"Agree" is probably in a lot of license-screen templates, and people don't bother changing it. And besides, you've got to agree to a license, right? Right?
People who make the installer probably don't even understand what's correct there. Anyway, that's a pretty trivial issue.
I was reacting to the smugness in the OP's idea - "No licensing cops necessary". It's not that simple.
We want? Who is we?
We referring to those who choose the GPL; "we" want more than the warm fuzzy feeling that somebody else is using (and profiting from) our code without giving anything tangible back.
The original poster endorsed the BSD license, and you said it had not benifit to the community. It certainly does have a benifit the BSD BSD community wants. If someone is wants to use BSD code, and the BSD developers/users are happy with the benifit, who gives a crap what GPL users think they are getting out of the deal?
This article is about GPL compliance, where a BSDL troll decides to make a smug statement. I'm merely saying that the situation is more complex than that.
As for how many companies comply with 'all 3 clauses', it would probably depend if the software was licensed under the 4 clause, 3 clause, or 2 clause license. As far as stats, I don't have any. Do you? The threshold of meeting the BSD licensing requirements is low enough, most companies just seem to do it with no real issue.
Obviously, I meant 3-clause. The critical question is about clause 2:
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
How many commercial organizations actually bother, I wonder... This should be done for every piece of BSD-licensed software they distribute.
How many remove/replace the copyright notices from the BSD code (something I remember the BSD guys getting very hurt about when somebody else in the FOSS community does)? There's compliance involved, whether it's enforced or not.
No, I don't have stats; I don't even know if they are available.
I don't expect a thesis here, but that argument was impossible to follow, between all the cluster F-bombs and insults, I could hardly make out the actual argument, until I read it several times. And even then, I'm not too sure.
The previous poster (TinyLittleMend) did have an argument (which I disagreed with), and I posted on that too. A little clarity, a little less name calling, and a few organized thoughts is all I ask.
Now, supposing MS made some fantastic improvement to the BSD stack, and didn't contribute those changes back... Which they may have done, but we'll never know.
The community benefits are demonstrably less in this case.
Whereas, if it were under the (L)GPL, MS would be forced to pay back into the community, for the service that they received in the form of not having to reinvent their own TCP stack, or buy it from someone else.
Essentially, it's a Free Lunch for them. Some creators or authors may be fine with that, but I, personally, am not.
That screen is for information. In fact, several rights (and duties) are conferred on you when you accept the GPL. It's not only a source license - you received a binary of the software, and in that action, you received certain rights to the software. You should be informed of your rights and obligations under the GPL, same as under any other license.
I think that No True Scotsman doesn't really apply here. I think the original argument that every or at least, many GPL advocates also advocate infringement of EULAs. This argument is a fantastic setup for No True Scotsman, because you're reducing a whole host of different viewpoints to a single one, namely, "GPL advocate".
In other words, this argument is not engaging the proposer of the original idea, ie SFC, and instead, takes aim at an averaged "GPL advocate" who's setup as a straw-man. If a specific GPL advocate made that double standard, call them out on it. But accusing every single GPL advocate, especially the SFC who's most definitely not an advocate of infringement, is a fallacy by itself. I think it would be Tarring With the Same Brush...
Presenting an argument in an understandable way, is often a good thing. Pointing out logical flaws isn't trolling (though it may be a logical flaw in itself). I found the GP's argument is quite unclear, actually. Apart from a few F-bombs and insults, I can't really make out what the argument is. I think it may be supporting my position, but I can't be sure!
So you need to use software licenses for any FOSS you use that allow you to use their compilers, tools, operating systems and whatever other tools you need in addition to the unique elements you develop on your own to produce a saleable package that customers will be willing to buy, without giving up any right to control copyright of your own work. I think we're all fine with conveying the license to the FOSS software that's included in our packages to the end user without restriction. You want to use the Linux distribution that's included in my package for stuff I didn't envision? Go ahead. I never owned that anyway and I don't care what you do with it as long as you don't drag me into liability issues for your modifications. I just don't want you to copy the elements I made without paying me for each installation.
