Australia Ranked Fourth In Internet Freedom

mjwx writes "A report published by Freedom House has placed Australia in fourth in Internet Freedom, below Estonia, the United States and Germany. Freedom House highlights the lack of actual censorship in Australia pointing out that the highly unpopular proposed ISP level censorship has been shelved since the 2010 Australian election. The Freedom House report is available here."

Comments

Below Germany?

[bbqsrc]

I'm pretty sure Germany has actively filtered their internet before, and possibly still continue to do it. As for America, hello ICE domain seizures? Wtf.

Re:Below Germany?

[Kreigaffe]

I'm pretty sure Germany filters out anything mentioning that party that was real big in Germany a few generations back..

Re:Below Germany?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear it heils from another epoch.

HAR HAR HAR see what I did thar?

Re:Below Germany?

[rolfwind]

No.

That's a pretty stupid statement. If you want to look to active denial of past activities, look to Japan.

BTW, how's the native population doing in the States?

Re:Below Germany?

[hweimer]

As of now, there are two websites (Stormfront and NSDAP/AO) that are being filtered at several smaller ISPs in North Rhine-Westphalia. What you might heard of is that there is a controversial law that allows the German federal police to add alleged child pornography websites to a secret mandatory filtering list. However, this law has never been applied and will be repealed soon. In other news, most of Germany's states seem to push for web filtering of illegal gambling, but I doubt that this is going to happen in the end.

Re:Below Germany?

[rolfwind]

For what it's worth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Germany
and:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_by_country

Re:Below Germany?

[joocemann]

From my experience the Germans are largely not in denial at all, but are rather overly apologetic for and vehemently opposed to the 'nazi' idea. This serious opposition is probably why the OP might be talking about filtering 'nazi' web media. I don't know if it is true, but from my experience, denial wouldn't be the reasoning for it.

Re:Below Germany?

[milkmage]

oh c'mon dude.. ICE domain seizures are one thing..but nothing like the wholesale filtering in China or the Middle East.
blocking specific domains is relatively tame..and in the case of ICE can be blamed on simply not understaing how the tubes are hooked up - it's like blocking a sewer main in the street because one toilet is fucked up.

Re:Below Germany?

[Kreigaffe]

It wasn't a stupid statement, it was a poorly worded statement.

Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany. So are swastikas, and pretty much anything related to the nazis outside of "bad things, very bad things, happened in the early half of the 20th century". I'm exaggerating but this is fucking slashdot and only a mindless pedant would misinterpret me as badly as you have.

The fact is Germany *does* censor their internet, and the content they remove *is* related to that party that was pretty big a few generations back. In other words, what I said is accurate, just not very precise -- I didn't expect, but should have I suppose, that some asshole would come by and think I was making claims that are so obviously not fucking true that even an idiot would understand that that wasn't what I was saying. Censorship is not denialism, censorship is simply not allowing certain things to be said or seen; Germany engages in censorship, regardless of whether or not the things they censor are things that any decent person would think shouldn't be said or heard. That doesn't make it magically become not-censorship.

Re:Below Germany?

[dreampod]

While I agree with them that the US probably is fairly good in comparison to much of the world, the major flaw I see in the Freedomhouse report is that it seems to treat the spirit of the law as being more relevant than the actual application and only considers governmental action rather than corporate activities (enabled by a bought and paid for legislative branch) that reduce freedom. Beyond ICE domain seizures, we have rampant DMCA abuse, government subsidized regional monopolies creating poor service and removing competition, extensive (though largely concealed) monitoring, attempted violations of net neutrality, traffic 'shaping' that is not required for its stated purpose, extensive abuse of the legal system to suppress unpopular or offensive speech of individuals or small business' unable to afford the expense of defending themselves, aging internet infrastructure the monopolies are making minimal efforts to upgrade except in the most profitable areas, and undoubtably more that don't come immediately to mind.

The US is taking baby steps towards a less free internet and by ranking them so highly without comment on the glaring problems in the system they are enabling it by creating a false impression that this is acceptable.

Also I find the mention of the US tech innovation particularly funny given that those companies all insist that they are primarily based out of Dublin, Ireland which is why they don't have to pay their fair share of taxes.

Re:Below Germany?

[tafkadasoh]

They don't have active filters. However a judge can order a server to be taken off the internet if the hosted contet violates certain laws. If the server is in another country they try to talk to that government with mixed success. Most nazi sites are hosted in the US for a reason. And those are accessible, so no filtering.

Re:Below Germany?

[jd]

Relative to what?

Can you tell me, precisely, what bad things Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand or the Falkland Islands are doing that compare with intimidation and threats against companies that had links to Wikileaks?

Can you tell me, precisely, how many domain seizures the UK has been involved in of late?

Do you have any concrete examples of, oh, Lichtenstein ordering other nations to arrest minors and terrorize them for pissing off the MPAA?

Can you name any country other than the US which forbids the distribution of World War I audio for copyright reasons?

Inquiring lolcats wish to know.

Re:Below Germany?

[bornie]

No, freedom house did not consider those countries worse than USA. None of these where even in the report.

Re:Below Germany?

[dreampod]

Failing to criticize our national governments simply because others do worse guarantees a slow creep towards that worse behaviour because anything less is, by your reasoning, acceptable. The fact that Iran, Burma, and China engage in broader and more extensive internet control and suppression doesn't make the ICE domain seizures more acceptable or infringe freedoms any less.

Further, I personally believe that we have a greater obligation to ensure our home country is abiding by the principals we want other countries to. Not only does it clear us of hypocrisy (see US on torture and prisons) when attempting to convince other countries to reform their practices, it provides a clear example that it can be done without catastrophic consequences (assuming they don't see our culture itself being a catastrophe), and is how our government is structured to function. Limiting our scope to local issues is often a matter of conserving our efforts and avoiding tilting at windmills. I can't personally stop hunger in Africa but I can ensure my neighbours get invited over for dinner frequently because I know that the adults in their house frequently miss meals to ensure that their kids always get fed. The same principle applies to world affairs - I can make real (though small) changes in the US but ignoring them because China is worse leaves the entire world a worse place.

Re:Below Germany?

[circletimessquare]

the size of the country also has some consideration

sweden and uk are of course sizable countries, but falklands? lichtenstein? really? don't you see how including tiny countries weaken your argument? the usa might have a multivolume policy on internet rights and thousands working in the field. while the falkland island has the harbor master's teenage son running the entire country's internet, and the internet policy is whomever he disconnects for whatever reason

so where's pitcairn island and aaland island? pffffffft

Re:Below Germany?

[bornie]

I am not the one you are arguing with, I was only commenting on one of your conclusions which were wrong. This one to be more precise "apparently freedom house considers the usa to have a better ranking of freedom than those countries."

Re:Below Germany?

[Cwix]

estonia?

Re:Below Germany?

[phantomfive]

Can you name any country other than the US which forbids the distribution of World War I audio for copyright reasons?

Isn't that the law of the entire European Union under the Copyright Duration Directive? WWI ended about 90 years ago, so my reading is that if the creators of the audio survived another 20 years after they made it, then it is still under copyright protection even today.

Re:Below Germany?

[mcvos]

The entire top 4 is weird. Australia is also well known for its censorship. The US certainly has some issues. These countries are at the top simply because the list only examined a handful of countries. Most of Europe has not been examined at all. Had it been, I'm sure Iceland and similar countries would have topped the list.

All that this list is saying is that some random countries in Europe and North America are better than some random countries in Africa, Asia or South America. I'm sure nobody here is surprised to learn that internet in Germany or Australia is more free than in China, Iran or Cuba. That doesn't mean it's as good as it should have been.

Re:Below Germany?

[phantomfive]

They don't claim to be based in Ireland, they have a corporation in Ireland (with 2000 people). They funnel most of their European operations from that corporation into a separate one in Bermuda. They also send some money through the Netherlands and back into Bermuda. They don't claim to be 'primarily based' in any of those countries, nor do they hide that they do it as a tax trick.

And really, as for 'fair share of taxes,' have you ever met anyone who tries to pay more in taxes than they are absolutely required by law? No one, not even you, pays more than they have to.

Re:Below Germany?

