual liar. In other words, one hell of a politician. He also REDUCED, rather than enhanced, womens' rights in the region (they never fess up to the fact that his first wife was a "MILF" widow who owned and ran her own business, was more than a decade his senior, and basically married him because she was tired of not gettin' any and wanted a boytoy... when he was done it's lucky if a woman gets $10 and isn't beaten to a bloody pulp when she gets "divorced" by her Muslim Hubby).

LDS/Mormon "prophet" Joseph Smith? Yeah. Saw himself as a "prophet" similar to Jesus, but when the angry villagers were at his door, he whipped out a "pepperbox" gun and started blasting. How jesuslike.

L. Ron Hubbard? The term "delusional psychopath" seems to apply quite well. The lies told about him by his follower can easily fill at least one book if not many, many more.

7th day Adventists? How many times have you freaks predicted the end of the world only to realize your "prophets" are a load of hooey, anyways? Great scam to get donations, though, get people to sell everything off and donate you the money figuring they won't need it after the Rapture anyways...

Re:Asinine...

[koiransuklaa]

Your post stands generally speaking but referring to "the truthful historical record" with regards to Muhammad is a bit weird. Historical records from the pre-Islamic period are rare and quite unreliable: they mostly give us insight on what was considered a somewhat plausible story at the time. Records from the islamic time are better (although still fairly few) but as Muhammad was such a hot topic, their reliability is quite suspect as well.

Ireland is a banana republic

[Handbrewer]

And I'm not kidding, I live here at the moment, although I come from mainland Europe. This country is backwards. Think 1940es style, backwards.

I dont know why that is, perhaps its the general repression during British rule, the famine, the isolation from europe, and the dominance of the catholic church, but its so conservative you wouldnt believe it. Women have to go on special ferries to get abortions in the UK - and they risk all kinds of hell if anyone reports it back home. I see teenage mothers all over the place and every day theres new details about the catholic church raping (literally) the entire society. And on top of that, the last 3 taoiseachs has been openly corrupt, and probably longer back than that.

Oh well, atleast the pubs are OK.

Re:Ireland is a banana republic

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

As someone from Ireland, I can tell you that the above post is embellished--but only rhetorically.

Dear Ireland,

[idontgno]

God doesn't need your help. He's a big God, and can take care of Himself. If someone insults Him online, don't you think He can deal with the offender as he pleases without your worthless help?

This is why, IMHO, one of the strongest tenets of true faith truly held is separation of church and state.

Re:Goodbye Internet

[WrongSizeGlass]

If you don't upgrade you are a terrorist (or a pedophile)!!

What if he's just someone who terrorizes pedophiles?

Let's be clear

[Anonymous Coward]

The ultimate goal of censorship -- like every other expansion of government power -- is simply money. The idea of "moral standards", "hate speech", or "national security" are merely smokescreens for what they're really after: billions of dollars in revenue.

At the top of the power pyramid, as long as the money passes through your hands, you win. It doesn't matter where it goes, as long as it passes through your hands, giving you a chance to exploit it for personal gain.

Make no mistake, the primary effect of censorship will be to rake more tax dollars through the hands of the power elite. Every year government costs more, borrows more, and spends more, and yet (surprise) the quality of government only worsens over time. There's a reason why all governments cost more over time, and it sure ain't because governmets are getting better. It's because the more government costs to run, the more lucrative government is for the people who make their fortunes in the business of government.

A Little Primer on Ireland

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

There is one thing people from other countries--especially the US--really need to understand about Ireland.

In Ireland, we do not really have laws. What we have are more like customs.

Now, it's customary for the Dail (Parliment) to pass the odd few reasonable laws, and its customary for the population to--more or less--abide by them. It's also customary at times, for the sake of appearances or to placate foreign interests, for the Dail to pass unreasonable, unpopular or at times ludicrous laws (e.g. blasphemy). On such occasions, it's customary for the population(and indeed the State) to completely ignore the laws as they are passed.

If you want an example of this, there's a story in the same newspaper about Ireland's oldest gay bar, which opened while homosexuality was still actually illegal in the country. While it may have been illegal, no one was actually going to waste their time dealing with it.

Despite this however, I imagine that internet censorship will eventually be implemented in Ireland as it has been in the UK and Australia, and in Saudi Arabia and China. The technologies developed by the west to oppress those in other countries are being turned back on its own apathetic populations. We've only ourselves to blame.

Re:A Little Primer on Ireland

[bigdaisy]

for the sake of appearances or to placate foreign interests

The blasphemy law was passed because the constitution prohibits blasphemy and requires that laws be passed to enforce that prohibition. Nothing had been done about this for decades and nobody cared. The government suddenly decided that someone might take a case against them for failure to legislate for blasphemy, so we got this law that was described as being a trivial law to tie up a few constitutional loose ends and sure the fine is only E100,000! Of course, the proper solution would have been to change the constitution, but...well...down with that sort of thing!

Re:A Little Primer on Ireland

[garyok]

Not yet - wait until the Digital Economy Bill kicks in in about a year and all sorts of sites start falling off the net because they enabled 'copyright infringement'. And that's forgetting the efforts by the Internet Watch Foundation trying to get sites blocked for teh kiddehs. Damn, I'm thinking of starting a Stay the Fuck Out of Other People's Business Party. That's change you can believe in.

Re:Goodbye Internet

[john83]

Given our record on this sort of thing, the ISPs here will cheerfully comply.

I thought cutting taxes saved Ireland!

[FatSean]

Here in the USA I keep hearing about how the Irish economy boomed after taxes were cut to the bone to 'encourage business'. What say you?

