Slashdot Mirror
Indian Court Orders Google To Remove Content
itwbennett writes "A Court in Delhi, India has ordered Google to remove content that 'is said to mock gods worshipped in India,' according to an IDG News Service report. Mufti Ajiaz Arshad Qasmi, a private citizen, 'had filed a civil suit against Google and other Internet companies including Facebook, objecting to certain content on their websites.' While Google agreed to remove the content, citing a 'long-standing policy of responding to court orders,' other Internet companies named in the suit are likely to appeal."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-16903765 fake edit - I see you also mention that ...
I'll get my coat
who where what when now?
A big hardy "FUCK YOU!"
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I've heard it said that the Indian Government mocks gods worshiped in India, therefor Google should delist all official Indian government sites.
So it's ok to say anything you want, but don't offend religion? What happend to freedom of speech? I think the world is better off without Religion if you ask me!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Feel free to be politically correct and mod me down.
But elections being this close, and due to the victory being uncertain because of corruption scandals, the ruling congress party in India is out to appease the muslims who vote en-masse.
And muslims have long since been against freedom of speech and expression of non-muslims. If Google complies, it gives them a tool to get those mohammed cartoons removed from internet permanently. "Gods worshiped in India" indeed. Save for some lunatic fringe groups, hindus in general, tend to usually ignore such stuff. Or at least, barring some peaceful protest, they are at least not out to kill the heretics.
...and my hands were on it.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Have gnu, will travel.
"No person, no idea, and no religion deserves to be illegal to insult." --RMS
If I am not a member of your religion then I don't want your stupid religious crap affecting me. In any way.
This can be applied to any religious group complaining about content offensive to their religion(I think we know the usual culprit here).
All gods are deserving of equal protection under the law, no matter how utterly ludicrous any sane, rational mind would find the completely risible concept of worshipping magical monkeys and frilly-skirted four-armed elephant things.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If the crusade against depictions of Muhammad is any indication, expect a round of comics around the Hindu gods to come out at any moment.
Gods are rather powerful and knowing. Can't they just deal with this stuff without involving Google?
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
Now that it's been firmly established that Google will remove content that courts in whatever $COUNTRY deem blasphemous, I suppose it's only a matter of time before places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Texas start to get in on the action and start censoring content they find offensive, like journal articles on evolutionary biology or pictures of women driving. Way to put (outdated) ideas over people's fundamental rights, Google.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
While they have agreed to take down the content in a civil suit, they still face criminal prosecution. In India you are criminally responsible for third party posts to your website, so Google India employees are still facing criminal charges. And agreeing to take it down has destroyed the Google employees' defense that they could not have preemptively taken it down because it is out of their control.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
It all depends on the extend of the mockery here.
Let's call it "The Rise Of The State"
21st cenury marked by people rising up, overthrowing unjust tyranical regimes, meanwhile democracies pare away the rights of the people. Anyone see irony here?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Your all stupid, and should to what I say.
If the court believes it must remove comments which 'mock gods worshiped in India,' then wouldn't they also have to remove comments which 'mock gods NOT worshiped in India'?
If it is offensive to you, for me to say that your gods are silly myths; why shan't it be offensive to me, for you to say that they are real? I mean, let's be honest, at least I'm right.
Will them ban Discworld novels in all the country?
We need a "Artistic" rating.
It is legal to do so. Otherwise, both the entertainment and news industry as we know them would be gone.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
His noodly appendages are clearly drawn incorrectly as a way to mock his starchiness. I demand that /. remove them immediately.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Let's see.
So now we've had:
-India
-China
-Saudi Arabia
-Turkey
-France
-USA
Of course, that's just the "official state reactions" trying to force some sort of speech off the internet. Then there's MafiAA goon tactics, and of course the Mohammed Cartoons stuff which was "officially stateless" (though Iran, and a few of the other terrorist groups, had a bounty on the head of cartoonists for a while if I remember right).
The one I find most disheartening is the USA. Remember when they actually believed in their whole First Amendment thing? Yeah, that hasn't been the case since Nixon apparently.
This. I am a deeply religious person, and sometimes offended by the insults of unbelievers, but I will defend to the death their right to insult.
No it's doesn't.
I wonder if Google will tell webmasters that their website has been blocked in one or more country and why.
I just posted a rant on my FB page about how juvenile American culture is that so many people are upset over a musician doing a "naughty gesture" during the Superbowl half time show and how the news media is STILL talking about a woman's nipple being seen during the same show 8 years prior.
This article about India makes me feel better about the US. Ours isn't the only culture that needs to grow up.
Is that you Voltaire?
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
Before I get offended that Google would do such a thing or that India would think that it has jurisdiction. I would like to know what the objectionable material was exactly. If it was something like someone comparing the religious leaders of India to pedophile catholic priests I would understand, but if it was just "your God sucks" then Google should have stood its ground. So does anyone have a link or something that actually describes the offence because the article did not.
India has No Jurisdiction in the USA
USA is a sovereign nation. So Google can Just Mock them for another reason,
Personally , I'd deface their Cow-dung court order and send it back to them
"A Court in Stockholm, Sweden has ordered Google to remove content that 'is said to mock religious truths worshipped in Sweden,' according to an IDG News Service report. Jan Civilperson, a private citizen, 'had filed a civil suit against Google and other Internet companies including Facebook, objecting to certain content on their websites.' While Google agreed to remove the content, citing a 'long-standing policy of responding to court orders,' other Internet companies named in the suit are likely to appeal."
Yessss!!! Long live the official religion of Kopimism! Finally we can get rid of that blasphemous crap put online by the RIAA/MPAA and other Copyright Devils!
Note: link to kopimistsamfundet seems to be dead; therefore:
Copying of information is ethically right.
Dissemination of information is ethically right.
Copymixing is a sacred kind of copying, moreso than the perfect, digital copying, because it expands and enhances the existing wealth of information
Copying or remixing information communicated by another person is seen as an act of respect and a strong expression of acceptance and Kopimistic faith.
The Internet is holy.
Code is law.
Stop making it sound like a good thing...
As an unbeliever I an deeply insulted by religion, and the irrational behaviour it seems to be leading to.
If we were to ban everything which is insulting to anyone, we'd have nothing left to look at.
Again, the quote is a good one, that while I may not agree with someone, I 'll defend their right to say it.
I am sure I am not the only person who wishes that we had a search engine for all of the things banned by other search engines. I am glad to see that heretical.com is still up, in spite of all of the attempts to have it shut.
Has the content only been removed from all of Google's websites, or just Google India?
It's scary to think of what the Interenet would look like if each and every website had to follow the laws of each and every country. I know the fact that Google has facilities in India puts significant pressure on them to comply, but the thought of being bound by the numerous idiotic laws around the world is extremely worrisome.
Google is apparently adopting a strategy of censoring content on a per-country basis. That's their privilege, but I hope it doesn't become the norm.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
What happened with google?
When the chicoms told it to roll over it threw some sulky fit and pulled out.
But now it's quite willingly to assume the position and bend over to the Indians?
You just censor for different things. You hate copyrighted stuff and god knows what else. According to Google, US had asked for 92 content removals requests which took out close to 800 items. India just had 400 items removed from 68 requests.
For a country with 'free speech' you sure dont sound free to me.
is google obeying any orders from any north korean goverment agency or court ? no. or abu dhabi ? or, yemen ?
google and others are obeying the 'state' only in countries they are making money.
in short, its basic capitalism. and its symptom is lack of spine and principles - do no evil, until your market share is in danger.
Read radical news here
I think "Poetic" might be the better tag here. An image of Shiva clutching all eight of Superstitions throats, that would be Artist. Mocking, and eventually Filtered and Blocked, but Artistic.
you probably meant capitalism aka unrestricted feudalism. or, you dont know the definition of communism.
Read radical news here
How come I agree with that fuckup RMS, everytime! He is an asshole for thinking like me. I came up with those idas too, albeit later, yet independently. Fuck that, RMS. ;)
This is the same idea as crying to your mom at the age of 5 when someone's mean to you or when someone says a bad word. Just because some people offend WAY to easily shouldn't be Google's, Facebook's or anyone's issue. If your sensitive to religion that's fine, I'm not about to try and call anyone out for there person belief but realize that people have the right to mock or joke about any religion, if you can't handle that then it's not there problem, it's yours.
Tell it to the numerous muslim terrorist groups out to burn the world.
all of them are either remnants of the era in which u.s. funded and armed islamist to 'counter' soviet influence, or groups propped up by usa and israel later, in order to replace the threat they lost with the warsaw pact with something else to be able to justify military spending, freedom-restriction and invasions.
if you check them out, you will find out that almost all of the leaders of those organizations have been educated neatly in either britain or usa. and their relatives have ties with cia or mossad.
Read radical news here
I don't the USA really counts. I see a big difference between actual speech and links to warez. Don't you?
They all live in heaven. So therefore, since no Gods live in India, the set of Gods being mocked and in India is the null set.
Ergo no crime.
As a pastafarian I am deeply offended that you mock The One And Only True Good by insinuating that there are other gods.
I'm offended that you're offended.
Check your premises.
This.
The only sort of speech worth preserving is that which is unpleasant to some. That which all accept needs no preservation.
Check your premises.
This story is tagged with both "islam" and "muslims", yet the actual linked article mentions nothing about either. As India is a predominantly Hindu country, I seriously doubt it's only Muslims behind this. It also says "Gods", not "God", which to me implies Hinduism, not Islam.
"No person, no idea, and no religion deserves to be illegal to insult." --RMS
this. Once we bow to this, then we open the door to other reliegous based censorship, which opens the door for religeons organizations and cults to supress critics.
"Something in another country I can access in the comfort of my own home offends me!"
Don't fucking access it then.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Singh and Gandhi in compromising positions and pigs running through Mecca, Islam’s holiest city
The first part make the lawsuit make a little sense and make it so that the Slashdot Title is incorrect. In the US it could be considered parody, but parody usually comes close to libel and slander. Gandhi and Singh are also not Gods but religious figures. I'm a bit surprised they took a stance on the Pigs running though Mecca, but it's probably politically motivated to appease some Islamic views so that maybe possibly they might find some common ground (wishful thinking but that's what it sounds like).
Is that you Voltaire?
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. " Though these words are regularly attributed to Voltaire, they were first used by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writing under the pseudonym of Stephen G Tallentyre in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), as a summation of Voltaire's beliefs on freedom of thought and expression.
The quotation is also a "fallacy", if used without context. Imagine there's a party saying there should be a law that will kill you and your family, will you "defend it to the death"?
While Google has no choice but to respond to court orders if they are to serve Indian customers and users, I think this is in extremely bad form for India to not keep the church and state separate.
People will make fun of your religious beliefs. They will mock you, laugh at you, and point fingers. No matter what faith you follow.
Walking around with a chip on your shoulder about it or threatening jihads, filing lawsuits, etc. is freaking BULLSHIT.
Or doesn't India's constitution and rights in law grant freedom of speech? Canada's is more restrictive than the US, because we explicitly do not grant such freedom to spread "hate speech" and libel, but other than that, I would have expected India to have similar legislation as a Commonwealth nation.
Then again, maybe India is just suffering from a tad bit 'o political corruption about the whole issue, with a whining little pisspot to stir things up by filing the suit over him feeling "offended". Wah. Go cry in your lassi, buddy.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Do you see their Tactics here ?
Wow are they Gutless?
They wont block those services themselves. They can.,Instead they try to let us do it
in hope some liberal kook Constitution shredding US Judges kisses their Butts
Google has agreed before a court in Delhi to remove religious and other content considered objectionable, though some other Internet firms are likely to appeal the court's decision, plaintiff Mufti Ajiaz Arshad Qasmi said on Monday.
The appeal:
The government allowed the court to prosecute the Internet companies under various Indian laws in the criminal case, but Google has meanwhile appealed the decision before the Delhi High Court.
Basic background: India is the country with the second largest Muslim population in the world, number of Indian Muslims dwarfs Pakistan, Arabia, Egypt, Bangladesh. Just recently Indonesia overtook it. Muslims form a sizeable vote bank, some 15% of the electorate and almost all the politicians kow-tow the lines drawn by them. There is widespread belief that the Muslims are punching way above their weight politically. But even when there is provocation like Muslim painters paint Hindu goddesses in the nude or something, the Hindu reaction is usually divided. The secularists are mostly in control of the hard liners on the Hindu side. Once in a while you hear Hindu hardliners banning Valentines Day or protesting some movie or a book.
Having said that, for country with that large a Muslim population, very few of the Indian Muslims are involved in terrorism, or support terrorism. Despite periodical outrageous attacks by Pakistani Muslims terrorist outfits inside India, there is no widespread retaliation against the local Muslims. Indian Muslims join the police and military in large numbers.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
A party should have a right to discuss such a law; it's that discussion that's being defended, not the law itself.
Let's see. USA has had:
- Government attacks on journalists.
- Government attacks on citizens who take video recordings of police in public, often because those citizens posted to sites like Youtube the evidence of police committing abuse and brutality.
- Government shutdowns of entire websites based not on convictions under the law, but of "indictments" based on one-sided presentation of carefully chosen and misrepresented lists of evidence, complete with fabricated and delusional accusations of "mass conspiracy" spun out of whole cloth with inserted accusations of "terrorism" and other things designed not to have any factual basis but merely to constitute an emotional appeal (read: "oh but think of the children", which always comes behind some censorship law or other).
Hell, you don't even have to be that recent. The "USA PATRIOT ACT" (what an Orwellian name!) has plenty to be worried about already. And then we have the DMCA and all the other chilling effects laws the USA has enacted...
Did google create the content? Google is just a search engine. Why not blame the person that created the content?
If nobody is up to the challenge of removing laws against criticizing, mocking or insulting, then I'd propose we replace these laws for a single law against the dissemination of false information. So, nothing that isn't proven true can be taught as such, and can only be accompanied by an appropriate disclaimer of conjecture or fiction. I guess all religions will be crushed pretty quickly then, for the betterment of everyone.
I'm offended that you're offended at my offense.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
The gods worshipped in India (and everywhere else) can go fuck themselves.
I consider it an offense to my offended offendedness that you're offended by my offensive offense.
We've now passed through the Plaid Event Horizon, and gone fully recursive.
Check your premises.
The gods bothered by mere human ridicule must be awfully weak. Usually they spite people with lightning bolts and similar such things to solve these kinds of problems.
If you're not offended, you're not living in a free society.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
This isn't a protection of God, it's a protection of those men who claim to speak for God.
Gandhi never claimed to speak for God. He didn't elevate himself to Mahatma ether. Those where things that others attributed to him just as you are attributing that he and others like him would commit murder for this offense.
If I were to draw a picture of Drew Barrymore prostituting herself out on the Vegas Strip I could easily find myself slapped with a lawsuit as well. Free speech doesn't mean freedom to commit libel and slander.
Please do not offer my god a peanut.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Look, guys. You know how politicians in your countries try to use religious wedge issues, appeal to "cultural values", and leverage that in politics to push through the censorship regimes they want?
Yeah. That doesn't just happen in your country.
Hey Pot,
You're black too.
Sincerely,
Kettle
Remember when they actually believed in their whole First Amendment thing? Yeah, that hasn't been the case since Nixon apparently.
That hasn't been the case since Adams. The 1st Amendment has always been toothless. But notice you don't necessarily need an Internet to make yourself heard. It certainly isn't helping much now.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
... let 'em do it. It'll help stifle the free and Western thought processes that are necessary to build the architect level portion of a technological middle class and will help keep my high end development job from getting outsourced.
Now off to spam stackoverflow with comments about the steamy affair between Kali, Vishnu and Krishna from a McDonnalds without washing my hands...
Check your premises.
That is what I have heard. Does that sound about right to you?
Worth noting, these attacks are usually part of an organized movement, not just random crimminal behavior.
Since Nixon? You obviously weren't around for the Cold War.
The 1st is toothless? Larry Flynt and the Westboro church would tend to disagree.
Good-bye
I disagree with them complying this sets a very bad precedent IMHO. Too much Political Correctness. What happened to free speech. If it is not hateful and 'merely' 'offensive'. Then tell them no, we believe in freedom of the web.
Max Hardcore would likely care to counter.
Put the content back or MY beliefs will be utterly and forever damaged!
ruins everything.
These are the people who banned Satanic Verses before any other country in the Islamic world. The country Salman Rushdie couldn't visit because it would upset the muslims.
Please Mod this up so that the question can get some international exposure. Perhaps we can get a list of links to the sites in question?
Your death, or theirs?
RMS has an ugly beard and bad breath... I suspect the two are related too.
Ah, so you only defend speech you agree with. Like most people, it seems.
weinersmith
Especially since in MH's case, the Supreme Court upheld jurisdiction shopping as a way to get convictions on someone, even if they'd already been tried and acquitted or the charges thrown out in other states.
I am an indian citizen and i believe that terrorists or even local bad people never made as much damage as judges did in india. Not only that they doesnt have any strict protocol(f->uck the indian penal code and constitution driven by faith on religions) but also they take decisions like supreme religious leaders when it comes to peoples freedom. whenever a lower court(state high courts) does a *mistake* supreme court just criticize in strict language -> but no punishment unlike how they treat normal civilians. I have a personal experience on a very stupid judgement in a lower civil court.
That which all accept needs no preservation.
There aint no such thang.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
what does 'having presence' mean ?
Read radical news here
Whats next youtube complying with Syrian government requests to remove videos of their citizens being killed by their own military? Whats the difference? Leave it to the governments to try and control information on behalf of their citizens don't do it for them.
Having a presence at all in backwards countries including the US is the root problem.
Gods
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Gods
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Gods are something that I despise
For they mean destruction of innocent lives
For they mean tears in thousands of mothers' eyes
When their Gods go out to fight to take their lives
Gods
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
Gods
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Gods
They're nothing but a heartbreaker
Gods
Friends only to the undertaker
Gods are the enemy of all mankind
The thought of Gods blows my mind
Handed down from generation to generation
Induction destruction
Who wants to die
Gods
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
Gods
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Gods have shattered many young men's dreams
Made them disabled bitter and mean
Life is too precious to be fighting Gods each day
Gods can't give life they can only take it away
Gods
They're nothing but a heartbreaker
Gods
Friends only to the undertaker
Peace love and understanding
There must be some place for these things today
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But what?, there's gotta be a better way
That's better than
Gods
Gods
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
Gods
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
ermm.. yes this is how the world works.
Stuff I don't agree with I can choose to ignore.
Then maybe in a future point in time what is being spoken actually affects me. Then I may choose to defend or attack it.
There is no point in expending unnecessary effort in defending or attacking a speech that does not affect anything. Call this the preservation of energy if you will.
You misunderstand. Defending speech != defending idea. Besides, how will you know if an idea will affect anything or not unless you allow it to be expressed in free speech?
weinersmith
That sounds great. And this is what happens in practice with ... shall we say ... "a certain faith", and a few various ideologies ...
an example of what india had to deal with in the past
The crux of the matter is simple : an enlightened civilization makes the statement referred to before, attributed to Voltaire (who also didn't mean it)
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
The rest of the story has been repeated countless times :
group X: "oh really ? Let's see what happens if we kill a few (dozen) people over this"
"enlightened" civilization: "please please PLEASE stop. We'll kill those people we'd "defend to the death"
Group X has historically been muslims, dictators and communists in regions where they have enough control to actually commit large-scale violence. The conclusion is of course, as simple as they come : against "modern free-thinking atheists" any amount of violence, if it's over the threshold of killing people, will make "free-thinkers" acquiesce to any demands. This has been used both by "protestors" (e.g. see the effect of the sept 11 attacks on the american press), and governments (e.g. the Iranian government control over newspapers is much more based on regular attacks against the worst offender than it is on constant inspection).
Needless to say, there is one way to stop this : if any ideology starts using violence, should result in slowly building attacks against any member of that ideology. That is the only recourse, except pie-in-the-sky 100% police effectiveness and worldwide freedom of speech laws.
Yo dawg, I heard you like being offended so I put an offensive comment within an offensive comment so that you could be offended while being offended.
Protecting intellectual property vs censoring free expression of religion ideas, seems to a different sort of thing to me.
"Freedom of speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Personal friend of mine, had its Facebook account closed by a lot of religious zealots accusing the account of mocking their religious views. I've personally saw the posts, some jokes, and other times strong arguments against religions and god's idea. So, how come Facebook is letting a bunch of zealots have the power to close an account by simple accusation without given the right to argue back? If I am right, I invite ANYONE to mock about my ideas, I would fight back with ARGUMENTS, because I feel I'm right. It would denote myself being mentally challenged if I ask to have the other party shut up, instead of being able to defend my ideas myself.
But you people don't kill enough. Don't riot enough. The way to your kind of laws is to influence the state. The way to influence the state, well ... If you want concessions, from America, 9/11 should be your guide. Notice how the concessions after 9/11 increased, not decreased, violence against America. You want concessions from India ? Google "pakistan secession" (also notice what Indian concessions got for India. More violence, in fact, much much more violence).
So there's a second lesson : don't stop the violence just because you got what you want. You need to increase the pressure every time you get concessions and scream about racism everyone someone attempts to tie violence to your ideology.
And the main lesson : if you want to oppose these kinds of people, grand statements do not suffice. You want to defend to the death someone's right to say something ? Don't forget that you need to add that you are prepared to kill to defend someone's right to say something if it comes to it. Without that, it doesn't mean a thing.
And google is not hosting the content.
Why should a US company have to fight, for India, against a third party?
Why doesn't India take down the content themselves, or file a lawsuit against who created the content.
Cute ... and what about the religions who kill in response to insults ?
Another flaw is limiting this to religions. Communists have killed in response to insults. Hell, they've killed in response to facts. Then again, muslims killed dozens in response to the claim they're intolerant ... you can hardly imagine more complete proof of the evident truth about islam ...
And most of the other countries have suppressed evidence of genocide (Saudi Arabia, China, especially Turkey, India), suppress entire political ideologies (France, India) ... in addition to all of what you say happened in the USA.
And I do agree with the other criticism against you : most of what you complain about boils down to suppressing warez sites. Which just doesn't compare to the atrocities those other countries (excepting perhaps France) commit. Warez doesn't deserve defense.
India's latest GDP growth figure slipped to 6.9% and industrial production numbers showed a decline of 5.1% compared with the previous period.
In certain religions, Hinduism included, anything can be revered as an object of worship from trees down to rocks. So if you offend the type of tree or the
specific rock that is the object of my worship can I have you censored?
What if I worship Rajinikanth or Sachin Tendulkar (famous movie star and cricketer) as my personal god and you say something against them, can I have you censored? Allowing censoring is a slippery slope.
A party should have a right to discuss such a law; it's that discussion that's being defended, not the law itself.
I am aware of that, I just think that there are limits to what is tolerable to discuss in order to have a worthwhile discussion or discourse, based on historical experience and the western "unalienable rights". I won't defend somebody who says "kill $foo" and there will be a better world. So to avoid to "build world" again like after WWII, we shut down the threat to freedom. There's a reason for jails in FreeBSD and in society.
I am aware of that, I just think that there are limits to what is tolerable to discuss in order to have a worthwhile discussion or discourse, based on historical experience and the western "unalienable rights".
Historical experience tells us that any attempt to shut down discussion will be abused. If we allow the government to set limits, they will set the limits in a way that benefits the government, and not the people. Therefore, there must be no limits.
I won't defend somebody who says "kill $foo" and there will be a better world.
So all those who called for the death of Osama Bin Laden should have gone to jail for that?
So to avoid to "build world" again like after WWII, we shut down the threat to freedom.
If we ever have another world war, it will be because of too much censorship, not too little.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You misunderstand. Defending speech != defending idea. Besides, how will you know if an idea will affect anything or not unless you allow it to be expressed in free speech?
We know how ideas were put to work in Nazi Germany. The Weimar Republic's constitution guaranteed individual rights such as the freedom of speech and assembly to each citizen. After that catastrophe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been declared and countries like France or Germany set limits to free speech.
Then they just stopped playing in the realm of legalities and insults, and started committing acts of war.
We have a different set of rules for that.
You mean nearly throwing out the first amendment trying to acquiesce to their demands ? Muslims kill 5000 innocent Americans, and the result is near-immunity from criticism, at least in the press. Constant accusations that the state is "mistreating" people caught attacking Americans in warzones (mistreating, of course, according to American law, not e.g. geneva conventions)
Why we don't directly attack the ideology and it's members is beyond me. Even a small increase in their numbers or their attacks will force everyone to do just that anyway ...
But we like to pretend everything is just peachy ...
[angrily] Mr. Simpson, please pay for your purchases and get out and
[brightly] come again!
Say something anti-Linux, anti-Android, pro-Christian, or whatever else goes against Slashdot groupthink and you will get modded into non-existance by the very same people who are arguing against censorship right now.
Historical experience tells us that any attempt to shut down discussion will be abused. If we allow the government to set limits, they will set the limits in a way that benefits the government, and not the people. Therefore, there must be no limits.
I sympathise with your statement, but a government or a state has the duty to ensure the safety and freedom of all citizens and non-citizens who live in their area of control. Incitement to hatred or crime is such a danger and thus the government has to act and limit those actions of speech. There must be a debate over this limits.
So all those who called for the death of Osama Bin Laden should have gone to jail for that?
He should have stand trial, if possible. That was not the case. If somebody with executive power in the government issued a shoot-to-kill order, this person as well should have to face a trial. There was no declaration of war to Pakistan. If my neighbour tells me Bin Laden should be killed right away, I try to explain why this is not the best idea, but my neighbour should not go to jail because she has no power to issue those orders. If my neighbour repeatedly says "I am gonna kill this parasite at the other of the street" there should be consequences.
If we ever have another world war, it will be because of too much censorship, not too little.
Agreed. There's one raging, because a lot of the footsoldiers in Quaida/Taliban/etc are cut off from the wealth of information the world has to offer and a notion that god might be an idea invented by humans. The only answer I can think of is access to education and the basic concepts of human rights, as well as economic well being. In western countries the free flow of information kinda works.
"Protecting intellectual property" seems to encircle almost everything people with money don't like.
Used a photo to criticize shitty photoshop job? DMCA'd.
Posted a video endorsing filesharing site? We'll take it down for copyright infringement (and not even lawfully at that)
And so on, and so on.
"We're only chasing pedophiles, terrorists and counterfeiters", sure.