[dreampod]

I'd like to see companies pay taxes where they actually operate and where they have the employees doing the work to generate the revenues rather than being able to shop around and choose to pretend their income comes from whichever country happens to have the most favourable tax climate that day. On the other hand I'm not a big fan of globalization as it is practiced and think the fact that tariffs are defacto illegal is a tragedy, so perhaps I'm not the person to look to.

Re:Below Germany?

[pyrosine]

The Nazis were a political party therefore very few Germans were Nazis unless you're trying to suggest it was impossibly large. Of course, this is different to support as most Germans saw it as a good change in a time of depression at the start, but then the censorship started, along with persecution.

Re:Below Germany?

[SuricouRaven]

At a guess, this might just be a difference between what the law says and what actually gets enforced. For example, in the UK, it's a criminal offense punishable by jail time to post on Slashdot from work*. Does anyone enforce it? No, because it's silly.

*I forget the precident, but it's the computer misuse thing. Can't do anything with a computer not clearly authorised by the owner.

Re:Below Germany?

[SuricouRaven]

Accountants call this being 'tax efficient' - using whatever loopholes they can find to avoid paying taxes. One of these is indeed to have the company officially based in a place with a very low corporate tax. Ireland is popular. The Channel Islands, too. Good for the company. Good for the tax haven too. Not so good for the place where the company actually does business, who end up saddled with the associated costs (Road maintainance, courts, policing, etc) of allowing the company to do business, but don't get the resulting tax money to pay for it.

Re:Below Germany?

[bemymonkey]

Hmmm, I think the filtering was limited to mostly child porn and other *really* illegal stuff. Haven't noticed anything else in the past ten years, and there wasn't ever anything in the news about this type of thing either.

Do you have any info to back up that statement? Genuinely interested here...

Re:Below Germany?

[Carewolf]

Can you tell me, precisely, what bad things Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand or the Falkland Islands are doing that compare with intimidation and threats against companies that had links to Wikileaks?

No, because they are not featured in the report. Austrialia, Germany, US and Estonia are the four best among countries actually examined. Very few countries were examined and all the traditionally most free are strangely absent.

Re:Below Germany?

[mcvos]

I have no problem with the omission of the Falklands or Liechtenstein from the list. But why is France not on the list? What about Sweden, Denmark, Netherland? It's a very arbitrary list, and doesn't say anything whatsoever about the relative internet freedom between western countries. All it says is that western countries are more free than non-western countries, but I don't think anyone is really surprised by that.

This incomplete list is completely non-news, unless anyone is actually surprised that the US or Australia is actually more free than Kenya or Kazakhstan.

Re:Below Germany?

[mcvos]

The US is FAR more dangerous in my mind than the nations you listed. China, Iran, and Cuba are relatively open about their censorship and restrictions while the US does its best to portray the opposite. The US eliminates almost all practical freedom, requires government permits for the vast majority of daily activity, provides almost no government services while being among the highest taxing nation relative to controlled wealth, and proactively concentrates wealth into the hands of a tiny portion of the population. The US however does all these things but gives justifications for all these actions indicating they are for the public good or are unavoidable side effects.

Oh come on. China also claim that all the stuff they do is for the common good. There's no way the US could possibly be considered worse than China, and it really is a lot better in quite a lot of ways. The problem is that many Americans think that "better than China" means something and is something to be proud of, when it's damningly faint praise.

I do think developments in the US are dangerous, exactly because the US was always supposed to be on the side of freedom, its greatest champion even, but lately has been seriously reconsidering that position. And unfortunately a lot of other "free" nations are following the bad example of their former champion. China was never in the "free" camp to begin with, so when they do something bad, it's usually not much of a thread to the western way of life (though it is a sign that we still haven't spread our western ideals of freedom to China).

Re:Below Germany?

[serviscope_minor]

an you tell me, precisely, what bad things Sweden, ... doing that compare with intimidation and threats against companies that had links to Wikileaks?

Sweden, right?

Sweden.

an you tell me, precisely, how many domain seizures the UK has been involved in of late?

You know that the IWF effectively filters THE ENTIRE INTERNET with absoloutely no oversight whatsoever, right?

Do you have any concrete examples of, oh, Lichtenstein ordering other nations to arrest minors and terrorize them for pissing off the MPAA?

So? The swiss have also been known to engage in police britality and internet censorship. The American stuff is more apparent since websites like /. are American and therefore often focus on American issues, not Swiss ones.

Can you name any country other than the US which forbids the distribution of World War I audio for copyright reasons?

Did you know that in the UK, crown copyright never expires?

Seriously, I'm not defending America's actions here. I think that they are reprehensible. But that doesn't mean that other countries don't happen to be worse.

Re:Below Germany?

[mcvos]

The fact that worse things happen does not mean that something shouldn't be done about the 'lesser' things. The reason you probably hear so much about the USA's 'wrongdoings' is because they, for some reason, seem to be the center of attention (and they claim to be a bastion of freedom, or at least that's what people think). So when this 'great' country does something wrong, people will criticize them more than other countries that they already knew were 'bad'. They may see other places as lost causes (and believe that their criticism will be wasted on them).

The US really was a bastion of freedom for a long time. In the past, the US has done quite a lot to spread the notion of the importance of freedom, and set some good examples. And that's exactly why it hurts so much when the US chooses against freedom. China was never in the freedom camp to begin with. Of course they are worse. But now the free world sees their former champion hurrying to join the Chinese camp, and that hurts. Criticizing that is entirely justified.

Re:Below Germany?

[Samantha Wright]

'fraid it doesn't work that way. Like most communist parties, "being a Nazi" is a more general term than, say, "being an elected democrat" in the US. In fact, there were 8.5 million members at its time of dissolution.

Re:Below Germany?

[Anon8---)]

Of course Germany has to appear apologetic otherwise it would have consequences. When you enter the country however and stay a while you will find out it's only what they want people to believe.

Re:Below Germany?

[serviscope_minor]

the traditionally most free

Which are those then?

Re:Below Germany?

[TapeCutter]

Australia is also well known for its censorship.

...by those who know nothing about Australia.

Re:Below Germany?

[QuantumG]

For Internet? Sure.. for movies and video games? Yep, censorship is the official policy with no apologies. Adults are not permitted to decide what they wish to watch, that's the decision of the state.

Re:Below Germany?

[mjwx]

Failing to criticize our national governments simply because others do worse guarantees a slow creep towards that worse behaviour

Submitter here,

I agree with that point and dont think I could have put it any better.

The eyes of Australia's entire IT industry are on Senator Conroy like a hawk, the Labor party who proposed filtering in 2008 faced a revolt from their own back bench over the policy in 2009 and it failed to pass because the Greens and Independents voted against it.

My point with this submission, was to dispel the myth about the non-existent so called "great Australian firewall". But you also have a very valid point.

Re:Below Germany?

[Curunir_wolf]

BTW, how's the native population doing in the States?

They are still being kept in poverty by government dependency and the restrictions on any individual from owning land. That's what collectivism and lack of private property rights does to a people, unfortunately. The native population were pushed out of good land many generations ago, and putting them on "reservations" meant they were not allowed to participate in the prosperity that resulted from all that land being given to individuals to develop.

Re:Below Germany?

[Talderas]

A significant majority of the German population were members of the Nazi party. This is why the denazification program after Germany's surrender had a lot of problems. You couldn't find enough people who weren't a member of the Nazi party who was competent enough to operate the jobs that were supposed to be denazified. This lead to pretty much every military governor looking the other way on the policy because they knew they couldn't enforce it.

Re:Below Germany?

[Curunir_wolf]

Well Sarrazin told the truth about Germany, its social policies, and the deterioration of the working class by the pockets of religious authoritarians that were supported by taxpayers but seek privileges for themselves.

This was an indictment of the socialists and their policies, so of course they have to call him "extremist". They do that to pretty much anyone that points out the destructive nature of socialism.

Re:Below Germany?

[moonbender]

Well, he is extremely stupid, if nothing else. Just like a lot of Germans! No wonder those people think he's the bee's knees.

Re:Below Germany?

[moonbender]

So nowadays most extremists are left-wing and at the same time it's fashionable to be a right-wing extremist? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

In reality, political parties of what is commonly referred to as the extreme right and the extreme left get very low results in Germany, both absolutely and when compared to our neighbours. The extreme right -- while a very worrying movement -- is basically a non-starter politically, a few municipalities in depopulated East Germany nonwithstanding. The extreme left only really exists in a single party, but it's split in half between true left wing politicians and political moderates; and it's only the moderates who seem to have some measure of success at the poll booth

Re:Below Germany?

[moonbender]

While your point on censorshop is well taken -- certainly, banning Holocaust denial is (post-publication) censorship -- you're not just exaggerating, you're (repeatedly) misrepresenting. You're making it sound as if detailed discussion of the Holocaust and WW2 was frowned upon or even verboten. Basically like saying that the USA censors the net by removing content related to sexuality -- when in fact they're only doing that for CP or whatever. In fact, Germans like war documentaries just as Americans like porn featuring consenting adults. Wait, what?

Re:Below Germany?

[cavreader]

The native american treatment was and is a bad thing looking at it from today's perspective. However, back when it started it was SOP for every country on the planet when expanding their territories. Today the US government has made some attempts to set things right as much as possible. Indian tribes have large parcels of land which they administrate and govern themselves. Part of this administration allows gambling operations totally free from US government control and oversight. The revenue generated from these casinos is then controlled by the tribal leaders for them to use how they see fit. Plus there is not a person in the US living today that had anything to do with the actions taken against the natives.

Re:Below Germany?

[uradu]

Have you seen Kyle?

Re:Below Germany?

[uradu]

Wow, two posts and we already slammed solidly into Godwin's law. Nice!

Re:Below Germany?

[Curunir_wolf]

Yes, you are correct. Unfortunately most of the efforts to "set things right" have been misguided and done more harm than good. The biggest impediment in my view is the tribal control of the land - since no individual tribe member can make a claim of ownership to any portion of land, it's extremely difficult to develop since it any contribution an individual makes becomes communal property.

The casinos were a way for the tribes to raise investment capital (with a governance structure agreeable to the investors), and at least develop some of the land they collectively control. But you're way off about the "totally free from US government control" part. SCOTUS has ruled that states can control gambling, even on tribal land, if the state has banned that form of gambling. There is also the Indian Gaming Regulation Act of 1988, which classifies gaming into 3 categories, and requires tribes to enter into compacts with their state governments to run any type of gaming establishment.

Re:Below Germany?

[CrimsonAvenger]

BTW, how's the native population doing in the States?

They're still disproportionally represented among high steel workers and alcoholics, both fields that they seem to have a genetic predisposition to.

They seem to be more numerous than they were before the Europeans moved into the area, but that's based on pre-Columbus population estimates that may be wildly off. Or not, since their pre-Columbian tech wouldn't support much population at the best of times.

Oh, and they're now no more susceptible to smallpox than the general population.

Re:Below Germany?

[LordLimecat]

ICE domain seizures have nothing to do with censoring unpopular or offensive material. Its about enforcing IP law, which is an entirely different issue, and you do no favors to anyone by conflating the two.

Re:Below Germany?

[mcvos]

Are you sure? I remember that a few years ago, one of the first publicized successes of Wikileaks was the leaking of Australia's secret block list. Officially censoring only child porn of course, but in practice turned out to block a bit more than that.

But if that has been stopped, that's awesome.

Re:Below Germany?

[LordLimecat]

Thats not really true, at all, in any way. In fact, denying the holocaust is a crime in Germany.

The censorship I am aware of in Germany has to do with DMCA type restrictions; there used to be a default router password list hosted in Germany, which had to relocate due to their laws.

Re:Below Germany?

[LordLimecat]

Care to give some examples of Germany censoring Nazi-related information? As they say in wikipedia, [citation needed].

Re:Below Germany?

[SleazyRidr]

I see this as more of a call to arms. We know how bad we have it, and most of the world has it worse! The time for action is now!

Unfortunately, like most of the world's problems, I can't see any way to make a difference.

Re:Below Germany?

[jd]

Internet Penetration: Falkland Islands have 100% Internet Penetration, making Internet freedom 100% relevant to their existance. The US ranks 16th, with 76.3%, which means freedom on the Internet is of less actual significance to them.

So, no, it doesn't weaken my argument. Rather, it weakens yours as you are neglecting to factor in that freedom only matters when people are involved. A country with rather insignificant adoption of the Internet, such as the US, has no serious impact from abridged freedoms. In a country like the Falklands, where EVERYONE is connected and alternative sources are scarce to non-existant, even a miniscule impact on freedom has devastating impact on EVERYONE involved.

Pitcairn are not in the top 56 nations with connectivity and therefore even 100% restriction on the Internet will have 0% impact on Internet freedom. Do try and think logically. I know you're a K5er, but that doesn't mean you have to think in the K-5 age range.

Re:Below Germany?

[jd]

From the article you link to:

The duration of protection of related rights (those of performers, phonogram and film producers and broadcasting organisations) was set at fifty years with the following rules for calculating the starting date (Art. 3). This fifty year period was in reflexion of the negotiating position of the European Community at the negotiations which led to the Marrakech Agreements, including the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

For recordings of performances:

the date of the performance, unless a fixation of the performance is lawfully published or lawfully communicated to the public within this period, in which case the date of the first such publication or the first such communication to the public, whichever is the earlier.

For studio recordings:

the date the fixation is made, unless the phonogram is lawfully published or lawfully communicated to the public during this period, in which case the date of the first such publication or the first such communication to the public, whichever is the earlier.

So, 50 years after the recording was made, regardless of whether it was a live or studio recording. 1918 + 50 = 1968.

However, in the US, these same recordings will remain in copyright until about 2030.

Anyone in the audience, hands up who can tell me which of these is in the past and which is in the future?

Re:Below Germany?

[jd]

The ones that don't have to have schoolkids recite a pledge of aliegence each day and be conscripted into Selective Service (ie: military service) to be eligible for government jobs or student loans, I would assume.

Re:Below Germany?

[jd]

Sweden are asking for a person to be tried in regards to a criminal accusation. It is the lawful right of all to be able to have their complaints heard in court. At least, in Europe, where it's been the norm since about 700 AD. I hear there's a country that still has diffulty with this "court" business and has just passed a law prohibiting haebus corpus for certain crimes and prohibiting civilian trial where it's inconvenient.. I hear it also allows arbitrary indefinite detention (as happened with Kevin Mitnick) and that a majority are in favour of violating the UN Charter of Human Rights by abolishing citizenship for the native-born.

The Swiss' examples of police brutality (sch as DVD Jon) were commissioned and paid for by the US. Hell, the terrorist group the IRA got funding and arms from the US Government. (Former Col. Oliver North was involved in that, along with drug-running and gun-running operations on behest of the US.) I rather think that the Swiss' record is a bit better than state-sponsorship of terrorist organizations.

The Crown Copyright in the UK has expired since 1988. You are behind in your reading.

Re:Below Germany?

[cavreader]

There were quite a few professional soldiers who had no love for Hitler or the Nazi's but the pogroms and brutality used to consolidate the Nazi power structure was just too much for some to bare. Watching entire families being killed if someone even questioned your loyalty was effective in suppressing any trouble makers. Of course those at the top of the miltary can't very well say they didn't know what was going on from the very start.

Re:Below Germany?

[jd]

I said nothing about these nations NOT conducting these practices, I asked for concrete examples of them doing so. These were not rhetorical questions. They were real questions. Questions that nobody here has found an actual example for. There is no "right to silence", so whilst you are entitled not to answer anything you don't want, I am entitled to say that your refusal to give any examples constitutes evidence that no significant examples exist to be given. Your silence CAN be used against you, and probably will.

Re:Below Germany?

[rolfwind]

It wasn't a stupid statement, it was a poorly worded statement.

Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany. So are swastikas, and pretty much anything related to the nazis outside of "bad things, very bad things, happened in the early half of the 20th century". I'm exaggerating but this is fucking slashdot and only a mindless pedant would misinterpret me as badly as you have.

No, what you said is fucking stupid and so is this. Swastikas are not "illegal", the public display for glorification is. If you have old WW2 stuff with symbold, you have to cover up the symbol (like with a sticker). It's not illegal to own. They just do not want the past glorified.

But they don't deny it. They won't block wikipedia or other articles on it. The media can print the symbols (if it isn't for glorification purposes - i.e. a neo-Nazi rag) and examine that time period.

Stop talking out of your ass and then getting mad when called out on it.

Re:Below Germany?

[rolfwind]

They seem to be more numerous than they were before the Europeans moved into the area, but that's based on pre-Columbus population estimates that may be wildly off. Or not, since their pre-Columbian tech wouldn't support much population at the best of times.

Considering that the population of the US colonies was 2.5M in 1776 (much less 1492) and it being 300M, that's not exactly an achievement to have more people 500 years later.

Re:Below Germany?

[cavreader]

In 1976 the Indian reservations first won full sovereignty for gaming. In 1988 the law was implemented and they gained control over all of the gambling activities except for certain areas such as liquor licences and worker background checks. Of course these regulations vary according to state and tribe. In all other areas such as communal competitions for prizes of nominal worth, games of luck, lotteries, bingo, and non-table games are controlled by them. This allows the casinos considerable freedom from state regulators and oversight when compared to non-reservation casinos. The reservations are basically considered as "states" in their own right. Does this makeup for the past? I don't know. I do know that the wrongs perpetrated against the native Americans basically started with the first colonists and they were European. In the 1800's the US was not a very nice place, fair, or well governed place and bears little resemblance to what the US is today. What was done cannot be undone but today's generation should not be judged by the earlier actions. WW2 era Germany showed how an advanced country could be transformed into an abomination while people all over the world stared and did nothing. The majority of German's also stood around ignoring what was happening and doing nothing, But all of this is in the past and the current generation in Germany should not judged by that earlier time.

Re:Below Germany?

[CrimsonAvenger]

They seem to be more numerous than they were before the Europeans moved into the area, but that's based on pre-Columbus population estimates that may be wildly off. Or not, since their pre-Columbian tech wouldn't support much population at the best of times.

Considering that the population of the US colonies was 2.5M in 1776 (much less 1492) and it being 300M, that's not exactly an achievement to have more people 500 years later.

With a stone-age level of technology and no draft animals to help them get out of that particular trap, there's no reason to expect Amerind populations to have changed much absent the introduction of Europeans.

Or were you assuming that if we were all much more enlightened, we'd have travelled 3000 miles each way to trade with stone-age savages?

Hint: about the only thing that the North American Natives had that was worth coming all this way was land.

Where's Japan?

[fullback]

It's not even on the list.

Re:Where's Japan?

[II Xion II]

Or Canada for that matter...

Re:Where's Japan?

[dakohli]

In fact there are only 37 countries on this list. Period. Huge swaths of Europe, Africa and the Americas are missing.

I would hesitate to say that anyone was first, let alone fourth.

Re:Where's Japan?

[dakohli]

Tks.

Re:Where's Japan?

[Mashiki]

Yeah it's because everyone already knows we're not free. Uh ... because we refuse to insitute draconian copy protection methods, and we nearly 80% of our population is online.

Why the focus on Australia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not whoever is in 83rd place? It seems like "Estonia Ranked First In Internet Freedom" would be the real story.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[Interoperable]

The rules got put on hold and will be subject to better (not necessarily good, just better) transparency before they're enacted. The government has a tenuous grip on a majority in parliament right now; I don't think they're likely to try to bring up contentious issues for a little while.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[nzac]

There is no 83rd country. The list is not even close to a worldwide rankings on internet freedom. There are only 2 from Europe and the reason Germany is not higher is due to Nazi (mainly I think Holocaust Denial ) censorship.

South America also looks pretty free.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[phantomfive]

I think it's because, with all the talk coming from Australia about censoring the internet, and all the actual banning of games they do, it's kind of surprising that Australia made it that high.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[sg_oneill]

The thing is though is that australia doesn't censor the internet, nor is it monitored (without a court warrant, something common to everywhere)

  The government proposed it, then dropped it when it realised it would be deeply unpopular.

Australia *does* have censorship issues, but its about Games, not the internet. Just because its computers, don't mean its the same. (In fact what makes the games censorship ironic is the fact that with an uncensored internet we can download it from uncensored and unmonitored.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[mcvos]

I think the story is: "Despite all the crazy and poorly thought out internet rules, Australia is still not as bad as China."

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[mcvos]

South America also looks pretty free.

Brazil. Venezuela not so much. But again, no surprises there.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[nzac]

Brazil. Venezuela not so much. But again, no surprises there.

According to the report Brazil, the only listed South American country, has 'Free' internet. I think there judging criteria is to suit US political interests(hoping I'm safe from neo-conservatives with mod points) so maybe they were generous. I have little knowledge about it but South America seems to have a high standards with Chile being the first (and only) country to legislate for net nutrality.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[dbIII]

It's the typical Aussie attitude - we can't be bothered to get around to it :)
In Australia there is a relatively large "think of the children" vote so various rules have been pending since about 2004 as a shameless political vote buying exercise from all three major parties. That carrot has thankfully been out of reach since then but there has been some action. Websites for Dentists and dog kennels have been blocked and stupid stuff has occurred on a small scale. Home grown porn has ensured hosting is overseas in case rules are implemented overnight and a raid run in the morning - that's possible under the current system. Weird rules have been seriously considered such as declaring photographs of adult women with A cup breasts to be child pornography - simply because some idiot thinks looking at small breasts will inspire child abuse. It wasn't going to matter if the woman depicted was 40, the law would treat those making the images available as if she was 14. Of course the Australian Communications Minister is an enormous prick in every way and that's where a lot of this stupidity comes from

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[mjwx]

I think it's because, with all the talk coming from Australia about censoring the internet, and all the actual banning of games they do, it's kind of surprising that Australia made it that high.

Yep, that's exactly why I submitted the article.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[TapeCutter]

Intenet censorship is a political football in Australia, both major parties have been both for and against it over the last decade and more. The fact is the issue is used as a bargaining chip when horse trading votes with batshit crazy independent senators who under certain circumstances hold the balance of power in the senate. There is no serious intention by the 3 largest political parties to enact censorship laws, but at the same time the party in government must appear to support it (endless inquiries, lip-service, ect) to keep the batshit senators on side until they dissapear at the next election.

If you watch it closely it's kind of comical, for instance one batshit crazy senator found his own anti-abortion sponsors appearing on the "leaked" blacklist, for some reason he stopped aggitating for censorship after that.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[TapeCutter]

The "Great firewall of Oz" has always been moot to those of us who watch Aussie politics.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[TapeCutter]

An 18+ category will happen now that all the states attorney generals are in favour of fixing the obvious bug in the classification system, but the wheels of government turn slowly.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[moonbender]

There are only 2 from Europe and the reason Germany is not higher is due to Nazi (mainly I think Holocaust Denial ) censorship.

There are six countries from the European continent (UK, Italy, Estonia, Belarus, Russia, Germany) in the report. Four are entirely situated in continental Europe. Four are members of the EU. Three of those use the common European currency.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[mcvos]

According to the report Brazil, the only listed South American country, has 'Free' internet.

Venezuela is also on the list. "Partly free".

I have little knowledge about it but South America seems to have a high standards with Chile being the first (and only) country to legislate for net nutrality.

Peru has a law requiring the government to use open source. (Not necessarily GPL or BSD, but they need to have access to the source and be allowed to hire other contractors if necessary, I believe.)

On the whole, I'm optimistic about the direction South America has been taking in the last decade. Only Venezuela is a bit kooky. And there's the everlasting mess in Columbia, of course.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[nzac]

Sorry i'm wrong there, that is misleading. Still i think the trend for most of the rest of Europe is better taken from these two.
Russia and Estonia are still getting over communist regimes(true for a lot of the EU but not more than a third).
Italy's president owns a portion of the net.

This list is very selective while Important countries (to the US) are included, the rest have be chosen to fit US foreign policy and possibly other fillers with less freedom (referring to what other people have said about South America) than surrounding countries. The freedom house appears to very neo-conservative.

Re:Why the focus on Australia?

[nzac]

There is sill not enough for the given map to not seem misleading or show the holes.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/FotN/Map.pdf
Only Asia has been widely represented.

What about Antartica?

[Don_Maxis]

Because I obviously live on Antartica, and have unlimited access with no caps. All the pr0n and free movies I want. Troll that, you homosexual noobs!

Re:What about Antartica?

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

The joke's on you, considering Antarctica isn't a country ...

Re:What about Antartica?

[EricX2]

NO CAPS?

I had more to say but slashdot is obviously not free... it says no yelling on the internet!

That's a really short list.

[rebelwarlock]

So only a handful of countries in the world have internet now? Or are we ignoring countries that "don't matter"? If you're going to pretend to do comprehensive reports, at least have a comprehensive list.

Re:That's a really short list.

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Absolutely.

One of the very few things that make me proud about my country (Argentina) is our internet freedom. Our connections aren't great, but they ain't bad either, and they are cheap and just about everywhere (you can get unlimited, uncensored cablemodem 6mbps down, 1 mbps up for ~30 dollars a month, and unlimited, uncensored 3G 3mbps down, 512kbps up for ~25 dollars a month). Domains (*.ar) are absolutely FREE for life, and there's no limit on what you can register (I have domains that contain all 7 words, are anti-government, anti-religion, and anti-corporations, I've had them for years, and none of them has been taken away or filtered in any way). Our copyright laws are fairly sane (well, as insane as copyright itself is, they aren't as bad as the states), and we have no DMCA or any other similar shit). ISPs don't hand out information without a court order, and neither do host companies. Nobody has been sued for file-sharing, and no ISP is throttling or limiting p2p connections.

But we aren't even on the list, go figure ...

Re:That's a really short list.

[polle404]

and no Denmark, with their mandatory CP-blocking list (that's privately run) and DNS-blocking of whatever the local version of *AA don't like.

Re:That's a really short list.

[Rich0]

Well, when they said #4 in the world, they meant "world" like they mean it in the "World Series." :)

Re:That's a really short list.

[elsurexiste]

Well, they did banned search results for Judge "Barú Budu Budía" and Diego Maradona. They are easily and legally hopped, so even though Argentina is far from perfect, I agree with you.

Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[mrnobo1024]

Of course they're going to make sure the US gets near the top.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[SlithyMagister]

And equally of course, Canada ceases to exist

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[jd]

Given that the US, in retaining control of ICANN, demolishing network neutrality, placing excessive restrictions on cryptography, pressuring organizations to drop any association whatsoever with wikileaks and encouraging Internet fraud through a lack of any kind of privacy legislation, has effectively crippled actual freedom without needing any censorship legislation per-se, it should be obvious that the US is only near the top for reasons that have nothing to do with freedom.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[dreampod]

I was quite dissapointed by Canada's lack of inclusion. As a Canadian I would have found it particularly useful to provide a comparison against other countries. The US score seemed irrationally low which makes me think that Canada would be somewhere equivalent to Estonia, maybe with a small penalty for the challenges we are facing providing rural internet access.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[mcvos]

The list isn't intended to compare freedom between different western nations. Too few of those are included in the survey. All it does is point out that western nations are more free than non-western ones. Big surprise there, I'm sure.

On any complete list, I doubt most of the top-4 of this list would even make the top-10.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[Carewolf]

I noticed that as well. Canada, the Netherlands and all Nordic countries are absent from the report. In their place a semi-nordic east-european country becomes the most free. I guess it would look too bad if there was 10 countries above the US, so they left out everybody above estonia.

I would really have like to hear to position of France and Spain also though.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[serviscope_minor]

Given that the US, in retaining control of ICANN,

That, IMO as a non-american is a very good thing.

The US have been going a bit overboard with copyright based domain seizures recently. However, the US is probably the country with the strongest free speech provisions in the entire world. So, they might not be perfect, but I cannot think of another country I would trust to do a better job. I certainly would not trust my own.

So, let's compare it to another "free country". Let's say he was here (UK). The UK government wouldn't need to pressure organisations (an act which is certainly reprehensible). They could throw him in gaol and shutter the website for violating the official secrets act.

And the privacy legislation... I'm not sure what that has to do with freedom. It's not a good thing (companies are not people and have no inherent rights IMO).

But anyway, you say that America is bad, and in some ways, yes it is but it seems to me that despite it all everyone else is worse.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[serviscope_minor]

Let's say he was here (UK)

Er he was here, of course. It's just that he didn't leak tons of British intelligence.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[Darfeld]

Indeed... I wonder what the fourth place mean in a list like this one. I mean you have all the "bad censuring countries" in there... (well, maybe not all, but the most significant maybe...)

I would almost be glad France isn't in this list, but I can't think of it as an example of internet freedom right now... except if you count incompetence in censorship as freedom... well maybe they do, Australia might confirm that...

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[jpapon]

Let's say he was here (UK). They could throw him in gaol and shutter the website for violating the official secrets act.

Yes, but I think your faith in the US is unfounded. If Mr. Wikileaks ever set foot on U.S. soil he would be in for one helluva bad time.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[boaworm]

Exactly, this report is stunningly useless. Most of Europe is missing, including all the freedom-loving nations of the north (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland). How about Switzerland? Austria? France? (maybe not a good example :-), Spain? Holland? Belgium?, Luxemburg?.. comon... Europe is only represented by Germany, Italy (Berlusconi helooo) and the UK (and yes Georgia and Russia...)

No let's see how the internet freedom state is in Venezuela. I'm sure the US can beat that!

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[serviscope_minor]

Yes, but I think your faith in the US is unfounded.

You are mistaken. I don't have faith in the US, rather I was pointing out the flaws in the GP who seems to have faith in everyone BUT the US. I'm merely pointing out that everyone else is pretty much at least as bad.

There is no good, only bad and worse. Is the US the least bad of the bunch? I don't know, but I suspect that it may be.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[Bigby]

Wouldn't privacy legislation by its very nature be against Internet freedom?

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[jd]

"Spycatcher" leaked far more of intelligence value to hostile nations than Wikileaks ever has. Don't recall any special renditioning going on there. Sure, the British Government took him to Australian court, but they were the ones who got their knuckles rapped for being economical with the truth. Much the same would have happened in a British court. In the US legal system, truthiness is the de-facto standard.

Don't recall any of the SAS autobiographies, which leaked special ops and black ops secrets, leading to detention without trial or psychosis-inducing treatment. We British hold Haebus Corpus to be a fundamental right as opposed to a privilege the President or Congress can arbitrarily remove.

Britain was quite happy to try terrorists, suspected terrorists and "unlawful combatants" in British civilian courts. America - well, they prefer to keep people prisoner even after being found innocent on all charges.

Meh - I moved from the UK to the US because the US has tech jobs, not because of some alleged freedom. (I'm a citizen of both nations.) The footpath law is freedom. The BBC is freedom. Yes, the Digital Protection Act is freedom. Even British Telecom is a freedom of sorts, compared to granny Bell, the Verizon gang and the Comcast mafia.

Besides, there's no protection in the US that doesn't exist in the UK. The Constitution is merely plagarized from British laws (it's a damn shame Britain never sued for copyright violation) that are still active today and the European Convention of Human Rights is vastly more expansive than anything the US can lay claim to. The US is probably the least free country I've ever had the misfortune of living in and I've lived in many. That it has to tell you that your free, daily, in order for even the most gullible to actually believe a word of it should tell you something. Living here is a mere practicality, not a pleasure.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[jd]

I don't have faith in any nation, but most nations respect their own laws. The Constitiution, by definition, is a law of how government works and not a law of a nation, yet you will frequently hear how the US Government doesn't apply the Constitution to its activities outside its national borders and has largely ignored any court rulings that tell it to do otherwise. In other words, the entire system is nothing more than an elaborate farce.

In Britain, the Law Lords have an infinitely superior record to the US Supreme Court on actually requiring the government of the day to comply with the law. When it fails, Britain invariably respects the decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights. Britain has many failings - the current University crisis is one example, the current NHS crisis another, the NotW crisis a third (since the civil service vetoed an enquiry it becomes a government failing even before the person ultimately responsible became a key player in the Tory government), the "Supreme Court" is a fourth, the degradation of the powers of the House of Lords a fifth, the attempt by Cameron to subvert the House of Lords through fraudulant peerages is a sixth, etc. It isn't a free nation in the sense I would regard freedom, but none of these are actual violations of law, they are merely the usual Tory perversions we saw in the dark days of the Cult of the Thatcherites.

