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Saudi Arabia Requiring License For Online Media
Beetle B. writes "According to Saudi Arabia's leading English newspaper, Arab News, online newspapers, blogs and forums will now need to register with the Ministry of Information and Culture for licenses to operate, according to new regulations that the ministry announced Saturday it is to introduce. Abdul Aziz Khoja, minister of information and culture, said that the system is 'in line with the development moves that the media sector is witnessing.' He added that the rules do not include any clauses restricting freedom of speech and that the ministry is eager to ensure there is transparency. He also said that the rules will be made open to improvement in the future."
Your sig shows that you aren't qualified to comment on discussions like this. Fundamental failure to understand issues purely to take an anti-government stance draws into question your willingness to actually discuss issues.
Not to say that Saudi Arabia won't abuse this, they will, but suggesting that the US is trying to "regulate" the internet just shows a complete (and willing) failure to understand the topic.
They just revoke your license when you say something they don't like.
Because terrorists might run them, and we have to make sure there is accountability. We can't have an anarchy on the internet, it's too important!
And we won't use it to restrict political views or leaks of embarrassing information.
At first.
No, we should limit their control over us at every turn in which they attempt to usurp more power for themselves.
No Goverment = Anarachy = Bad
Total Government = Totalitarinism = Bad
Limited Government = A lot better than the above two choices.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
but suggesting that the US is trying to "regulate" the internet just shows a complete (and willing) failure to understand the topic.
Perhaps your definition of regulate is different from mine, but hasn't the FCC introduced "net neutrality" regulations? What, if not the Internet, do those regulations apply to?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Governments are the most corrupt organizations on the planet? Yes because everyone knows that big corporations are actually run by angels and bunnies, who would never do anything wrong...
When I was growing up my buddy's dad told us a story. He talked about how he and his dad used to go out into the woods and cut firewood, fish, and hunt without a license. They just took these rights for granted. Hell, he even told us about how he shot a buck in some guy's front yard when he was a teenager. That was life back then in the sticks. Anyways, when he was younger, his dad made the comment to him that, when he got older, one would need a license to fish, hunt, and cut firewood. He also predicted that, eventually, you would only be allowed to do these things in certain, designated parts of the wilderness, rather than anywhere the road ended in bush.
Anyways, those predictions have come true, at least here in the California. That always stuck with me and got me thinking. I have ten bucks that says, when I am my roomate's dad's age, you'll need a license to upload most, if not all, content that you want to the internet. You might require a license to legally access the internet at all. You'll be required to get a license to allow you to consume alcohol, if it's not prohibited outright. And you'll need a license to run a wireless networking node, you know, so that you can't set up a shady mesh network that is not policed.
So those are my predictions for the next 20 years. Every time I see a story like this from Saudi Arabia, China, or, hell, even places like Australia with their internet censorship boogeyman that their government keeps bringing up, I just figure that the U.S. will wait a year or two before enacting those same policies here. I'm so sick of this bullshit about living in the land of the free but continually watching our freedoms get sold to the highest bidder. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but mark my words, the internet will be licensed in the U.S. before long.
Oh, one more, if 3D printing becomes cheap and accessible, you'll be required to get a manufacturing license to produce anything. That one will get enacted under the name of that God-foresaken commerce clause.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
The carriers, obviously, and how they handle your data. They haven't gone and dictated what content can appear on the internet, or any such nonsense like the GP was trying to imply by citing the "Fairness Doctrine".
Sure, but for what value of $Limited...?
It isn't the idea of limiting government that's usually the issue, but the degree to which the limitation should occur.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
The content in Saudi Arabia's domestic mass media is under the control of the government, having to pass through censors before it makes it on air or in print. Furthermore, while the press is said to be privately owned, the editor-in-chief of each newspaper is appointed by the government.
From: http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall09/jawad_n/traditionalmedia.html
Traditional media is already under government control. Thousands of people producing online media are less easy to control, so they're only handing out licenses to those individuals they approve of.
You can't trust politicians, and you can't trust telcos (or any sufficiently large business), but you can control politicians to some degree.
Can you control a telco? You can vote with your dollars - unsubscribe from the only Internet connection available in your area, or if you're lucky, switch to their only competitor who's no better...and that's about all you can do. Good luck convincing all your neighbors and nearby businesses to do the same. Even assuming there's another option, switching still costs money and often causes downtime, so convincing businesses to vote with their dollars is especially difficult - plus they don't have the same interests as humans in the first place. You can't vote to control the telco unless you own a certain percentage of shares, while any citizen can vote to control a politician. A telco is even less likely than a politician to respond to widespread public outrage. And they won't even toss you a doggie treat once every few years like politicians do around election time.
Control of Internet connections can lead to control of the Internet itself. I'd just rather have a government regulation that says "don't fuck with this connection, keep it a dumb pipe" rather than the telcos having control and fucking with the connection in any way that could potentially make them more money.
Government control is a threat to the Internet, but corporate control by the telcos is a more near-term threat. If we kill corporate control there is still government control to worry about right afterward, that's why I think we'll have to move to a community-controlled Internet infrastructure, but stopping corporate control will buy a little time.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel