Slashdot Mirror
Russia's Internet Blacklist Law Takes Effect
another random user writes with this report from the BBC "A law that aims to protect children from harmful internet content by allowing the government to take sites offline has taken effect in Russia. The authorities are now able to blacklist and force offline certain websites without a trial. The law was approved by both houses of parliament and signed by President Vladimir Putin in July. If the websites themselves cannot be shut down, internet service providers (ISPs) and web hosting companies can be forced to block access to the offending material."
I'd have so much more respect for governments if they'd just come out and say "we're doing it because fuck you people who think different."
"for the children"
First is any site praising pussy riot. Pussy is bad for children you know.
In Putins's Russia, government fucks pussy.
Silence is a state of mime.
The UN takeover of the Internet? Or just a portent of the way things will work in the future?
Clippy says "I see you're trying to access a site that we think you shouldn't. Would you like me to report you to the authorities?"
The internet was not meant for children.
There is no second place.
What's next? Make the internet safe for babies and kittens?
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Because its a country that has taken the steps to categorize and censor the internet to a set standard, at face value the intent is pure. But what does that mean? It means they have the power and most notably the interest to "blacklist and force offline certain websites without a trial.". So yea I'd say that's news, even if it isn't "U.S. news".
Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
Anyone think the Russian system is immune to manipulation for profit?
You want your web company to succeed, you pay the man or go offline.
Because we all hoped that Russia would stop being backwards, and here we have Russia taking backwards to a whole other level.
The Russian people had a chance at freedom, but they lost it.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Agreed, my young friend, though the Berlin Wall was built by East Germany which was a Soviet puppet state.
A better pun would be the Tinfoil Curtain, to harken back to the Iron Curtain of old.
Even then, people were able to listen to shortwave stations from the West, despite jamming. The current attempt is bound to failure, it will cause inconvenience at worst and breed more dissent.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
I knew the world was going down the tubes when I was working on a computer in a social studies class at the high school. The teacher was talking about the elections in Russia. At one point, a teenage girl near the front raises her hand and asks: "Where is Russia? Thats like... in South America, isn't it?"
What scared me was not that the girl asked the question but that she did not get laughed out of the class by nearly as many of her classmates and she should have.
The US *does* shut down porn sites. Technically, all internet pornography is illegal in the US. It's just a law that no-one bothers to enforce any more. Occasionally a DA or AG will try to prove his family credentials by taking on a porn site, but it's just embarassing even when they win.
How is this different from FBI shutting child pornography websites, or taking over DNS records of websites that infringe copyrights? I am not saying that what Russians are doing is right, but lets not forget that we already have the same system and laws in place over here.
As for "save the children" argument that Russians used, I believe pretty much the same argument was used to give US law enforcement power to prosecute child pornography cases. It is hard to argue that government had some other intentions, but if it Russians...then of course they have to be different and have to have an ulterior motive.