The US - well, Texas executed one guy after the International Courts ruled that this was illegal and in violation of international law. The US has smuggled execution drugs from other nations in violation of the laws of those nations. The US has refused to hand over CIA agents in the Italian case of kidnapping, in violation of the national soverenty of Italy and international obligations. The US has deliberately smuggled guns to terrorist groups in other nations (including Mexico). Admiral Poyndexter is a national hero to many, but in any civilized country would be regarded as a traitor to humanity.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[jd]

No, for the same reason that secret ballots in elections don't go against democratic freedoms but are actually critical in those freedoms existing in the first place. There would be no democratic freedom if how you voted was information that could be bought and sold on the open markets and used against you, agreed? Then you have accepted that freedom cannot exist without privacy. (Nor can privacy exist without freedom, as a lack of freedom requires you to accept whatever privacy abuses you are forced to endure.)

It is because the MPAA/RIAA can demand to know your IP address and what protocols you use from your ISP that your freedom on the Internet is abridged, not in spite of it.

It is because the original ITAR restrictions allowed anyone with a decent hardware kit to monitor your communications that your freedom to communicate without fear was abridged, not in spite of it.

It is because enough of your personal information can be bought from identity vendors to allow identity theft that your freedom to exist as an individual is curtailed, not in spite of it.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[kevinNCSU]

but most nations respect their own laws.

If ever there was a dubious statement that requires a citation this one is it

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[jmcvetta]

I read (the dead tree version of) their report, and listened to their researcher present it at a recent conference. Total whitewash of US censorship. So blatant as to render the entirety of the report essentially unreliable in my estimation.

Re:Freedom House is heavily funded by the US gov't

[jd]

There are how many nations in the world? Do you want a citation or a book?

I've stated what amounts to a null hypothesis. You cannot "prove" a null hypothesis. Ever. You can, however, disprove it. So go right ahead. Can you name me a statistically-significant number of countries outside of the US where a court will openly violate the law of the land, or where the government will openly ignore a court ruling that enforces that law?

("Most" != "All", so one or two examples isn't statistically significant. A reasonable definition of "most", as opposed to a simple majority, would be 66%, so all you need do is find examples of 35% of the nations out there that violate their own laws. I'll give you a starting point, if you like. Zimbabwe openly ignores its own laws, as does Russia. Italy would like to but currently doesn't and if Mussolini Pt. 2 gets convicted that fate may yet never happen.)

Note to self

[SilverHatHacker]

Estonia != Elbonia.

Australia internet is free unless...

[outsider007]

You want to play adult rated video games on it.

Re:Australia internet is free unless...

[MichaelSmith]

Or in fact if you want to host a porn site. The restrictions are pretty serious. Better to look overseas.

They're not just measuring government censorship

[chebucto]

From TFPDF linked in TFA on TFFH website:

Freedom on the Net aims to measure each countryâ(TM)s level of internet and new media freedom. Each country receives a numerical score from 0 (the most free) to 100 (the least free), which serves as the basis for an internet freedom status designation of Free (0-30 points), Partly Free (31-60 points), or Not Free (61-100).

Ratings are determined through an examination of three broad categories: obstacles to access, limits on content, and violation of user rights.
- Obstacles to Access: assesses infrastructural and economic barriers to access; governmental efforts to block specific applications or technologies; and legal, regulatory and ownership control over internet and mobile phone access providers.
- Limits on Content: examines filtering and blocking of websites; other forms of censorship and self-censorship; manipulation of content; the diversity of online news media; and usage of digital media for social and political activism.
- Violations of User Rights: measures legal protections and restrictions on online activity; surveillance; privacy; and repercussions for online activity, such as legal prosecution, imprisonment, physical attacks, or other forms of harassment.

customs

[blackfrancis75]

sure, the internet here is 'free'. Just don't try to bring any porn on physical media into the country..

Re:customs

[NoMaster]

Notice she was very careful not to say her DVDs were confiscated? Because they weren't; Customs "were only interested in illegal pornography".

Just don't try to bring any porn on physical media into the country

... or else, you'll be allowed to keep it?

Oz's crippling bandwidth is censorship

[danterzian]

While the Australian government might do little to censor the Internet, the country's terrible infrastructure and low bandwidth caps are de facto censorship.

Out of 34 (carefuly) slected contries

[nzac]

Of which only 8 have 'free' internet. There is a lot of European and other countries that may have a more free web. Thus the rankings are pretty worthless. My extrapolating the results it would be likely that across Europe would most likely be 10 above the rest of listed non -European countries.

I would like to think New Zealand's web is more open than Australia's we do have a filter but it has not been forced on ISPs.

Re:Out of 34 (carefuly) slected contries

[MichaelSmith]

I would like to think New Zealand's web is more open than Australia's we do have a filter but it has not been forced on ISPs.

How is that more open? Australia doesn't have a filter at all.

Re:Out of 34 (carefuly) slected contries

[nzac]

Did you successfully protest it down? sorry I stopped following the news on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia
Wikipedia says other wise though.

PS It's 37 countries not 34.

Re:Out of 34 (carefuly) slected contries

[MichaelSmith]

The labor party seem to have shelved it though filtering is still an official policy for the future. Note that I used present tense.

Shelved?

[bloodhawk]

The ISP censorship has hardly been shelved, The only reason it hasn't come in is that we don't have a majority government at the moment, Labor party have stated they still want to censor the internet, they just can't currently get the numbers to do it, thankfully with their financial mismanagement, scandals and now child pornography we should be seeing the last of both state and federal labor at the next elections.

Blow Germany?

[mevets]

Eugenics, and a few of its kindred cousins, however are alive and well. Not necessarily in GMB, but 'the west' never fully divested itself of the ideas; even after the NAZIs gave us a front row seat in how badly these things can go.

In Canada - I'm from - we have a leading political party that is as much at home with the eugenics ideals as the Tea Party is in the US. Most European nations have some political movement that is only a scratch or two away from this nonsense. They are singing to a choir, and the real trick is to fix the choir.

If Germany does so well to put this to rest, good for them, but it isn't the solution. A modicum of education - real education, not that blended crap to make the fundamentalists happy - and a societal urge to push the racist instinct into the margins is the only way to stop it. Otherwise, sit back and wait for it to happen all over again. History has no sense of humour whatsoever.

Decent people needn't suffer from racist hatred; it is a learned trait has deep roots in ignorance. We already know how to fix that, we just have to get the ne'er do wells out of the picture. Fundamentalists Anonymous has a cure!

Re:Blow Germany?

[NoMaster]

Eugenics, and a few of its kindred cousins, however are alive and well. Not necessarily in GMB, but 'the west' never fully divested itself of the ideas; even after the NAZIs gave us a front row seat in how badly these things can go.

Interestingly, one only has to look at the origins of marriage counselling (e.g. Paul Popenoe, Robert Dickinson) and Planned Parenthood (Margaret Sanger, Abraham & Hannah Stone, etc) in the US to see the connection...

Re:Blow Germany?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Eugenics, and a few of its kindred cousins, however are alive and well. Not necessarily in GMB, but 'the west' never fully divested itself of the ideas; even after the NAZIs gave us a front row seat in how badly these things can go."

That is probably because Eugenics itself is solidly based in science. Eugenics is practiced indiscriminately and with great consistent and proven success across the board in animal breeding practices. This is most easily seen in dog breeds because canine genetics are among the most responsive to breeding. Eugenics is often wrongly associated with race. Eugenics really is selective breeding for behavior as opposed to direct physical traits. No more no less.

Nazi eugenics was selection based on made up criteria. For instance, jews were culled based on perceived behaviors without any valid evidence that these negative traits existed in the first place. Western Eugenics was at least based on demonstrated criminal behavior rather than a political blame game that pointed the finger at an entire subset of the population for all a societies problems. Race simply is not a valid distinction for any purpose be it for laws, population statistics, or breeding criteria.

You are right that Eugenics still exists. In reality, that is what the death penalty and life imprisonment without parole amount to. Either prevents further breeding based on demonstrated behavior.