Re:I thought cutting taxes saved Ireland!

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a number of years ago. That time period was called the Celtic Tiger (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Tiger). It was a short-lived period of economic growth. But like osullish said, the arse is falling out of everything! :-)

Re:I thought cutting taxes saved Ireland!

[raddan]

Sadly, the idea that Ireland's boom was a result of cutting business tax is a myth, and was covered extensively in this On Point broadcast. The real reason for Ireland's boom was easy credit, the same as everywhere else. Only their bubble was bigger-- partly because the Irish people had never before known a time of wealth, and also partly because Ireland became an attractive place to do business (comparatively low-wage, English-speaking labor)-- a property that disappeared around the same time as the crisis as emigration decreased and wages began to rise. What is true, though, is that the deep cutting of business tax had a detrimental effect on the ability of the government to actually do anything about the crisis-- they simply did not have the funds available to lessen its severity like we were able to in the U.S.

I have many friends who were affected deeply by this. The family of a good friend of mine was nearly employed in its entirety by Dell's Limerick plant. Dell left for cheaper labor in Poland, around the same time that the financial crisis hit. Nearly all of these folks, who, for the first time in generations, could afford to live in their own houses, and own their own cars, went bankrupt overnight. You can debate the wisdom of putting yourself in debt when your fate is tied to a fickle corporation, but the fact is that Dell was fully aware that this would be the result. Dell can kiss my ass if they think I'll ever buy or recommend their hardware again.

Re:I thought cutting taxes saved Ireland!

[Protoslo]

Cutting corporate income tax may not have fueled purely domestic growth, but surely you wont't deny that countless tech companies (e.g. Microsoft) from the U.S. and elsewhere used Ireland as a tax shelter for their IP profits. Even if that didn't bring (many) more jobs to Ireland, it surely helped national tax revenues, at least while the companies were still posting quarterly profits that could be taxed. How can you claim that raising the corporate income tax would have alleviated the crisis? It can be 100%, but if no one is making a profit it won't bring in a dime (and all those tax-shelter subsidiaries would leave immediately).

This strikes me as a totally separate issue than Dell, etc. closing factories. Ireland was never the place for cheap labor, though I think a number of small tech companies--too small to become multinational for tax purposes--did site there in preference to other areas of similar or greater labor cost, like the UK, because of the tax law.

The ability of the United States to lessen the domestic crisis and avoid total financial/credit market meltdown (by ~$2T bailout of the financial sector, between TARP and the Fed) has nothing whatsoever to do with corporate income tax receipts. The Treasury Dept.'s estimate for this year's U.S. corporate income tax receipts is only $156 billion! Compare that to $935 Billion (estimated) from individual income tax (not including payroll taxes). The U.S. can bail and bail just because it has a massive GDP and thus much more credit than Ireland. Perhaps you could make the argument that Ireland depended too much on corporate income tax (which plunges during recessions as individual tax does not) for filling out the budget.

If you do a little research, you see that in 2009, total tax receipts were €34.4 billion, with €3.74 billion (~10.9%) from corporate tax. In 2007, receipts were over €47.2 billion, with €6.39 billion (~13.5%) from corporate tax. The recession took a chunk of corporate receipts to be sure, but the revenue problems are a lot deeper than that. And despite everything, 2009 Irish corporate tax receipts were 13.9% of income tax and VAT receipts combined, while in the U.S. in 2009 corporate tax receipts were 15% of income tax receipts alone, only 7.8% of individual income tax combined with payroll tax (Social Security & Medicare). I think that is actually a pretty strong argument in favor of low corporate tax rates, at least in the current competitive multinational environment (certainly for Ireland, which has a much smaller GDP and thus can benefit more, percentage-wise, from tax competition).

You'd have to have raised the "corporation tax" by 350% (to over 55%) just to make the total tax receipts of 2009 equal to 2007, but of course that would have triggered a massive corporate exodus, the revenue wouldn't have equalized anyway, and there would be higher unemployment as well.

Re:Goodbye Internet

[thetoadwarrior]

Or maybe he's a paedophile terrorist and he's planning on flying a plane into a nursery school complete with camera in one hand and penis in the other.

The Blasphemy law isn't a real law

[Anonymous Coward]

The blasphemy law wasn't passed because we're against blasphemy, it's because we're lazy.

Someone in the Dail(parliament) read the constitution, saw that blasphemy was a crime but there was no punishment associated with it, this meant our constitution wasn't valid, so we needed to come up with a law quick.

Why didnt they just scrap the law? Because that would involve a re-evaluation of the constitution, which would mean we'd have to take out/re-word all the bits that's involve God, who is practically a main character in the irish constitution. Ireland isnt a purely Catholic country anymore and that stuff is incredibly outdated and often times non-sensical, so it would have to go. This would take forever to do and we're far too lazy to do it, so in the end they just made a BS law.

It's impossible to get fined/arrested based on it, you could wheel around a statue of Moses made out of bacon while dressed as the one true, homoerotic Christ and nothing would happen, apart from a few funny looks.

In essence, the blasphemy law is a dirty hack to make the Irish constitution work.

Re:The Blasphemy law isn't a real law

[Hognoxious]

Why didn't they make the maximum penalty a severe telling off?

Goddamn, now they take mah Internets! christ.

[rAiNsT0rm]

So I would basically last about 3 minutes in Ireland before being locked up. Look, I had a lovely dinner, and all I said was "that piece of halibut was fit for Jehova."

Re:Goodbye Internet

[martas]

Plato: “The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” As true now as it has ever been.