Slashdot Mirror
Ontario Government Wants To Regulate the Internet
An anonymous reader writes This afternoon, the Ontario government appeared before the CRTC as
part of its future of television hearing. Michael Geist reports
that it issued a clear call for new regulation of so-called new
media companies such as Netflix and Google. The government states: "In order to create a more level playing field, the ministry
recommends decreasing this regulatory imbalance. The ministry
believes the best way to accomplish this is to expand the
regulation of new media TV, rather than by lightening the current
regulation of traditional TV." What does the expansion of regulation involve? For the Ontario
government, it includes regulating
foreign online video services such as Google and Netflix, but
exempting Canadian services.
if these new media companies would simply stop their feed to Ontario IPs for a week just to make the point for once?
Government doesn't get it. They don't control it.
Not only that, but with the wording they're using, they'd get their ass handed to them in front of a WTO panel.
...it includes regulating foreign online video services such as Google and Netflix, but exempting Canadian services.
Either that, or may be their end game is to also regulate their own Canadian online streaming services and to claim surprise and innocence when the WTO requires them to impose the same regulation on their own industry.
The British disagreed with their Empire breaking up, but it did anyway. Nor was Soviet leadership capable of keeping power through force despite controlling the military. Or perhaps we should as Gaddafi how it's going?
Nations are held together by a nebulous thing called legitimacy. Totalitarianism is a system where the state's legitimacy is absolute: it can do whatever it pleases. The other end of the spectrum is constitutionalism, where the state earns legitimacy by safeguarding the interests of its citizens. Nowadays we see an emergence of a third "pole", where a state's legitimacy depends from not just how it treats its citizens but also from how it behaves as a part of the international community. We are seeing the rise of an world system, a "city of nations", so to say. Sadly, just as humans are prone to self-centered megalomania, so are our social systems. Thus we should expect jealous attempts to claim "their" people's loyalty through, for example, nationalism and censorship.
Of course the irony is that a properly working world system will be a far safer place with more opportunity than the violent chaos of ages past for nations, just like a nation is a safer place with more opportunity than a jungle for humans. But that doesn't stop people from bitterly complaining how they're robbed by taxes, even as the only reason they have any income to tax besides whatever berries they managed to grap while running from lions is the very infrastructure maintained by said taxes. And of course would-be tyrants see their window of opportunity slipping away, and have every reason to delay the inevitable as long as possible by stirring up trouble and creating resentment. They'll fail, but time will tell how long it'll take.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Yeah, that's not how the world works. Sorry.
You see, you live in the USA. Your country is the biggest piece of shit when it comes to fair trade.
Why? Because you CANNOT compete. So you create bullshit regulations and trade barriers. But you go around the world bullying other countries to sign free trade agreements with you. So you can dump our countries with your crap - but we can't sell to you.
I'm from Argentina. We can't sell lemons to you (even though our lemons are cheaper than yours), and we can't sell beef to you (even though or beef is perfectly healthy). The US claims our beef is contaminated with Foot-and-mouth disease, so they won't accept it. All it takes is ONE case in my country for you to completely block us for years. Think about it for a little and figure it out. Have you? Let me explain: all it takes is for someone from the US to infect ONE of our cows - for the US to completely block trade for one of our main industries.
And the US works ACTIVELY so other countries CANNOT develop. For example, when Argentina was working on a 4K video codec, the US government, by way of "export controls" didn't allow nVidia to sell us more than 4 (four) Tesla units - for the whole country.
See? THAT is how the world works. Not with your libertarian free market theory.