His points were not clear. He misrepresented my position with exaggeration, hyperbole, and caps lock. Then, rather than offering counterarguments, he insulted me (albeit inaccurately, as I am not libertarian). The personal attacks are not a "bonus" - they do not contribute anything meaningful to the discussion. Posts like that are what the Troll mod is for.
Additionally, the fact that I disagree with you does not make me stupid, and does not mean I lack understanding on this subject (such a premise assumes you are objectively correct in the first place).
> Censorship is an attempt by a controlling body to actually prevent information from reaching the public.
Your definition of censorship happens to differ from mine. If someone with power (Flickr) blocks the speech or expression of someone relatively without power (a random Flickr user), it is censorship.
Also, this is the second time I have to tell you this: I made no claim of being libertarian, so the final paragraph of your post is either a very misguided personal attack or a completely off-topic angry rant. It certainly has nothing to do with me or my arguments.
Come back when you can provide an argument that doesn't rely on personal attacks for support. Or at least don't randomly throw epithets at people about whom you know nothing.
This is what happens when you love rule of law so much that you follow laws, rules, policies, terms of service, and end user license agreements over basic ethics.
Whether or not Flickr is justified in removing the images at all, the manner in which they did it is unacceptable. It would be very easy to accuse them of using their TOS (their rule of law) to hide behind the fact that they just don't like the content of the photos themselves.
You're the one who brought up free speech, not me.
Their policy might be fine when it comes to actual creative works. Deleting pictures like these based on the justification that you must upload your own work is valuing the letter of the rule above its spirit.
I have doubts that the person who took the pictures (assuming the uploader is not the same person) is going to file a copyright claim against Flickr for hosting the images without his or her permission.
Flickr made an internal decision to take these images down. Considering what they are images of, this was a politically unwise move.
So just because a corporation's terms of service were allegedly violated means it's not censorship to take down someone's speech. Particularly as it pertains to a government.
From a security-conscious standpoint, the fact that Hushmail has the capability to read their users' emails is a concern. Never mind that they only said they'd do it if the government told them to (which should be no real comfort at all). As we've been saying to the FBI recently, any backdoor at all could potentially make the entire system worthless because there's no way to guarantee control of who uses it.
PGP, on the other hand, has no central authority that can give up your communications. No need to trust a third party.
I completely agree. Lack of widespread email encryption is likely the fault of webmail developers and Microsoft (with regards to Outlook) not supporting the encryption in their interfaces. And of course they wouldn't- it's completely contrary to the interests of a large corporation to give its customers privacy.
On the other hand, I use Evolution for my email, and it supports GPG out of the box. When writing a message it's a simple matter of checking a box in a menu at the top to encrypt it; two boxes for signing. (Of course, I have to have a key pair first, and while it's trivial for me to generate one, the average user would have a bit more difficulty with it.) Unfortunately, as aforementioned, I never have need for it, because none of my contacts use encryption.
I think instant messaging has the same problem: lack of encryption by the client. Pidgin has a few plugins that provide end-to-end encryption, like OTR, but most of the more popular clients (like Windows Live Messenger) don't support it at all. (And the Empathy developers actively refuse to add message encryption because they believe that IM encryption should be done on the protocol level, not by the client.) Oh well, at least we have XMPP...
You don't get to lead one of the largest organized bullying organizations ever to exist by being a nice guy. What's his history as a senator? Is he loudly outspoken against teh evuls of piracy? Did the MPAA cut him a big campaign contributions check?
Yeah, the bit about stalling a bill that retroactively gives the OK on ISPs who warrantlessly wiretap is good, but we can't go off of just that. There is always a catch with these sorts of appointments, so let's have the dirt, please.
Leaving aside the technical comparisons between Windows and Linux, I do not believe that governments should be running closed-source software on their machines. Why:
One, security. No one knows what proprietary software is capable of. Can you trust it to run on a government machine and to (presumably) handle important and sensitive information for the feds? No one knows, because it's closed source. Use of open source software ensures that there are no backdoors and such that could be used by, say, a foreign government.
Two, practicality. Use of open source software allows governments to tweak their systems exactly as needed.
Three, ideology. Any government that claims to serve its citizens should be running open source software in the interests of transparency.
My government taught me a long time ago that when I was living within their borders, it was not a democracy. Not every issue is open to discussion and there were rules to be followed even if I didn't agree with them. Privacy was respected, but it was not a right.
Talking to your citizens only goes so far. And I'd rather have governments being educated on knowing how to watch their citizens if they need to than relying on a "birds and bees + the internet" conversation and hoping they get it right.
Citizens are dumb, governments are dumber. How can a government steer the conversation to what needs to be talked about if they don't have any way of watching what their citizens are doing online?
