Slashdot Mirror
South African Government Issues Plans To Censor Internet
An anonymous reader writes: The South African department of communications is sitting on a draft paper drawn up by the local Film & Publication Board, which proposes strict regulation of the internet within in the country in order to bring online publishing inline with that of DVD, video and terrestrial TV ratings. The proposals are being called censorship and unconstitutional, and include plans to criminalize anyone who publishes material online — including uploading videos to YouTube — who doesn't pay a licence and submit to vetting by FPB agents.
Just remember that this isn't what people are talking about when they mean Net Neutrality.
... they want to get rid of the fookin' pr0ns?
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I haven't read their constitution.
just execute everyone on the " Film & Publication Board". what do they even need to exist for?
Sounds unworkable and unenforceable.
Hmm I'm starting to see why the South African government is doing this.
'godless' is particularly funny on slashdot.
How it's always the third world, communists or highly religious countries that tries to censor the internet... They really don't want their people to know better, eh.
Fuck the tyranny! Please read below.
Fundamental Concepts - Weakness Invites Aggression [Weirddave]
—Open Blogger
It's human nature to live in your own bubble. We have only experienced the world that we live in, so naturally many people assume that the world as it is is its default state. In order to move beyond this paradigm, one must first be introspective enough to recognize it, then take the time and effort to study history and culture to examine whether your norm is anything at all like the human norm through history. Often times this forces one to confront truths that may be, like life, nasty and brutish. For example, students are taught today that the shameful reality of slavery in America is somehow unique and uniquely horrible. It is only through further study that one discovers that slavery has been practiced in almost all human cultures for as long as human beings have been around. In fact, it was the hated Judeo-Christian civilization that recognized it for the evil that it is and fought to eliminate it. Slavery is still practiced today across much of the Arab world and in vast swaths of Africa. What little slavery remains in the West (sex slavery) is universally condemned and vigorously prosecuted. Recognizing that slavery is not a uniquely American phenomenon, and that there is still lots of it around can be a distressing challenge to a world view that has been unexamined. Acknowledging that the West is the only culture in the history of mankind that has for all practical purposes eradicated it can destroy that world view.
The same thing is true with peace. Almost everyone wants peace, the problem is that we've had peace in this country for so long that most people don't recognize it for the aberration that it is. Because of this, a curiously contradictory mindset holds sway over a large segment of the population, most of them on the left side of the political spectrum. It goes something like this: "Well, we want peace, so we'll just refuse to fight. If we refuse to fight, the other guy will have no reason to fight us." If you point out to them that the other guy just might not want peace, you'll get a predictable response: " Well, since peace is the default state of the world, if we can figure out what we did to make the other guy mad at us and desirous of war, and make it up to him, then he'll feel comfortable with allowing the default state to resume."
The problem is, of course, that peace isn't the default state of the world, war is. Human beings are predators, and we are genetically designed to be in competition with other human beings, either individually or in groups. If group A has something group B wants, the natural instinct of group B is to attack group A and take it. The only way that group A can prevent this from happening is to be stronger than group B. For centuries, the Mongol tribes roamed the countryside of Mongolia, squabbling with and fighting each other. The great neighboring dynasties, the Xia and Jin, had little to fear from the Mongols beyond nuisance raids, because they were stronger. Then Temujin united the tribes, assumed the title Genghis Khan, and swept both empires off the face of the earth. The empires had enjoyed peace for generations - because they were strong. When they ceased to be stronger than their foes, they soon ceased to be entirely.
So what? Primitives. Barbarians. Savages. We're different now. Civilized. Cultured. Superior.
I hate to break it to you, but we're not. 13th century man is behaviorally identical to modern man. 8 centuries is nowhere near long enough for that kind of evolutionary change in the human animal. People are...people. Always have been, always will be. The reason that we've enjoyed centuries of peace in America (even our wars haven't been fought here since the 1860s) is because we've been strong enough that nobody has had the ability to fight us over here, and we've had the ability to go fight them over there when we needed to. There is nothing about this situation that is written in stone. Our hom
It was a movie and not an instruction book.
Good Luck South Africa!
Bunch of facebooking yaksack twitheads. Who the fuck even
Crykie! Cricket! Haggis!
...good luck with that.
Mandela was a ... MARXIST ...
According Wikipedia, South Africa's post-apartheid economy was mostly shaped by the World Bank's trickle-down theories:
The early ANC envisioned a more socialist South Africa, but this was unpopular with businessmen, foreign politicians, and the established media. For example, Mandela strongly supported nationalizing banking, mining, and monopolies, but was forced to change this goal due to pressures from stock traders and international economic entities like the World Bank. The World Bank encouraged the new South African government to promote the growth of the private sector, which trickle-down economics theory proposes will create jobs that will alleviate poverty.
Don't care. And a link I would never goto.