I have no clue what you're trying to say.
weinersmith
I sympathise with your statement, but a government or a state has the duty to ensure the safety and freedom of all citizens and non-citizens who live in their area of control. Incitement to hatred or crime is such a danger and thus the government has to act and limit those actions of speech.
If you give the government the ability to define what sort of incitement to hatred is acceptable, they will accept hatred of the opposing political parties. This sort of interference in the democratic process is a much MUCH bigger danger than individuals.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
...where hate speech is illegal? Mocking Hindu gods is their version of "hate speech".
It all depends on the extend of the mockery here.
Guess you must be on the side of the Muslims who got their panties in a bunch over that cartoon thing?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Actually, that's the doctrine on winning the Global War On Terror(TM) that's slowly moving up the food chain, if you follow political science journals.
are equally ridiculous.
I don't discriminate.
Sorry slashdot. I guess you and me are going to be on a list somewhere.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
In the original book, and the Marlon Brando movie, the ugly American was a good guy, helping the farmers in the fictitious southeast Asian country he was working in improve life in their villages. It was the military and government folks back at the embassy who were getting us into the Vietnam war.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The quotation is also a "fallacy", if used without context. Imagine there's a party saying there should be a law that will kill you and your family, will you "defend it to the death"?
Yes, and oppose it equally -- through speech, not violence.
-GiH
Texas could easily issue a court order demanding that Google do that - all the plaintiff would have to do is assert that Islam is their intellectual property, and it should be no problem fitting in with the traditional court behaviour down there. A patent would be more likely to succeed, but those have to be registered, and expire after 20 years, but he could argue that those cartoons of The Prophet are derivative works and he'd be riding the Disney-powered gravy train of perpetual copyright protection.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The quotation is also a "fallacy", if used without context. Imagine there's a party saying there should be a law that will kill you and your family, will you "defend it to the death"?
Yes, and oppose it equally -- through speech, not violence. -GiH
Thank you. This is why I am still on slashdot, people reading comments and actually commenting in a thoughtful way.
Agreed regarding semi-totalitarian states like China or Iran. Nowadays the opposition in western and western-oriented countries usually doesn't get crushed about issues of free speech, the government is aware of the danger of such accusations. Mikhail Khodorkovsky is serving a 14 year prison sentence for fraud. He supported the opposition in Russia. A Ukrainian court sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison after she was found guilty of abuse of office when brokering the 2009 gas deal with Russia. Martin Luther King, Jr was imprisoned because of a non-violent protest, disrupting traffic or so... Clinton's impeachment was based on lying... I am rambling and should get some work get done...
What is this offensive content and how do I get my copy? What good is slashdot if it won't implement the Streisand effect?
Agreed regarding semi-totalitarian states like China or Iran.
There, but for Voltaire, go we. Freedom is not an end state. You can't just go "ok, we're free now, we dont' need freedom of speech anymore". If you can't exercise your free speech rights during good times, how can you expect to keep them when times are bad?
Nowadays the opposition in western and western-oriented countries usually doesn't get crushed about issues of free speech
Did you miss the Occupy protests this fall? They were crushed by the police. Did you miss the Gasland director being arrested for recording an open, public, session of Congress? Did you miss the US dropping 27 positions on the Free Press Index?
The price of freedom is eternal vigilence. We forgot this lesson in the US, and are in the process of losing our freedom. It will take another bloody revolution to get it back. Whatever country you're from, please stay vigilant.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Not really; his third point as I read it was tied to Wikileaks, not warez. Remember, they shut the original wikileaks domain down, not by convicting anyone, but through a combination of massive D-Dos attacks, pressuring payment processors to freeze their donations, and so on. At the same time as they were doing this, they were shovelling the vitriol into the presses courtesy of Fox News and the New York Times.
Remember too that wikileaks did actually reveal evidence of war crimes, although it was mixed in with a lot of chaff.
His first two points can't be interpreted as support for warez whatsoever.
Please remember that it wasn't so much religion as it was political/economic control through abusing religion.
Contrariwise, if you're not careful, you'll throw the baby out with the bathwater. We're entering an amoral atheistic society. You'll keep the worst parts of religious history (under the guise of political parties) and throw out the best parts (work ethic, taking responsibility, golden rule, family values, etc).
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
all the plaintiff would have to do is assert that Islam is their intellectual property, and it should be no problem
This approach has had significant success for other religious organizations, so I could see this working.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The problem is the issue of who holds the rights to Islam has been tied up in a sort of probate for years. Just ask the Sunnis and the Shiites.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
You need to increase the pressure every time you get concessions and scream about racism everyone someone attempts to tie violence to your ideology.