> Make a fake video of yourself robbing a bank, preferably one that was recently robbed. Or committing the murder of someone who died recently. Or setting on fire a building that recently burned down?
Yup. Because those are all comparable to making a fake video of yourself singing an obscene song to some first-graders who were recently sang to.
> So, let's add it up...we've got problems under the, what, First, Fourth, and possibly Fifth amendments here, right?
Don't forget the Eighth Amendment. Twenty years in jail is batshit insane for this sort of thing, not to mention the life-destroying sex offender charges.
> Kids don't listen to authority if there aren't any consequences for not.
Are you serious? Kids should listen to authority because authority figures are just, respectful, and trustworthy, not because authority figures say to listen to them "or else." The former is fair; the latter is authoritarianism and tyranny, and will breed spineless adults who obey anyone official-sounding.
> If they're able to get caught and punished in ANYTHING they do... then you better believe they'll learn to be smart about things before doing them.
Translation: "When they grow up, they'll learn to follow the law, no matter what, and never question the system." Because laws are never unjust, right?
> My children have been told they have no expectation of privacy; at any time I can and will look at anything and everything on their computers or cell phones. While I rarely do, the fact that they don't ever expect privacy makes them think twice before doing risky things.
It also teaches them to fear (not respect) Big Brother-esque authority figures. Is that the lesson you want your children to learn?
In a universe with as many stars and planets as ours, Earth couldn't possibly be the only planet whose orbit just happened to be in the right place to sustain life.
The article says that the kids are elementary schoolers, though. Also, how are you viewing a copy of the video when no link has been provided anywhere?
Slashdot Mirror
His points were not clear. He misrepresented my position with exaggeration, hyperbole, and caps lock. Then, rather than offering counterarguments, he insulted me (albeit inaccurately, as I am not libertarian). The personal attacks are not a "bonus" - they do not contribute anything meaningful to the discussion. Posts like that are what the Troll mod is for.
Additionally, the fact that I disagree with you does not make me stupid, and does not mean I lack understanding on this subject (such a premise assumes you are objectively correct in the first place).
> Censorship is an attempt by a controlling body to actually prevent information from reaching the public.
Your definition of censorship happens to differ from mine. If someone with power (Flickr) blocks the speech or expression of someone relatively without power (a random Flickr user), it is censorship.
Also, this is the second time I have to tell you this: I made no claim of being libertarian, so the final paragraph of your post is either a very misguided personal attack or a completely off-topic angry rant. It certainly has nothing to do with me or my arguments.
Come back when you can provide an argument that doesn't rely on personal attacks for support. Or at least don't randomly throw epithets at people about whom you know nothing.
This is what happens when you love rule of law so much that you follow laws, rules, policies, terms of service, and end user license agreements over basic ethics.
Whether or not Flickr is justified in removing the images at all, the manner in which they did it is unacceptable. It would be very easy to accuse them of using their TOS (their rule of law) to hide behind the fact that they just don't like the content of the photos themselves.
As TFA points out, this is selective enforcement.
You're the one who brought up free speech, not me.
Their policy might be fine when it comes to actual creative works. Deleting pictures like these based on the justification that you must upload your own work is valuing the letter of the rule above its spirit.
They will now get the backlash they deserve.
I have doubts that the person who took the pictures (assuming the uploader is not the same person) is going to file a copyright claim against Flickr for hosting the images without his or her permission.
Flickr made an internal decision to take these images down. Considering what they are images of, this was a politically unwise move.
Nice FUD, though.
So just because a corporation's terms of service were allegedly violated means it's not censorship to take down someone's speech. Particularly as it pertains to a government.
Okay.
Damn you, Slashdot, that was supposed to be less-than-three. Showing appreciation for the awesome post. Instead it looks like random crap. :(
3
lol @ lameness filter
It's arguable that access to healthcare and access to public roads are both in the public interest to be provided by the state.
Paying record labels? Not so much.
From a security-conscious standpoint, the fact that Hushmail has the capability to read their users' emails is a concern. Never mind that they only said they'd do it if the government told them to (which should be no real comfort at all). As we've been saying to the FBI recently, any backdoor at all could potentially make the entire system worthless because there's no way to guarantee control of who uses it.
PGP, on the other hand, has no central authority that can give up your communications. No need to trust a third party.
I completely agree. Lack of widespread email encryption is likely the fault of webmail developers and Microsoft (with regards to Outlook) not supporting the encryption in their interfaces. And of course they wouldn't- it's completely contrary to the interests of a large corporation to give its customers privacy.