Fud fud fud!
It's perfectly legal to build proprietary apps on top of Linux, glibc, and other friends. What you have to do is to provide the source to any modifications you make to the FOSS tools or packages, and convey the license to the user.
The elements you made which are not under GPL/similar, you can do whatever you want with them. The author of the GPLed package on the other hand, intended that you give back, as payment for his having built something you can use for free, any modifications you make. Are you saying that I should respect your right to your own license, but you won't respect mine?
As I said, I'm not sure of the legal precedent, but apparently it exists for dynamic libs too. That's why LGPL was written - to clear up the ambiguity, more than anything else.
The danger with BSDL is that since there's no incentive for a company to give back, often critical pieces get closed off, reinvented and you can't really share code. In other words, you just saved the salary of a compliance officer, but didn't gain the advantage of community testing/improvement of your code, unless you release your code back, in which case you still need a compliance officer and code audits (to ensure that you don't accidentally release something you want to keep proprietary), anyway.
In general though, I prefer the BSDL/LGPL for libraries - the choice isn't that important in most cases, and GPL for any community-developed end-user applications. You get to develop closed-source frontends, but don't ever think of closing our frontends.
Well, the "average Slashdot commenter" is a fictional entity - an average between trolls, spammers, real commenters, with massive variation in how informed they are. There are all kinds here - conservatives, liberals, die-hard anarchists, windows users, mac users, linux people, and most importantly for this discussion, supporters of every single license ever made by man or troll!
If you could show a statistical correlation between the people here (or elsewhere) who advocate GPL and those who advocate infringement of proprietary software, I'd accept your point. Until then, it's hearsay and borderline slander.
Anyway, by "serious", I meant people like Stallman and Eben Moglen, who are actually doing the advocacy in a long-term, sustained manner.
Most importantly, the people running this operation are SFLC, FSF and others, who are definitely in the "use free alternatives, don't pirate" camp.
There's not really any question that GPLed APIs are not under copyright. The whole viral effect stems from the linking stage, which FSF claims will include the GPLed code into the non-GPL program, which the license doesn't allow. IIRC, there are judgements on this too, probably dating back to the Unix wars.
As far as I know, no serious GPL advocate actually says that infringing others' copyrights is good. They mostly say "use the free alternative".
Yes, there are a few debacles like some people accidentally (or on purpose for that matter) taking say BSDL code and making it GPL (you're allowed to make your modifications GPL, but not the original code itself, if I understand correctly). But nobody advocates piracy.
2 & 3. Rather a fine legal point there between inciting "hate" and "violence". Not conceded.
Not so very fine; saying "I hate X" is different from saying "Kill X". Naturally, there's a grey area that's handled case-by-case.
4. That is a cultural question. Not conceded.
How so? A minor can't give consent. And it's generally a pretty despicable activity that harms the child concerned anyway. This is similar to incitement to violence. Your rights end where others' rights begin.
5. Good lawyers in the US can cite (is it the first?) amendment. But In my country (AU) you better have the capacity to fight. Partly conceded.
Not sure of Australia, but I'm yet to hear of anyone going to jail (that being your whole accusation) for that...
6. But what is HS doing closing down wikileaks and copyright websites? And don't people get into trouble at airports? Reckon it's happening but we don't get to hear of it. not conceded.
Nice evidentiary standard there! "Reckon it's happening but we don't get to hear of it"? Then on what basis do you make the statement?
Wikileaks is arguably (and so they argue) a national security threat. Did you really expect them to not take action against someone leaking secret documents? For the record, I do support a citizen's, and the world's, right to know.
Copyright, I completely concede to you. That should be civil, not criminal.
So fines (that can lead to incarceration) can and does happen without violence in 2, 3, 4, 5 (AU) and 6.
2, 3 and 4, I don't agree at all; show me someone who, without incitement to violence, has been charged under incitement laws. Child pornography is not something supportable.
