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Why French Govt's Attempt to Censor Wikipedia Matters
In the end, the Streisand Effect prevailed, as you might expect, when a French domestic intelligence agency apparently browbeat a French citizen into removing content from Wikipedia. The attention caused the Wikipedia entry on a formerly obscure military radio site (English version) to leap in popularity not only in French, but in languages where it was formerly far less likely to have been noticed at all. Lauren Weinstein makes the case, though, that this sort of move isn't just something to shrug at or assume will always end so nicely. "Even though attempts at Internet censorship will almost all fail in the end, governments and authorities have the capability to make groups' and individuals' lives extremely uncomfortable, painful, or even terminated — in the process of attempts at censorship, and equally important, by instilling fear to encourage self-censorship in the first place."
A lie can make its way around the world before the truth can get its boots on. In our pre-distopia state, we're still dealing with Governments that think that blocking something is the best way to make it disappear. It won't be long though until they figure out that telling people lies that they want to believe is a far more effective way of burying the truth than redacting it. So enjoy the dumb governments, corporations, and political groups for as long as you can - because when your generation gets into the control seat, the bullshit isn't going to smell like bullshit, it's going to look and taste like sugar or bacon (choose appropriate tasty thing)
"Even though attempts at Internet censorship will almost all fail in the end, governments and authorities have the capability to make groups' and individuals' lives extremely uncomfortable, painful, or even terminated — in the process of attempts at censorship, and equally important, by instilling fear to encourage self-censorship in the first place."
Wikileaks comes to my mind
Wikipedia is almost nothing without contributors, and french government can put a heavy presure on french contributors. What wil be the result if each government acts the same way ?
It would be nice if TFS included an explanation of who Laura Weinstein actually is, and why anyone should be interested in the views she writes on her amaterish-looking personal blog.
France and Russia are very different states indeed, but it's interesting that Russian Wikipedia had a similar incident recently. The Russian Wikimedia received a request from the government to remove the 'Cannabis smoking' article from Russian Wikipedia (see google-translated version). The request in an ultimate manner states that if the article won't be removed during 24 hours then 'the hosting provider is obliged to limit access to such website' (haha, hosting provider from USA?) and if the hosting provider refuses to do that, then 'the IP address of the website will be listed in a database of addresses to whish ISP's will limit access'. The request PDF is here.
Wikipedia is almost nothing without contributors, and french government can put a heavy presure on french contributors.
What wil be the result if each government acts the same way ?
This is the core problem in this case. If the French government, or in deed any government outside the US, wanted to go after Wikipedia, they would find that for all the Wikimedia Foundation is not a money making machine, there are plenty of legally trained people willing to leap to its defence. Plus it would be a great bit of American flag-waving, with the forces of Goodness, Truth and The American Way protecting US Citizens from the corrupt/socialist/communist/feminist/European/Chinese/Arab/terrorist/non-Hollywood/pirate/non-Christian (delete as appropriate) evils.
If the US government wants to shut it down, one call from any number of unaccountable officials in shadowy agencies could pretty much bury the whole thing.
On the other hand, if a government wants to go after the contributors, they are much less likely to have any legal training, backup or knowledge of how the law works, and a couple of big guys with official-looking badges suddenly become very effective at getting the contributor censored.
There was this boat in New Zealand that pissed the French off that one time...
What wil be the result if each government acts the same way ?
You can't talk like that. We need to give a gang of people the power to steal, kidnap, and murder or else we'd have gangs of people stealing, kidnapping, and murdering.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Let me quote from a blog post that paints an even darker picture than the original story I submitted on /.
DCRI summoned a Wikipedia volunteer in their offices on April 4th. This volunteer, which was one of those having access to the tools that allow the deletion of pages, was forced to delete the article while in the DCRI offices, on the understanding that he would have been held in custody and prosecuted if he did not comply. Under pressure, he had no other choice than to delete the article, despite explaining to the DCRI this is not how Wikipedia works. [...]
This volunteer had no link with that article, having never edited it and not even knowing of its existence before entering the DCRI offices. He was chosen and summoned because he was easily identifiable [...]
Can you imagine the pressure they put this volunteer through? Threatening him with five years of prison if he does not immediately comply and delete the article in the intelligence agency's offices? You think that doesn't matter?
Google has self-censored sites in the Washington, D.C., area and other areas of military and national security interest at the request of the USA government. It's blurred the regions or limited the resolution at which users can scan the areas, such as Fort Knox or the Naval Observatory a.k.a. the Vice-President's Residence. It's also done that for China and India, South Korea, Australia, and others (I think) at those government's requests also. http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/government the name of that link speaks for itself
How Google And Bing Maps Control What You Can See
http://gizmodo.com/5907421/the-dutch-have-the-weirdest-google-maps-censorship
and of course wikipedia's article on Map censorship by google and microsoft So if Google and MS and others already do all of this at the behest of the government, why are we surprised that the French government is trying to censor Wikipedia?
In Russia Wikipedia is giving up to the political pressure to remove or edit a page on Cannabis smoking (Russian version of the page).
I can't fully understand what exactly on that page provoked the government reaction, but apparently there are a number of pages that the Russian gov't is set against (suicide, methamphetamine, bong, amphetamine, The Complete Manual of Suicide - the page on a Japanese book).
In any case, the Russian government is engaged in censorship against Internet sites and other "extremist" materials, which include books, articles, music, images, etc.
Apparently too many people around the world just can't come to grips with the fact that trying to stop proliferation of information on the Net is a stupid idea, but hey, laws don't have to be intelligent. Intelligence is not a prerequisite for survival, apparently it's also not a prerequisite for governing.
You can't handle the truth.
You are defending the LIFEWORK of a PORN dealer
I. What the fuck are you talking about?
II. What's the problem with porn dealers or their lifework?
III. Presupposing your argument has any merit*:
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." — H. L. Mencken
* I don't believe your argument has merit, but I do believe that Mencken's quote is applicable to the general viewpoint you've expressed.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
But, governments DO act that way. Show me one government that; if it doesn't do it's dirty work openly, doesn't have a "secret" agency of some other advertised value, that handles it's hoodlum urges. Governments do as they please, because once in power, they find that those they are to serve are more valuable as an asset to their aspirations as a crop, or commodity , if you will, than a master of their industry. Governments who aren't SPECIFICALLY relegated to sundry maintenance of the peoples general interests and well being,and kept that way, grow corrupt and wild as Kudzu or Ragweed. It then takes bloody revolution to separate their desire for money and power from actual governance, like bombing a field with herbicide.
Wouldn't it be nice to just have a Worldwide Revolt Day and just turn the whole shithouse upside down, then begin again?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
If the US government wants to shut Wikipedia down then they would have to shut down a rather large number of replica sites as well, the content is backed up all over the world in many cases outside the control of the USofA ....
They could fairly quickly kill the master site (to huge protest around the world) but the content would be safe elsewhere ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
"Show me one government that; if it doesn't do it's dirty work openly, doesn't have a "secret" agency of some other advertised value, that handles it's hoodlum urges. "
Iceland?
Wealthy political and banking elites are in control right now. Your "partly democratically accountable" governments are just a facade and I think you probably know it.
Even if rich well-armed people were directly "in control", any acts of aggression, theft, kidnapping and murder would be clearly recognized as criminal behavior. Plenty of well armed poor people could put a stop to that. When the same wealthy elites use "government" as their intermediary, the extortion and intimidation of the population is done under the color of "law" and their violence is legitimized.