On the other hand, I use Evolution for my email, and it supports GPG out of the box. When writing a message it's a simple matter of checking a box in a menu at the top to encrypt it; two boxes for signing. (Of course, I have to have a key pair first, and while it's trivial for me to generate one, the average user would have a bit more difficulty with it.) Unfortunately, as aforementioned, I never have need for it, because none of my contacts use encryption.
I think instant messaging has the same problem: lack of encryption by the client. Pidgin has a few plugins that provide end-to-end encryption, like OTR, but most of the more popular clients (like Windows Live Messenger) don't support it at all. (And the Empathy developers actively refuse to add message encryption because they believe that IM encryption should be done on the protocol level, not by the client.) Oh well, at least we have XMPP...
> Seriously, I change the user-agent to "iphone" or "lynx" and the webpage just becomes more efficient all of a sudden
Durr.
In other news, grass is green, water is wet, and cuddling with a toaster in the bathtub can still hurt.
That's funny, I'm typing this on a Linux system because it gives me what I want. See, I can use anecdotes as evidence too!
You don't get to lead one of the largest organized bullying organizations ever to exist by being a nice guy. What's his history as a senator? Is he loudly outspoken against teh evuls of piracy? Did the MPAA cut him a big campaign contributions check?
Yeah, the bit about stalling a bill that retroactively gives the OK on ISPs who warrantlessly wiretap is good, but we can't go off of just that. There is always a catch with these sorts of appointments, so let's have the dirt, please.
Leaving aside the technical comparisons between Windows and Linux, I do not believe that governments should be running closed-source software on their machines. Why:
One, security. No one knows what proprietary software is capable of. Can you trust it to run on a government machine and to (presumably) handle important and sensitive information for the feds? No one knows, because it's closed source. Use of open source software ensures that there are no backdoors and such that could be used by, say, a foreign government.
Two, practicality. Use of open source software allows governments to tweak their systems exactly as needed.
Three, ideology. Any government that claims to serve its citizens should be running open source software in the interests of transparency.
Further reading on the subject: Why the government of Peru ditched Windows. http://web.archive.org/web/20070829215908/http://www.gnu.org.pe/resmseng.html
Authors don't have 'moral rights' in many places, including the US.
My government taught me a long time ago that when I was living within their borders, it was not a democracy. Not every issue is open to discussion and there were rules to be followed even if I didn't agree with them. Privacy was respected, but it was not a right.
Talking to your citizens only goes so far. And I'd rather have governments being educated on knowing how to watch their citizens if they need to than relying on a "birds and bees + the internet" conversation and hoping they get it right.
Citizens are dumb, governments are dumber. How can a government steer the conversation to what needs to be talked about if they don't have any way of watching what their citizens are doing online?
> The only way they learn respect is if you punish them when they test those lines.
What is there to respect about someone who antagonizes you? You do not demand respect, or force it from someone; you earn it.
> Without fear of consequence there is no respect.
Bullshit. Be a nice person, don't abuse your parental authority, actually take your kids' feelings into account, and you earn respect.
> I guess you just want to protect every child from ever once having a bad feeling :( Aww the children. So sad for them.
Cool strawman, bro.
> Make a fake video of yourself robbing a bank, preferably one that was recently robbed. Or committing the murder of someone who died recently. Or setting on fire a building that recently burned down?
Yup. Because those are all comparable to making a fake video of yourself singing an obscene song to some first-graders who were recently sang to.
> So, let's add it up...we've got problems under the, what, First, Fourth, and possibly Fifth amendments here, right?
Don't forget the Eighth Amendment. Twenty years in jail is batshit insane for this sort of thing, not to mention the life-destroying sex offender charges.
> Kids don't listen to authority if there aren't any consequences for not.
Are you serious? Kids should listen to authority because authority figures are just, respectful, and trustworthy, not because authority figures say to listen to them "or else." The former is fair; the latter is authoritarianism and tyranny, and will breed spineless adults who obey anyone official-sounding.
> If they're able to get caught and punished in ANYTHING they do... then you better believe they'll learn to be smart about things before doing them.
Translation: "When they grow up, they'll learn to follow the law, no matter what, and never question the system." Because laws are never unjust, right?
> My children have been told they have no expectation of privacy; at any time I can and will look at anything and everything on their computers or cell phones. While I rarely do, the fact that they don't ever expect privacy makes them think twice before doing risky things.
It also teaches them to fear (not respect) Big Brother-esque authority figures. Is that the lesson you want your children to learn?
In a universe with as many stars and planets as ours, Earth couldn't possibly be the only planet whose orbit just happened to be in the right place to sustain life.
The article says that the kids are elementary schoolers, though. Also, how are you viewing a copy of the video when no link has been provided anywhere?