5, I don't know the situation in AU, but could you point to any case you know of which led to incarceration? A fine is not enough. It should be incarceration.
6, partially misplaced (people getting into trouble at airports is not about freedom of speech), partially grey (wikileaks), partially conceded (copyright).
You mean to say that the French or Germans don't have presumption of innocence?
I believe that they'd be rathersurprised to learn that! In fact, it's even more explicit in the European Declaration of Human Rights than in the US constitution. Some places like Scotland have the "not proven" verdict. Incidentally, Scottish law is Civil, not Common. No sensible country, from what I can see, has codified presumption of guilt. This rather long article goes into good detail on how the European system developed.
You're still to address my main point. You're still going off on a tangent that isn't even central to my point. Why should I be sympathetic to a government that cannot take criticism, and unleashes its freakin' army on people who protest too much?
The fundamental problem with your thesis that other places are just different and that we must respect their differences, is that this is not a difference that one can condone. There are certain basic rights that all human beings should enjoy. Any government that takes away those rights is by default a tyranny. I have great respect for the uniqueness and contributions of the Chinese people. None at all for their government.
Just try to do what somebody in power defines as: 1. Deny the holocaust,
Last I heard, that was Germany, not the Anglosphere...
2. Incite homophobia. 3. Incite racial hatred.
Incite homophobic violence and racial violence more like; otherwise certain politicians would be jailed for multiple life terms. To name just one, Rick Santorum in the US.
4. Display child pornography (where in some places e.g. Italy the "child" can mean a 17 years old).
Child pornography is violence (of a sort) against a child who cannot consent. How is this a free speech issue?
5. Denigrate the Moslem religion.
Yet, Richard Dawkins and Pastor Terry Jones are still free
6. Suggest that Homeland Security has been given too much power.
Yet, Bruce Scheiner still roams free.
And in all those cases, truth or consent is NOT a defence!
And you will find yourself in jail, not just banned from posting for a month.
Truth is a defence. Consent (I assume you talk of the child pornography thing) cannot be legally given by a minor.
Jailed? Apart from 2, 3 and 4, with 2 and 3 being modified as I said above (incitement to violence), I don't know of anyone being jailed for any of these things?
I said "Common Law" because that's what the US uses. Naturally, most civli law jurisdictions use it too.
What I'm arguing is not that the whole world should use the British system. I'm arguing that your charge against the US is specious on those grounds.
I'm no fan of many things the US government tries to do, but your charge that they're just like the CCP is ridiculous!
Anyway, congratulations on cherry picking one minor portion, in brackets no less, which I added as an explanation, to question me, and then make a wild charge of my being a British supremacist... Any answer to the meat of my argument?
it is "obviously" not as the supposed "huge increase" in CO2 levels has led to very little actual warming for the climate overall.
Data, not speculation, please
The fears of some kind of runaway reaction have been totally debunked.
Point to a study (by real climatologists, not whackjobs)? I pointed to some. When are you going to?
As for the climate getting slowly warmer, as a species we would be very lucky if that is actually the case
Again, too much of anything... The fear is a runaway effect will produce too much warming.
- but it's too soon to tell, people are trying to use year to year swings to guess what the climate will be like 100 years hence, and so far utterly botched even a simple five or ten year prediction.
5-10 years is not really statistically significant. But in any case, there are some interesting model-data comparisons at RealClimate which show some good comparisons of model with actuals. Interestingly, the climate isn't as sensitive as our worst-case scenario would have us believe, but it can be estimated roughly to 3.4C per doubling of CO2, down from 4.2.
Fairly good performance for a model that "isn't even close" in your words...
There's a difference between somebody being a troll, and called out for it by other users, and the government retroactively proclaiming something "untrue", which knowing the CCP, would be loosely defined as "stuff we don't want you to say".
Answer, don't censor. Something that most governments, political parties, religious institutions, corporations, etc should have hammered into their heads!
