Sites Featuring "Terrorism" Or "Child Pornography" To Be Blocked In France

Advocatus Diaboli writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: Now, the General Directorate of the National Police and its cybercrimes unit will be able to request that sites serving terrorist or pedophilia-related content be blocked by Internet Service Providers serving people in France and its territories. ISPs then have to comply with the request within 24 hours. ISPs will be able to request compensation from the French government for any extra costs incurred in blocking the sites. Users who navigate to a site 'to which access is prohibited will be led to an informational page from the Ministry of the Interior,' the text of the decree said. The informational page will list the grounds for the blocking as well as any possibly remedies. Every quarter, French authorities will check whether the blocked pages still contain the offending material. If not, then the authorities will contact ISPs, which will have to unblock the sites, again within 24 hours.

Comments

Its starts with terror and kidding porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Its starts with terror and kidding porn, next comes online casinos that don't have a license from the french government, follow by online BitCoin & alternate currencies web sites the government will claim are being used to avoid paying taxes ... and not to long after that any news sites or blog that the french government doesn't agree with. A very slipper slope...

Re:Its starts with terror and kidding porn

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no provision to pay the owners of the sites that are being blocked, and 'terrorism' and 'child pornography' both have wide ranging interpretations based on whoever may be judging the content.

Basically, by this definition, the French government can arbitrarily take down almost any site it chooses to, and cause them to lose money. That they pay the ISP is inconsequential. This is a disgusting law.

Re:Its starts with terror and kidding porn

[toQDuj]

relying on the fallacy of the middle way will still get you down the slippery slope, just at half the speed!

Re:Its starts with terror and kidding porn

[nbauman]

I heard a Palestinian describing what it's like to negotiate with Israel.

He said, it's like dividing a pizza. First, you divide it in half. Then the other guy says, "I want half of your half too." So he takes that half. Then he says, "I want half of what you've got left...."

Re:Its starts with terror and kidding porn

[nbauman]

You forgot to mention the Palestinians sweetening the pot by blowing up buses (unless that's inconvenient because of walls or border guards), shooting at kids at a 12 year old's party, blowing up a holiday dinner for widowers, shooting rockets or artillery toward towns during morning commute (at a rate of one or two a week during "cease fires").

I could go on for days, actually. People who think the Israelis are ugly should turn their heads and look around 360 degrees and get to know all of Israel's neighbors.

I used to raise money for Israel in the 1980s. I was in the middle of the Jewish establishment. I used to write press releases that ran in the New York Times.

I kept reading stories in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal about Israelis killing Palestinians. The ones that really got to me were the Israelis killing Palestinian children. I remember a story in the NYT about an Israeli chasing a 12-year-old girl named Aasma, who ran away screaming, until he shot her in the head and killed her.

I didn't just believe the NYT. I read the Amnesty International reports. And I didn't just believe the AI reports. I asked Israeli government officials. Their answer? They denied it happened. They said the Palestinians made it all up. The Palestinians lied.

I checked them out. It was the Israelis who were lying.

That was long before any Palestinian suicide bombings or bus bombings. The Palestinians were mostly meek and passive. I kept thinking to myself, "Why don't they get guns and fight back? The Jews would."

There were lots of Palestinians who wanted peace with the Israelis. The Israelis actually made it illegal for the Palestinians to talk about having a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel side-by-side. They arrested Palestinians for talking about peace. I know because I read the AI reports, and called the Israeli government about it.

Finally after the Israelis demonstrated that the peaceful Palestinians would get nowhere, the Palestinians did fight back, though not in the way I expected. They started blowing up buses with suicide bombs. Of course, it's terrible when innocent people get killed, Palestinian or Jew. But the Israelis were provoking, beating, arresting and killing the Palestinians for years before the Palestinians finally decided to fight back.

Of course I could give you facts and supporting evidence, but I've done that many times before and I know what the Israeli-firsters say. They just brush it off and say that it's not true, the Palestinians are lying, Amnesty International is lying, B'Tselem is lying, Haaretz is lying, the UN is lying, the NYT is lying, the BBC is lying, everybody else in the world is lying except Israel and MEMRI, because everybody else in the world is anti-Semitic and hates Israel. And I expect that's what you're going to say.

But maybe I'm wrong. Go read the Goldstone report. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/... If you don't believe that, I won't waste any more time with you.

Blocking is counter productive

[X10]

Blocking child pornography will mean that the general audience will not be aware of its existence, hence they will not put pressure on politicians to end child abuse. Blocking child porn is counter productive, that's a fact. This I say as one of the founders of www.meldpunt.org and www.inhope.org.

Re:Blocking is counter productive

[Anonymous Coward]

Blocking child pornography will mean that the general audience will not be aware of its existence

That's odd, because there are plenty of people - the vast majority, one hopes - who've never seen it and yet are aware of its existence. I've never seen Finland but I'm pretty sure it exists.

You don't need to show someone a thing to make them aware of that thing. In fact, telling them about it and its long term ramifications is surely better than just pointing at some child porn and going "Hey? Hmm? Bad that."

hence they will not put pressure on politicians to end child abuse.

That's the job of the police and the care services. It's already illegal.

Blocking child porn is counter productive, that's a fact.

Got any evidence of that? Got any evidence that, say, leaving child porn unblocked wouldn't in fact lead to an increase in child abuse?

And in that case, what does inhope.org have a "Report Illegal Content" button for? Or is that just for show? Hey, shouldn't you be promoting child pornography? I mean, that can only lead to greater pressure on politicians to end child abuse, right?

Re:Blocking is counter productive

[gweihir]

They do not want to fight child abuse (of which child porn is just a symptom). They want to keep it life and well, so they can trot it out whenever some freedom-reducing laws need to be rammed down the public's throats. Volker Pispers had a nice analogy to this blocking a long time ago: Suppose there is a rapist raping a woman in the open and a policeman comes along. Instead of stopping and arresting the rapist, the policeman puts up screening walls so that nobody can see what is going on. That is what blocking child porn does and what the laws about possession (which also make it impossible in many countries to report you found this stuff somewhere) are all about. If the public were allowed to report this stuff, something would have to be done about it as the public could also verify whether something is being done. And then the nice 3rd horseman of the Infocalypse would become unusable as a tool to manipulate the public.

Block Slashdot

[ThePhilips]

I have just witnessed Slashdot featuring right on the front page and article about *both* terrorism and child pornography!

Burn the witch!

Re:Making fun of religion

[davydagger]

to be honest, you have a point. As a free speech activist, you either have sacred cows or you don't. While I certain stand with Charlie Hedbo in their right to ruthlessly attack Islam, and every other religon, idea, country, etc... BUT

I think its outrageous that we honor them by implementing this wonton censorship. This is the sort of thing they litterally died for. That said, its not freedom of speech. Now lets look a the two organizations. One is a government cracking down on dissent, and the other is a filthy magazine known for taking pot shots at everyone. I think the two statements are not incompatible

I am Charlie

I am not the French Government