None of that is to say that I agree with the idea of selectively breeding humans even with valid criteria. But if one values the success of the species over the success of the individual a case can be made for Eugenics using valid criteria. There isn't any logically consistent value system that supports selection based on bogus criteria like race.

Re:Blow Germany?

[SuricouRaven]

Annoying, really. Eugenics really had some potential for doing good - just a matter of convincing those with genetic diseases to not breed, and in a few generations they could be almost eliminated. But then the Nazis had to screw things up by taking the idea to extremes and mixing in a lot of unscientific rubbish about racial superiority, and they tarished the idea so much that it hasn't been taken seriously since.

I've not heard of the Stones, but I gather Sanger was interested in contraception more as a tool of social reform than genetic tweeking. She wanted to stop the poor from breeding so heavily, as she viewed their high birth rate as one of the key things that kept them in poverty. Get them down from six children to just one, and they'd be more able to afford to get the one properly raised, educated, employed and no longer poor. Not true eugenics, as she was concerned only with socioeconomic factors rather than genetic.

Re:Blow Germany?

[SuricouRaven]

The Nazis screwed up their science. It was already rather limited at the time, with little understanding of genetics, but then they threw in a lot of politically motivated nonsense about how superior their master race was. Eugenics to them was largely just an excuse. They wern't doing it right.

Race shouldn't really factor into it, except for a few genetic things like sickle-cell anemia that correlate strongly. Even then you can start ignoring race as soon as you have proper genetic tests available.

Re:Blow Germany?

[rtb61]

Nazi Germany is a lesson in how things go badly, not necessarily all those things being bad. Democracy was corrupted in Germany to become fascism and then Nazism and that does not make democracy bad. Eugenics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics certainly went bad when it shifted from promoting sound social reproductive principles to executions of politically undesirables.

A licence to reproduce and be responsible for bringing up children in a world 6.91 billion, really honestly doesn't seem all that unreasonable. It is going to happen or well, things will just get fugly.

As for banning the swastika, that seems hardly fair to those nations where it was a symbol of well being and good luck for many thousands of years, just because with was abused by one political party in Germany for twenty odd years.

When it comes to bad ideas, the best way to fight them is with a flood of good ideas not censorship. The reality is that those bad web pages are out numbered by 'good' web pages by a factor of millions to one. Better that those that produce 'bad' web pages, well, expose themselves and can be investigated to see if they are actually doing bad things.

As for history, well, there never ever was an internet before, a least not for us short hair crested rock throwing monkeys, so we have yet to see how it will turn out. So far after 30 odd years of some pretty disgusting mass media propaganda, lies, distortions, and corporate corruption, the internet seems to being doing a reasonable of job of starting to rebuild the overall human social mind state.

Re:Blow Germany?

[Sique]

Most genetic diseases are recessive, so just advising people developing those diseases not to breed would not eliminate them at all - they still will be inherited, and only come to light when two people having the disease interbreed. To actually eliminate them you have to test all people for those diseases and then recommend to all the people carrying the right allele not to breed - but because everyone of us carries some defective alleles, no one would allowed to breed at all.

Re:Blow Germany?

[SuricouRaven]

That is what I meant, I just didn't make it clear.

You wouldn't have to test all people - just those who have a genetic relationship to someone who has previously developed the disease, as those will be the potential carriers of a defective allelle. It wouldn't be practical to do this for every single less-than-optimal allelle, but it could be used to eliminate from the population those which are potentially most serious. Huntington's comes to mind. Cystic fibrosis. Haemophilia. Conditions that can be fatal.

(Yes, I know haemophilia is largely treatable - but even if you can somehow pay for the $300,000 worth of drugs every year, it still causes complications)

Would be nice to get rid of sickle-cell too, but it would be a good idea to delay that project until someone finds a way to get rid of malaria first.

Re:Blow Germany?

[microbox]

Eugenics, and a few of its kindred cousins, however are alive and well.

Yawn. The opposite ideology, the equally wrong "Social Constructionism" dominates. So... were are these eugenicis scuttling around then?

Re:Blow Germany?

[microbox]

Eugenics, and a few of its kindred cousins, however are alive and well.

This is almost certainly one of a long list of social constructionist canards. There are probably a few eugenicists around; however, modern genetic research focuses on the dialogue between genes and environment.

The biological basis of behaviour is well established (See Turkheimer 2000 for a summary), and after 100 yrs of social science, there is no theory that predicts behaviour from social forces. (Things like attachment theory, and the media effects of violence/gender have no empirical backing -- see Pinker's Blank Slate for an overview.)

To preserve their "turf", so to speak, the humanities and social sciences are heavily invested in spreading myths about science and eugenics.

You accuse Harper of being at home with "eugenist-like" ideas. This may be true, but what exactly are you talking about? Because if you mean racism, then you are equivocating. (Racism, btw, almost certainly has a biological basis, as does political preference, as revealed by split twin studies, and adoption studies.)

Re:Blow Germany?

[kestasjk]

Annoying, really. Eugenics really had some potential for doing good - just a matter of convincing those with genetic diseases to not breed, and in a few generations they could be almost eliminated.

But how do you convince non Aryan people to refrain from breeding?


Seriously though I've spoken to someone, a regular user of another forum I frequent, who took the movie Idiocracy seriously, thought he was smart and understood evolution, that smart genes (i.e. his genes, hah) deserved to be artificially selected for and that road signs should be removed so there could be more "cleansing".

People are just too ignorant and selfish for eugenics to do good.

Re:Blow Germany?

[kestasjk]

(By the way I'm not saying nature is the best judge of "good" traits to be passed on, just that there's definitely no reason to think humans would be any better.)

Re:Blow Germany?

[jmac_the_man]

In Canada - I'm from - we have a leading political party that is as much at home with the eugenics ideals as the Tea Party is in the US.

The Tea Party isn't at home with eugenics ideals at all. Most Tea Partiers are pro-life. For a good example of this, see Sarah Palin, whose child has Down Syndrome, and, rather than aborting him, she had her child.

Re:Blow Germany?

[Kreigaffe]

egghh.

so your post is fine, except that bit about the tea party. eh, really? REALLY? no. they're not a modern nazi party, rofl. the media's tried very very hard to pin racist sentiment on them, and if you dig hard enough you will find a racist, somewhere, *anywhere*, but by and by large the tea party is not racist nor do they condone or tolerate racism.

if you want to see racism in modern america, bald-faced and bold public racism.. go to pro-immigration rallies. i'm not lying, and i wish i was; they have a thousand valid ways to make their points yet tend more towards hatred of white america as their justification for massive illegal immigration. it's awful.

Re:Blow Germany?

[SuricouRaven]

Offer them free sterilisation, remind them of the great expense and hardship that may result if they do breed naturally, and keep reminding them that adoption is always an option. And if that fails, bribery. Take the knife, take the cash. Such schemes did exist before the Nazis put eugenics into disrepute. They wern't ideally targetted, due to the lack of scientific knowledge of genetics or testing, but if modernised the fundamental idea may be sound.

Re:Blow Germany?

[kestasjk]

And then 10 years later when they want to have kids the taxpayer can foot the bill for the lawsuits / IVF! Great idea, how do I sign you up?

Re:Blow Germany?

[CrimsonAvenger]

but I gather Sanger was interested in contraception more as a tool of social reform than genetic tweeking. She wanted to stop the poor from breeding so heavily, as she viewed their high birth rate as one of the key things that kept them in poverty. Get them down from six children to just one, and they'd be more able to afford to get the one properly raised, educated, employed and no longer poor. Not true eugenics, as she was concerned only with socioeconomic factors rather than genetic.

From her book, A Plan for Peace:

Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.

Mind you, she wasn't a Nazi sort of eugenicist:

"All the news from Germany is sad & horrible, and to me more dangerous than any other war going on any where because it has so many good people who applaud the atrocities & claim its right. The sudden antagonism in Germany against the Jews & the vitriolic hatred of them is spreading underground here & is far more dangerous than the aggressive policy of the Japanese in Manchuria.."

On the other hand, she wasn't really opposed to things like preventing inferior people from reproducing:

"The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind."

On the other hand, she also said this:

"While there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization."

Which ought to give her brainchild Planned Parenthood pause, but won't.