Depends on how you define "untruth". The way you or I would probably define it is "something that is not true", in which case, the question becomes "how do you (the sharer) know something to be 'true' before sharing?" or alternatively, "Do you, in good faith, believe that what you shared was true?"
The way the Chinese government seems to define it is, "Any statement that is critical of, or damaging to the reputation of the Communist Party and the Glorious People's Republic". In which case, why did you share something that you knew to be an untruth, you swine? 50 points from Gryffindor (plagiarized from above commenter)
That looks like a "last ditch" effort against those advocating violent overthrow. But as far as I can see, it hasn't been used since 1958. A large portion of the act that set it up seems to have been ruled unconstitutional too.
In any case, there's a MASSIVE difference between that and what China's attempting to do. One is a legal charge to be proven in court (under Common law, it's not disproven; the prosecution has to make the case that the accused violated the law, not the other way round), and the other is a measure of suppression. Further, if this is a reaction to the link you posted, the article only talks about news spreading about a rumored coup attempt, and not about anybody planning said alleged coup on microblogging sites.
What's the Chinese government worried about? That people knowing that a coup attempt is possible will then realize that their leaders are not infallible and that they can change the government? That they'll demand a real say in how things are done, and real democracy? Are they upset that anyone could legitimately not tow the party line? Cowards!
For comparison, here's how a democracy handles such allegations in the public. Keep in mind, this wasn't some random tweeters, but a real newspaper. The newspaper report was duly discredited, and life goes on.
Besides, movements like Occupy Wall Street, or India Against Corruption or even the Tea Party are welcomed in mature nations - they form a conduit for people to express themselves on how they wish to be governed. Consent of the governed should be the only path to legitimacy for any rulers. Anything else is a dictatorship.
Slashdot Mirror
So, we just sit back and enjoy our own downfall?
And you guys keep claiming that the greens want to destroy the human race!
Laziness, I would assume...
"Agree" is probably in a lot of license-screen templates, and people don't bother changing it. And besides, you've got to agree to a license, right? Right?
People who make the installer probably don't even understand what's correct there. Anyway, that's a pretty trivial issue.
I was reacting to the smugness in the OP's idea - "No licensing cops necessary". It's not that simple.
We want? Who is we?
We referring to those who choose the GPL; "we" want more than the warm fuzzy feeling that somebody else is using (and profiting from) our code without giving anything tangible back.
The original poster endorsed the BSD license, and you said it had not benifit to the community. It certainly does have a benifit the BSD BSD community wants. If someone is wants to use BSD code, and the BSD developers/users are happy with the benifit, who gives a crap what GPL users think they are getting out of the deal?
This article is about GPL compliance, where a BSDL troll decides to make a smug statement. I'm merely saying that the situation is more complex than that.
As for how many companies comply with 'all 3 clauses', it would probably depend if the software was licensed under the 4 clause, 3 clause, or 2 clause license. As far as stats, I don't have any. Do you? The threshold of meeting the BSD licensing requirements is low enough, most companies just seem to do it with no real issue.
Obviously, I meant 3-clause. The critical question is about clause 2:
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
How many commercial organizations actually bother, I wonder... This should be done for every piece of BSD-licensed software they distribute.
How many remove/replace the copyright notices from the BSD code (something I remember the BSD guys getting very hurt about when somebody else in the FOSS community does)? There's compliance involved, whether it's enforced or not.
No, I don't have stats; I don't even know if they are available.
The specific benefit to the community is not the one we want, maybe.
The original post, however, was a one-line snark. I responded with another one-liner.
More importantly, this is about enforcing the GPL. It would be the same for the BSDL. How many companies actually comply with all three clauses?
I don't expect a thesis here, but that argument was impossible to follow, between all the cluster F-bombs and insults, I could hardly make out the actual argument, until I read it several times. And even then, I'm not too sure.
The previous poster (TinyLittleMend) did have an argument (which I disagreed with), and I posted on that too. A little clarity, a little less name calling, and a few organized thoughts is all I ask.