*cough* Palestine *cough*
All gods are deserving of equal protection under the law, no matter how utterly ludicrous any sane, rational mind would find the completely risible concept of worshipping magical monkeys and frilly-skirted four-armed elephant things.
no gods are deserving of ANY protection under the law. if the gods can't take it, then too God damn bad. Sionce when does a "god" need protection ?
India is the country with the second largest Muslim population in the world, number of Indian Muslims dwarfs Pakistan
Err, let's not get carried away. There are more Muslims in Pakistan then there are in India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population
I am getting sick of all this whole google is the 'internet' talk. Google does not host anything but just trall through the net- anyone can do it - might take some time but still, it's got nothing to do with what it finds.
Google needs to just grow some balls and say sorry, what people search for is their own business, we just point to the site. So what.
I think it's time all the nerds here just make a google clone and end all this nonesence.
And just a point, all those religious people should be praying to their 'god/myth' and doing other things than use technology that does not involve them WHAT SO EVER.
Anyway, rant over, new search engine time!
Thanks for the defense - but I doubt any facts will budge his mind. The fact that someone marked him "insightful" just proves how annoyingly uninformed much of the Slashdot audience is.
I say nonsense tbh, because if you're worshipping that idea, then it's a religion _TO_YOU_ so you are then worshipping in a religious sense!
The anonymous coward who cant be bothered to check the contents the post of the poster that he's flaming! This is Slashdot! :D (hint, where does it say that the poster is a muslim?)
I used to say that too, then I joined the army...had kids.... I am an Atheist and no longer will casually put my life in peril for a fool....they are too numerous.
im calling you idiot. because, you either have to be an ignorant fuck, or an idiot to come up and attempt to contest history.
u.s. funded 100s of islamist groups in middle east and afghanistan over 2 decades. al qaeda is one of them. everything ranging from their core leaders' training to their means of funding themselves were set up by u.s.
u.s. does not need to give them money. probably they havent been giving them money since close to a decade. instead they set up them with many means to fund themselves, one of which being drug trade.
Read radical news here
Assuming the data there is accurate and up to date, the numbers are very close, 10.9% of total for India vs 11% for Pakistan. It is possible recently Pakistan overtook India, or may they have been trading places back and forth in the past. Still it is a fact that India has the second or the third largest population of Muslims in the world.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
So, if I remember to include a sarcastic snide comment about their god(s) in all my professional publications they will never read any of my scientific papers again ... helps keep them out of the loop, and out of the future ...
Agora.....
watch it and sigh for how the world could have been
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186830/
Google ought to decline to remove anything. Their canned response should be "Look, if you don't like what you see, don't look for it. If that makes our tool less useful to you, that's a personal issue. Deal with it. If you still can't handle it, well, maybe you should try blocking us in your country. I'm sure that will go down well with your people. Especially when you start losing jobs. Have a nice day. Sincerely, Google (being less evil than you).".
I'm sorry, as far as I can tell you are not being sarcastic. If you honestly believe what you wrote then I have news for you.
Every time Google, Microsoft or some other American corporation is involved in so-called "foreign" courts American citizens are up in arms [on the Internet].
Do you really not understand that companies that have offices and offer services in said "foreign" country are subject to that country's laws and courts? The company is not "American", the legal entity involved is Google India, Inc, an Indian corporation.
Or are you simply in denial and wish it to be otherwise? It's quite simple, really, if you want to play, you have to play by the local rules.
"If my religion is true, it will stand up to all my questioning; there is no need to fear." --Madeleine L'Engle
Casteism
I am offended that you're offended that I am offended...TAKE THAT off google. :-)
The entire freedom of speech is that, the freedom to say what we feel, report a perspective and communicate.
It is sad however that anything has to be removed / cannot have good without the bad etc.
Content removal evolving into a very hot topic of religious views, wow - powerful stuff - religion.
Oh I see and chritians never kill anyone due to intolerance. Apart form the IRA, the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition etc.
Fact is that extremists exist and act the same way in all religions. It says a lot about you that you single out muslims,
for criticism for smoething that is by no means unique to them. Its not even all that common if you look at the numbers.
Immune form criticism maybe,(But not that I have noticed) but not immune from being killed by the hundered of thousand by revenge crazed americans (Iraq Afghanistan Palesitine etc). I am sick of americans bleating about 9/11 when they have killed many many more people before and since than were killed on 9/11. If you didnt go around interfering in other countries to gain financial advantage (Remember who trained and financed Bin Laden?)you might have a point.