And I won't even get into her attitudes on masturbation, which were, by modern standards, peculiar. Note that I've never bothered to research the subject enough to know whether her attitudes were typical of the period she grew up in, so I won't go so far as to say she was a complete loon on the subject.

Re:Blow Germany?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Yawn. The opposite ideology, the equally wrong "Social Constructionism" dominates. So... were are these eugenicis scuttling around then?

MIght want to scroll up from your post a bit, and read some of the comments up there. Looks like quite a few people on /. would really love to have eugenics back in business.

And, no, the problem isn't peculiar to /.

Re:Blow Germany?

[LordLimecat]

The problem with eugenics is that its goal, inevitably, will be to restrict one of the most fundamental rights of certain classes of people-- to reproduce and raise offspring.

Really, its scary that many people get shiny eyed about eugenics and manage to overlook the horrors it tends to lead to, every time it is tried.

Re:Blow Germany?

[SuricouRaven]

And that is what legally binding documents are for.

Re:Blow Germany?

[SuricouRaven]

This is only a problem if you believe that breeding is a fundamental right. I do not.

Free speech? Good idea. Freedom of religion? Good idea. Freedom of movement? Good idea. Free press? Good idea. A few obvious limitations of course, to prevent one person's use of their freedom from infringing upon the freedom of another, but in general good ideas. Freedom to pop out another human even if you are using known flawed genetic material, do not have the money to properly raise it or have a history of violence or mental illness? Not such a good idea.

Look at it more like this: There are laws for adoption. Certain conditions which disqualify someone. Some criminal offences, mental illness, things which have been deemed by those elected to write laws to render a person unfit to be a perent. So we already recognise, in law, and with very little contriversy, that some people just are not fit to raise children. And yet if they can manage to get knocked up themselves - which is not a difficult task - they somehow have a right to go ahead anyway? That just doesn't make sense. If you can't meet some minimum standard of parenting, you shouldn't be entrusted with that type of responsibility.

Re:Blow Germany?

[_0xd0ad]

You cannot be forced to sign a legally-binding document, and a document which you were forced to sign cannot be legally binding.

Re:Blow Germany?

[IICV]

Eugenics really had some potential for doing good - just a matter of convincing those with genetic diseases to not breed, and in a few generations they could be almost eliminated.

Well that's the thing - it can't be mandated, we should just try to convince carriers for the more vicious genetic diseases to adopt instead of have children.

It's the same thing as trying to convince teenagers to not have children, really. You shouldn't mandate that they can't, but they should be fully informed that it's a really bad idea.

Re:Blow Germany?

[microbox]

From what you have said, I don't think you really mean eugenics when you say eugenics -- creating a superior race by "breeding" humans. What do you think it means?

China

[koxkoxkox]

What rank is China ? Is there anyone below ?

I would love to RTFA, but I can't access the report myself. They must have some technical difficulties in Beijing these days, because freedomhouse.org seems to be unavailable.

Why only three democratic countries?

[Anonymous Coward]

With the exception of Germany, Estonia and Australia, they have only surveyed countries that score very low in other democracy and citizen rights indices. The reason that Germany and Estonia don't get better scores in this index, is that they are part of EU and have to follow EU regulations, which, other then purposely restricting the freedom of EU citizens in them-self, also is hard to fit into local laws and regulations (especially in countries that follow the Scandinavian or Germanic traditions of lawmaking, it fits better with the Latin and Anglese tradition) and therefor create unpredicted restrictions (Estonia likely succeeded better because it have a less fixed (=newer) set of regulations and a more Latin/Angese like law system then Germany, that can better work with and around directives from EU), but there are much worse EU members (as illustrated by Italy and UK, despite that Italy is a very young country (only 150 years) it has accumulated an awful set of to many and to complicated laws and regulations, that makes it very bureaucratic and only semidemocratic and UK, well it is UK, to much old crusty fucked up traditions and laws, censorship, military fighting within the country and social class barriers, like USA, not really democratic in the modern sense of the word).

Democratic countries within EU, would unfortunately score as bad as Estonia and Germany, but there are a few democratic countries, that don't follow orders from EU (or USA, or Russia, or China), that I believe would get a perfect zero.

sweden is 10 million people

[circletimessquare]

compare to falklands (3,000 people) or lichtenstein (35,000)

estonia is over a million

the point is,somewhere between 100,000 and 1 million people and up, you are talking about a coherent internet policy and a system of accountability involving many people

but somewhere between 100,000 and 10,000 people and down, and you're talking about "uh, call bubba, he runs that stuff"

so i consider estonia's internet freedom reputation useful and valid, but not liechtenstein's

Strange headline

[Provocateur]

Why did it choose to mention who is number Four, as opposed to, say, number 26 on the charts? Why not say "US leads in Internet Freedom"? Is there a private conversation here that /.'ers aren't seeing? Or do I need my morning coffee?

"Yes. When you read the headline and it says, so and so is number four, it means, We attack at dawn. If it says, so and so leads in freedom, that's the signal to Abort the mission. If it mentions Estonia in the headline, that simply means His Highness prefers pepperoni, hold off and we'll decide tomorrow.

Re:Strange headline

[mjwx]

Why did it choose to mention who is number Four, as opposed to, say, number 26 on the charts? Why not say "US leads in Internet Freedom"? Is there a private conversation here that /.'ers aren't seeing? Or do I need my morning coffee?

Submitter here, The article I based the submission on, is an Australian site. I chose the headline to dispel largely held beliefs amongst non-Australian /.ers. It is sad, I agree but people need to understand that there is no government enforced ISP censorship in Australia. It was defeated in Parliament 2 years ago, but is mentioned on /. to this very day.

It's the equivalent of me calling the US a rebellious British colony, which of course has been untrue for hundreds of years.

Missing countries would be ranked higher

[wye43]

There are lots of entries of countries that would rank in the top 10. I can tell you Romania would rank either 1 or 2 in that top.

What a joke

[Anon8---)]

After reading the USA on the top of the list I knew this article was completely false.

Re:stunningly useless (and more)

[TaoPhoenix]

Let's go further.

This report is actively dangerous, in a sort of flamebait FUD way.

Let's just do one example - how about Sweden, (former?) home of the Pirate Bay and the Party thereon, and key pawn in the coercion attempt against, wait for it, Australian Julian Assange from the UK led by the US?

Oh wait!

Those three countries get slots 2, 4, and 5 and Sweden is ... uh... censored?

First place!

[Yogiz]

Hell yeah. Proud to be Estonian.

Every once in a while discussion seems to pop up on the subject of freedom of expression on the Internet but so far, as for making decisions, common sense seems to have prevailed. I hope that it stays that way for a while more.

Hmm

[ausrob]

Australia is also one of the few countries to enforce download (and sometimes upload) caps on most of the available Internet plans, and will shape traffic to about 64k, 128k or (rarely) 256k once the caps are reached. The pricing model is outrageously overpriced (e.g. my folks pay AUD $29.95 for a 15 GB cap, with 10 GB counted as "off peak", which is from 2:30 am to 9am!!) compared to other comparable nations (US, Korea, UK, France, Japan) including the future National Broadband Network (NBN). Freedom? Try loading a media rich website at 128k! ..and then there's that filtering plan..

Aussies Not in the Medals or Pointless SPAM

[fygment]

From the organization's "About" page:

Freedom House is widely recognized as the definitive source of information on the state of freedom around the globe.

And yet the 'global' assessment left out many major countries eg. Canada, Japan, etc.

So, neither definitive nor global and, when you read it, meaningful. Why was this posted? Is it because Australia was out of the top three?

Crikey

[TrentTheThief]

See ei ole internet vabadust. See on Internet Vabadus!

How strange...

[Millennium]

I'm trying to figure out if this is sadder for Australia that it scored so low, or for the world in general that Australia scored so high.

Regarding Estonia

[Fedor_Zuev]

Part about Estonia written by estonian government official, former head of state internet advisor.

Your Australian Internet

[StikyPad]

Your Australian Eentanet: Fourth in Fraydom, Fehst in Cost*.

* And somewhere way down the list in international bandwidth.

Re:Your Australian Internet

[ZigMonty]

Was that meant to be an Australian accent?