Now, supposing MS made some fantastic improvement to the BSD stack, and didn't contribute those changes back... Which they may have done, but we'll never know.
The community benefits are demonstrably less in this case.
Whereas, if it were under the (L)GPL, MS would be forced to pay back into the community, for the service that they received in the form of not having to reinvent their own TCP stack, or buy it from someone else.
Essentially, it's a Free Lunch for them. Some creators or authors may be fine with that, but I, personally, am not.
That screen is for information. In fact, several rights (and duties) are conferred on you when you accept the GPL. It's not only a source license - you received a binary of the software, and in that action, you received certain rights to the software. You should be informed of your rights and obligations under the GPL, same as under any other license.
I think that No True Scotsman doesn't really apply here. I think the original argument that every or at least, many GPL advocates also advocate infringement of EULAs. This argument is a fantastic setup for No True Scotsman, because you're reducing a whole host of different viewpoints to a single one, namely, "GPL advocate".
In other words, this argument is not engaging the proposer of the original idea, ie SFC, and instead, takes aim at an averaged "GPL advocate" who's setup as a straw-man. If a specific GPL advocate made that double standard, call them out on it. But accusing every single GPL advocate, especially the SFC who's most definitely not an advocate of infringement, is a fallacy by itself. I think it would be Tarring With the Same Brush...
Presenting an argument in an understandable way, is often a good thing. Pointing out logical flaws isn't trolling (though it may be a logical flaw in itself). I found the GP's argument is quite unclear, actually. Apart from a few F-bombs and insults, I can't really make out what the argument is. I think it may be supporting my position, but I can't be sure!
So you need to use software licenses for any FOSS you use that allow you to use their compilers, tools, operating systems and whatever other tools you need in addition to the unique elements you develop on your own to produce a saleable package that customers will be willing to buy, without giving up any right to control copyright of your own work. I think we're all fine with conveying the license to the FOSS software that's included in our packages to the end user without restriction. You want to use the Linux distribution that's included in my package for stuff I didn't envision? Go ahead. I never owned that anyway and I don't care what you do with it as long as you don't drag me into liability issues for your modifications. I just don't want you to copy the elements I made without paying me for each installation.
Fud fud fud!
It's perfectly legal to build proprietary apps on top of Linux, glibc, and other friends. What you have to do is to provide the source to any modifications you make to the FOSS tools or packages, and convey the license to the user.
The elements you made which are not under GPL/similar, you can do whatever you want with them. The author of the GPLed package on the other hand, intended that you give back, as payment for his having built something you can use for free, any modifications you make. Are you saying that I should respect your right to your own license, but you won't respect mine?
And no benefit to the community either.
Thanks but no thanks.
As I said, I'm not sure of the legal precedent, but apparently it exists for dynamic libs too. That's why LGPL was written - to clear up the ambiguity, more than anything else.
The danger with BSDL is that since there's no incentive for a company to give back, often critical pieces get closed off, reinvented and you can't really share code. In other words, you just saved the salary of a compliance officer, but didn't gain the advantage of community testing/improvement of your code, unless you release your code back, in which case you still need a compliance officer and code audits (to ensure that you don't accidentally release something you want to keep proprietary), anyway.
In general though, I prefer the BSDL/LGPL for libraries - the choice isn't that important in most cases, and GPL for any community-developed end-user applications. You get to develop closed-source frontends, but don't ever think of closing our frontends.
Well, the "average Slashdot commenter" is a fictional entity - an average between trolls, spammers, real commenters, with massive variation in how informed they are. There are all kinds here - conservatives, liberals, die-hard anarchists, windows users, mac users, linux people, and most importantly for this discussion, supporters of every single license ever made by man or troll!
If you could show a statistical correlation between the people here (or elsewhere) who advocate GPL and those who advocate infringement of proprietary software, I'd accept your point. Until then, it's hearsay and borderline slander.
Anyway, by "serious", I meant people like Stallman and Eben Moglen, who are actually doing the advocacy in a long-term, sustained manner.
