5 ms·

If it's overturned in the EU court of law, fine - that's the process. Really, I find it quite surprising that there is so much opposition the ruling; the video

by mo34 17y ago

If it's overturned in the EU court of law, fine - that's the process. Really, I find it quite surprising that there is so much opposition the ruling; the video is horrible, it is disgusting, it is wrong. Bravo for Italy (and China for that matter) for identifying and trying to do something about a serious issue.

tjogin 17y ago
What do you even mean by that? I mean, even try to visualize the alternative; that every video, picture, audio clip and piece of text submitted to any website is first vetted by a human being. Any content that that individual cannot get behind will not be published. Sure, I would like to have material like that magically disappear too, along with the kind of people who would do such a thing. But if we move the level of discourse into the real world rather than la-la land, we have to accept that we can neither use magic, nor vet every piece of content prior to publishing it. You are free to post obnoxious shit on the internet without it being vetted first, just like you are free to say obnoxious shit without permission from anyone. The consequences come afterwards — and the fault is yours, not the providers of the medium you chose as the vessel for your content. Freedom of speech ain't pretty. But the alternative is much much worse. This is the only way it can be done.
- Groxx 17y ago
  and the fault is yours, not the providers of the medium you chose as the vessel for your content. And in the case of free speech, this would mean Italy is doing the equivalent of trying to jail air for not maintaining privacy. Or, perhaps more accurately, they're jailing one who makes air (God and/or plants, take your pick) for not making air shut certain people up before they say something wrong. It makes no sense no matter how you look at it. Even if there isn't freedom of speech in a location, you don't put the papermakers in jail because someone wrote something mean on it.
- mo34 17y ago
  Of course, this is exactly the point - some countries are in fact visualizing alternatives to this sort of free-for-all of 'obnoxious shit' being posted and consumed on the Internet. Why has YouTube been blocked at one time or another in dozens of countries? Say what you will but its not all 'censorship'. Admittedly, enforcement could be expensive and difficult; so, what? It's a cost benefit analysis for the business; either they can survive under the rules they we can't. And here's the rub that Google knows: if YouTube had to survive under these rules of decency and morality, it probably couldn't survive. So they spend all their time and lawyers fighting any efforts that promote decency and morality. Someone wondered why I'm posting this point of view while reading this blog, with a new account; it is because I recently had an experience that changed my thinking. I have a 7 year old son that enjoys YouTube, particularly Star Wars videos. A few days ago he was searching for something star wars related and one of the previews that came up has a Brazillian girl giving someone a blowjob - this is on YouTube. Of course, I find this offensive; you cannot allow 7-year olds to type innocent queries into YouTube and be shown videos of women giving blowjobs. Suddenly, YouTube turned from a fun thing to do to a poision to be controlled. A word about 'censorship' and 'freedoms' - like Italy, I'm just not buying it. Freedoms on the Internet are exchanged; you may allow YouTube the freedom to stream pornography or violence into every household but then the householders (like myself) have their freedoms restricted by having to contend with these sort of things. And when you have a family-oriented culture like China or maybe Italy that has some culture to preserve and they say 'you're guilty of a crime in this country because you violated our moral or ethical values' then in my opinion you must respect their decision, much more so than a huge corporation solely out to make money. I have been in IT for 16 years and I am simply flattened by individuals who use these technologies every day, and fail to see, acknowledge, or support any sort of curbing of these items when it impacts other important, indeed almost fundamental, values that allow society to operate at all.
clistctrl 17y ago
Most subjects we can disagree with each other, and up vote for a well written comment, but for some reason this comment strikes me as really odd. I find it really hard to believe someone, the kind of person who would be attracted to "hacker news" would have this view point. The 1 hour old account, is also suspicious.
- hendler 17y ago
  What I really like about Hacker News is that it's overwhelmingly made up people cleverly disagreeing - so that plants/idiots/jokers are generally more obvious.
  - mo34 17y ago
    It's nice when it happens; but so far, no one has taken a crack at refuting my argument.

by mo34 17y ago

tjogin 17y ago

What do you even mean by that? I mean, even try to visualize the alternative; that every video, picture, audio clip and piece of text submitted to any website is first vetted by a human being. Any content that that individual cannot get behind will not be published. Sure, I would like to have material like that magically disappear too, along with the kind of people who would do such a thing. But if we move the level of discourse into the real world rather than la-la land, we have to accept that we can neither use magic, nor vet every piece of content prior to publishing it. You are free to post obnoxious shit on the internet without it being vetted first, just like you are free to say obnoxious shit without permission from anyone. The consequences come afterwards — and the fault is yours, not the providers of the medium you chose as the vessel for your content. Freedom of speech ain't pretty. But the alternative is much much worse. This is the only way it can be done.

Groxx 17y ago
and the fault is yours, not the providers of the medium you chose as the vessel for your content. And in the case of free speech, this would mean Italy is doing the equivalent of trying to jail air for not maintaining privacy. Or, perhaps more accurately, they're jailing one who makes air (God and/or plants, take your pick) for not making air shut certain people up before they say something wrong. It makes no sense no matter how you look at it. Even if there isn't freedom of speech in a location, you don't put the papermakers in jail because someone wrote something mean on it.
mo34 17y ago
Of course, this is exactly the point - some countries are in fact visualizing alternatives to this sort of free-for-all of 'obnoxious shit' being posted and consumed on the Internet. Why has YouTube been blocked at one time or another in dozens of countries? Say what you will but its not all 'censorship'. Admittedly, enforcement could be expensive and difficult; so, what? It's a cost benefit analysis for the business; either they can survive under the rules they we can't. And here's the rub that Google knows: if YouTube had to survive under these rules of decency and morality, it probably couldn't survive. So they spend all their time and lawyers fighting any efforts that promote decency and morality. Someone wondered why I'm posting this point of view while reading this blog, with a new account; it is because I recently had an experience that changed my thinking. I have a 7 year old son that enjoys YouTube, particularly Star Wars videos. A few days ago he was searching for something star wars related and one of the previews that came up has a Brazillian girl giving someone a blowjob - this is on YouTube. Of course, I find this offensive; you cannot allow 7-year olds to type innocent queries into YouTube and be shown videos of women giving blowjobs. Suddenly, YouTube turned from a fun thing to do to a poision to be controlled. A word about 'censorship' and 'freedoms' - like Italy, I'm just not buying it. Freedoms on the Internet are exchanged; you may allow YouTube the freedom to stream pornography or violence into every household but then the householders (like myself) have their freedoms restricted by having to contend with these sort of things. And when you have a family-oriented culture like China or maybe Italy that has some culture to preserve and they say 'you're guilty of a crime in this country because you violated our moral or ethical values' then in my opinion you must respect their decision, much more so than a huge corporation solely out to make money. I have been in IT for 16 years and I am simply flattened by individuals who use these technologies every day, and fail to see, acknowledge, or support any sort of curbing of these items when it impacts other important, indeed almost fundamental, values that allow society to operate at all.

clistctrl 17y ago

Most subjects we can disagree with each other, and up vote for a well written comment, but for some reason this comment strikes me as really odd. I find it really hard to believe someone, the kind of person who would be attracted to "hacker news" would have this view point. The 1 hour old account, is also suspicious.

hendler 17y ago
What I really like about Hacker News is that it's overwhelmingly made up people cleverly disagreeing - so that plants/idiots/jokers are generally more obvious.
- mo34 17y ago
  It's nice when it happens; but so far, no one has taken a crack at refuting my argument.