How different is this from the childish and immature attempts if the Indian government to attempt censoring the BBC documentary just a few days ago on a world wide scale. Truth is that so called governments in many so called democratic countries are scared beyond comprehension and are feverishly trying to put the genie that the internet is back into the bottle for the internet allows the public to expose the lies and manipulations they engage in on a global scale instantly to billions at the time. All free people if South Africa must stand up to this sort of censorship as must the rest of the world. For it is through free open and uncensored communication we can win back the freedom that these types are trying to pry from us under different guises. I wish you find the courage to send this proposal back into the landfill of oppression from where it was dug up and dismiss the types that have come up with the proposal from their job. For they have forgotten that it is you they serve and not the other way around!
MS, ALS, Aphasia ? http://globability.org - Me http://einarpetersen.com
Just find a way to circumvent it and the problem is solved
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The way to defeat stupid laws like this is for everyone to actually send everything they intend to upload to the ratings board then to complain when you don't get a rating back in a timely manner to their representative.
Control is regulated by information and the access to information. Those who allow themselves to give up access to information give up their ability to determine their own destiny.
In years past, the elite weren't just the financially powerful but those with the greatest control over and access to, information (points at the medieval elite and Roman Catholic church use of Latin as an example).
It was only the elite that could read and write. It was only the elite that had books. It was only the elite that were educated. With the advent of industrialisation, the drones needed more information to function, and so education became desirable. Even then, the access to information was restricted.
The rise of journalism, allowed people to know about their leaders and power brokers in ways that were previously unavailable. Even then, there were strict controls over the flow of information.
With the wide spread availability of the web, those restrictions were wiped away to a greater extent, and governments and power brokers have been attempting to curtail that flow ever since. People need to at least acknowledge how important the free flow of information is to their ability to pursue their freedoms, otherwise that access to information and the pursuit of those freedoms will be lost.
Governments need to inspire, be honest, and educate their populaces, instead of trying to dumb them down and put them back into the corner. Leading people by hiding what you do and how you do it is no longer an acceptable way of getting what you want.
Governments should not tell people what they are allowed to know. Attempting to categorise all information, in an information age, is simply unattainable. People must ultimately take responsibility for the information they receive, not leave it to others to make that decision on their behalf. We are not children. If they allow others to make those decisions, they won't ever get to know what they don't know. They are lost.
If the legislation is created in one country, how much easier is it to copy it to others? We have seen this with the "three strikes" policies. We have seen it with the "war on terror" eavesdropping legislation. We've seen it with the "think about the children" memes demanding controls over the kinds of information that can flow. I feel the general population is sleepwalking their way into another dark age of control being out of their hands. Their education has failed them. They don't understand technology enough to know what their freedoms depend on. It is seriously depressing.
Hang on...I thought South Africa was now a utopian paradise because the niggers were in charge ?
You mean to say it's just another run of the mill African shithole now ???
Say it isn't so !!!!!
As well as the others.
Ha, Take that Turkey, South Africa just out-dumbed you big time, watcha gonna do now, ban the internet worldwide?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
When will we learn not to confuse trolls with facts?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
in so regulating this public utility?
Calling someone both "Godless" and "Satanic" is a contradiction in terms.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Mandela was a ... MARXIST ...
According Wikipedia, South Africa's post-apartheid economy was mostly shaped by the World Bank's trickle-down theories:
The early ANC envisioned a more socialist South Africa, but this was unpopular with businessmen, foreign politicians, and the established media. For example, Mandela strongly supported nationalizing banking, mining, and monopolies, but was forced to change this goal due to pressures from stock traders and international economic entities like the World Bank. The World Bank encouraged the new South African government to promote the growth of the private sector, which trickle-down economics theory proposes will create jobs that will alleviate poverty.
John Perkins was right.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This may have worked to, however when Mandela was replaced, it all went to shit pretty quick.
Go read this http://www.moneyweb.co.za/arch... to give you a pretty good idea of how things are. The current president is a moron. Thabo Mbeki, slightly less a moron, but still a moron.
Mandela had lofty goals, and I truly (as a white person no less, who grew up in South Africa) believe he had the best intentions, but his successors have done nothing but consolidate power and money, cronyism is rife in SA, they are the cause of many of the problems. Eskom used to be at the forefront of power generation and research, and now, they can barely keep the lights on. As of today, they are currently practicing load shedding (think planned.. or in many cases un rolling blackouts).
Until the current parties figure out how to replace the stupid people with those who have the best interests of the country at heart, instead of their own power and finances, nothing will change. In that respect, SA is very similar to the US, voting along party lines rather than voting for the best candidate.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
LeVey Satanists are all atheists. So not really
Then they're not Satanists. Really.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Yes they are, they are just using the meaning of the word satan to mean advisary not as a name of the Devil (of the bible).
They don't worship the devil but they are Satanists because that's what they named themselves.
Be aware that the writing style strongly suggests that GP is from the USA and pretending to South African. Racists here employ a variety of derogatory terms, but "nigger" isn't one of them. Most likely GP is putting up an act purely in an attempt to get people riled up (i.e. trolling).