Most importantly, the people running this operation are SFLC, FSF and others, who are definitely in the "use free alternatives, don't pirate" camp.
Most probably, yes.
There's not really any question that GPLed APIs are not under copyright. The whole viral effect stems from the linking stage, which FSF claims will include the GPLed code into the non-GPL program, which the license doesn't allow. IIRC, there are judgements on this too, probably dating back to the Unix wars.
As far as I know, no serious GPL advocate actually says that infringing others' copyrights is good. They mostly say "use the free alternative".
Yes, there are a few debacles like some people accidentally (or on purpose for that matter) taking say BSDL code and making it GPL (you're allowed to make your modifications GPL, but not the original code itself, if I understand correctly). But nobody advocates piracy.
2 & 3. Rather a fine legal point there between inciting "hate" and "violence". Not conceded.
Not so very fine; saying "I hate X" is different from saying "Kill X". Naturally, there's a grey area that's handled case-by-case.
4. That is a cultural question. Not conceded.
How so? A minor can't give consent. And it's generally a pretty despicable activity that harms the child concerned anyway. This is similar to incitement to violence. Your rights end where others' rights begin.
5. Good lawyers in the US can cite (is it the first?) amendment. But In my country (AU) you better have the capacity to fight. Partly conceded.
Not sure of Australia, but I'm yet to hear of anyone going to jail (that being your whole accusation) for that...
6. But what is HS doing closing down wikileaks and copyright websites? And don't people get into trouble at airports? Reckon it's happening but we don't get to hear of it. not conceded.
Nice evidentiary standard there! "Reckon it's happening but we don't get to hear of it"? Then on what basis do you make the statement?
Wikileaks is arguably (and so they argue) a national security threat. Did you really expect them to not take action against someone leaking secret documents? For the record, I do support a citizen's, and the world's, right to know.
Copyright, I completely concede to you. That should be civil, not criminal.
So fines (that can lead to incarceration) can and does happen without violence in 2, 3, 4, 5 (AU) and 6.
2, 3 and 4, I don't agree at all; show me someone who, without incitement to violence, has been charged under incitement laws. Child pornography is not something supportable.
5, I don't know the situation in AU, but could you point to any case you know of which led to incarceration? A fine is not enough. It should be incarceration.
6, partially misplaced (people getting into trouble at airports is not about freedom of speech), partially grey (wikileaks), partially conceded (copyright).
You mean to say that the French or Germans don't have presumption of innocence?
I believe that they'd be rather surprised to learn that! In fact, it's even more explicit in the European Declaration of Human Rights than in the US constitution. Some places like Scotland have the "not proven" verdict. Incidentally, Scottish law is Civil, not Common. No sensible country, from what I can see, has codified presumption of guilt. This rather long article goes into good detail on how the European system developed.
You're still to address my main point. You're still going off on a tangent that isn't even central to my point. Why should I be sympathetic to a government that cannot take criticism, and unleashes its freakin' army on people who protest too much?
The fundamental problem with your thesis that other places are just different and that we must respect their differences, is that this is not a difference that one can condone. There are certain basic rights that all human beings should enjoy. Any government that takes away those rights is by default a tyranny. I have great respect for the uniqueness and contributions of the Chinese people. None at all for their government.
Just try to do what somebody in power defines as:
1. Deny the holocaust,
Last I heard, that was Germany, not the Anglosphere...
2. Incite homophobia.
3. Incite racial hatred.
Incite homophobic violence and racial violence more like; otherwise certain politicians would be jailed for multiple life terms. To name just one, Rick Santorum in the US.
4. Display child pornography (where in some places e.g. Italy the "child" can mean a 17 years old).
Child pornography is violence (of a sort) against a child who cannot consent. How is this a free speech issue?
5. Denigrate the Moslem religion.
Yet, Richard Dawkins and Pastor Terry Jones are still free
6. Suggest that Homeland Security has been given too much power.
Yet, Bruce Scheiner still roams free.
And in all those cases, truth or consent is NOT a defence!
And you will find yourself in jail, not just banned from posting for a month.
Truth is a defence. Consent (I assume you talk of the child pornography thing) cannot be legally given by a minor.
Jailed? Apart from 2, 3 and 4, with 2 and 3 being modified as I said above (incitement to violence), I don't know of anyone being jailed for any of these things?
Face, meet palm!
I said "Common Law" because that's what the US uses. Naturally, most civli law jurisdictions use it too.
What I'm arguing is not that the whole world should use the British system. I'm arguing that your charge against the US is specious on those grounds.
I'm no fan of many things the US government tries to do, but your charge that they're just like the CCP is ridiculous!
Anyway, congratulations on cherry picking one minor portion, in brackets no less, which I added as an explanation, to question me, and then make a wild charge of my being a British supremacist... Any answer to the meat of my argument?
it is "obviously" not as the supposed "huge increase" in CO2 levels has led to very little actual warming for the climate overall.
Data, not speculation, please
The fears of some kind of runaway reaction have been totally debunked.
Point to a study (by real climatologists, not whackjobs)? I pointed to some. When are you going to?
As for the climate getting slowly warmer, as a species we would be very lucky if that is actually the case
Again, too much of anything... The fear is a runaway effect will produce too much warming.
- but it's too soon to tell, people are trying to use year to year swings to guess what the climate will be like 100 years hence, and so far utterly botched even a simple five or ten year prediction.
5-10 years is not really statistically significant. But in any case, there are some interesting model-data comparisons at RealClimate which show some good comparisons of model with actuals. Interestingly, the climate isn't as sensitive as our worst-case scenario would have us believe, but it can be estimated roughly to 3.4C per doubling of CO2, down from 4.2.
Fairly good performance for a model that "isn't even close" in your words...
There's a difference between somebody being a troll, and called out for it by other users, and the government retroactively proclaiming something "untrue", which knowing the CCP, would be loosely defined as "stuff we don't want you to say".
Answer, don't censor. Something that most governments, political parties, religious institutions, corporations, etc should have hammered into their heads!
Depends on how you define "untruth". The way you or I would probably define it is "something that is not true", in which case, the question becomes "how do you (the sharer) know something to be 'true' before sharing?" or alternatively, "Do you, in good faith, believe that what you shared was true?"
The way the Chinese government seems to define it is, "Any statement that is critical of, or damaging to the reputation of the Communist Party and the Glorious People's Republic". In which case, why did you share something that you knew to be an untruth, you swine? 50 points from Gryffindor (plagiarized from above commenter)
If it's a UN body, they can use their vote/veto to censor anything they don't like.
They're all about micromanaging what people think, apparently...
Burning mod points to post:
That looks like a "last ditch" effort against those advocating violent overthrow. But as far as I can see, it hasn't been used since 1958. A large portion of the act that set it up seems to have been ruled unconstitutional too.
In any case, there's a MASSIVE difference between that and what China's attempting to do. One is a legal charge to be proven in court (under Common law, it's not disproven; the prosecution has to make the case that the accused violated the law, not the other way round), and the other is a measure of suppression. Further, if this is a reaction to the link you posted, the article only talks about news spreading about a rumored coup attempt, and not about anybody planning said alleged coup on microblogging sites.
What's the Chinese government worried about? That people knowing that a coup attempt is possible will then realize that their leaders are not infallible and that they can change the government? That they'll demand a real say in how things are done, and real democracy? Are they upset that anyone could legitimately not tow the party line? Cowards!
For comparison, here's how a democracy handles such allegations in the public. Keep in mind, this wasn't some random tweeters, but a real newspaper. The newspaper report was duly discredited, and life goes on.
Besides, movements like Occupy Wall Street, or India Against Corruption or even the Tea Party are welcomed in mature nations - they form a conduit for people to express themselves on how they wish to be governed. Consent of the governed should be the only path to legitimacy for any rulers. Anything else is a dictatorship.
Sorry, I have no sympathy for China in this.