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Africa's Worst New Internet Censorship Law Could Be Coming to South Africa

189 points by ghosh 11y ago

coldcode 11y ago
Everyone wants to crush their citizens. Except Iceland, maybe.
- spcoll 11y ago
  Factors that prevent states from going totalitarian: - small size - decentralized/local government structure - limited geopolitical influence - high level of education of the population - history/culture of democracy Large, powerful states with a lesser educated population will inevitably drift towards totalitarianism over time. This implies the use of various means of population control, with total surveillance being first and foremost.
  - vollmond 11y ago
    Only in combination, though. There are dozens of "small size" "limited influence" dictatorships, no? Esp in Africa/Latin America?
  - nl 11y ago
    Disproof by counter example: Singapore (the "history/culture of democracy" is arguable I suppose).
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      Singapore is centralized, has comparatively large population, especially for its size, and no history of democracy. That's where you become halfway there.
  - frozenport 11y ago
    >>Large, powerful states with a lesser educated population will inevitably drift towards totalitarianism How about India? Don't treat states or societies as people, they are not people rather they are made of people. Totalitarianism isn't the outcome of a system it rather the outcome of the people oppress and the cowards who do nothing to stop it.
    - arandomafrican 11y ago
      I'm not sure India is the best example either. Sure, at the National political level, it's a democracy. But there are several issue that allow citizens of some lesser democratic states enjoys more freedom in some cases... (it's very un-even though) Religious rights, women's rights... Or the amount of power that some have at the local level (cast issues, landowners, etc..).
- jkot 11y ago
  Did not Iceland banned pornography?
  - rpedroso 11y ago
    Certain politicians in Iceland wanted to ban a particular subset of pornography (hardcore, violence, etc). I don't remember hearing that any progress was made on that legislation, but I could just be uninformed on that front.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  They want to ban porn though. Any country left that actually cares about freedom, other than Germany?
  - Apocryphon 11y ago
    Oh, the historical irony
    - gpvos 11y ago
      Their feeling of guilt about their history is the reason they care about freedom at least a little bit more than others.
  - Xylakant 11y ago
    > Any country left that actually cares about freedom, other than Germany? Last time I checked (5 minutes ago), we didn't. (german speaking)
    - kuschku 11y ago
      The day when even the Spiegel titles "DER VERRAT – BND und Bundesregierung gegen deutsche Interessen" (in english: "THE TREASON – BND and federal government vs. German interests") you really can’t say the country cares about freedom :/
  - 1ris 11y ago
    No, no, we just pretend. We are the USAs and the NSAs bitch like all our neighbors.
  - e12e 11y ago
    Banning porn can be seen as wanting to ban oppression/exploitation. Freedom is not absolute -- because at some point one persons freedom interferes with another persons freedom (AKA your freedom ends where your fist meet my face). A lot of people will pretend that porn is about freedom, that selling sex is about freedom, that selling drugs is about freedom... And while you can make arguments for all those things, that's not to say that any kind of legislation by definition is "anti-freedom". Legislation can be a means to enforce freedoms too.
buyx 11y ago
The only saving grace is that the Department of Home Affairs (of which the Film and Publications Board is part) is so incompetent that their reach exceeds their grasp, and it is relatively easy to circumvent their authoritarian tendencies. Until recently many South African Apple device owners had Kenya accounts to buy games (including most educational content) because of the Board's refusal to allow South African App Store games without rating every game itself (eventually they relented). Home Affairs, which also handles citizenship and immigration, is a mess, and has made the South African passport worthless thanks to rampant corruption and incompetence (historically anyway- corruption may be improving a bit, but the damage is done). Their latest trick: to require burdensome documentation from international travelers with children ostensibly to combat child trafficking (because of by dubious data from a lobby group that caught a Minister's ear). It's expected to severely dent the Sputh African tourism industry. TlDr: Even if these proposed censorship regulations come to pass, it is unlikely that they will have much of an effect thanks to the incompetence of the would-be censors.
- peferron 11y ago
  In the short term you are right. However the legal authority to enforce censorship will be established. All it will take is for the Department of Home Affairs to become less incompetent and suddenly things will become very serious. I think history has shown us that it's rarely a good idea to assume that people will remain incompetent, that puppet dictators will remain puppets, etc.
- jorangreef 11y ago
  As a South African, the department of Home Affairs in the Western Cape is actually doing an excellent job regarding birth certificates, passports, ids etc. The bottleneck is in Gauteng.
  - buyx 11y ago
    As I intimated, things are improving in some areas thanks to improved IT system controls, but the quality of the improvement is very very uneven. Even in Gauteng, some offices function excellently, while others are awful. It comes down to the individual branch managers. There still are huge bottlenecks in dealing with "refugee" claims, and with the legal immigration processes, and the legacy of past corruption (last 25 years) is still haunting South Africa. Based on overall performance, I think "incompetent" is still a fair characterisation.
lusus 11y ago
Sounds about right for the fpb in sa. They make a lot of talk about protecting against pornography specifically child pornography. Given south Africa's current trend of sexual violence against minors it's understandable but they are pretty much unable to enforce anything. The sa government has a very mediocre understanding overall of how the technology that makes up the Internet works and likes to propose rather broad and technically unfeasable laws that inevitably are either ignored or eventually abandoned. It wasn't that long ago that they expected any isp to be keeping packet logs of any traffic through thier network for a period of five years on the off chance that the police might need it. It took a fair bit of back and forth to get them to realize how absurd such an approach was. I would expect that if this does come to pass and youtube is blocked etc, that even the most naïve user will suddenly discover what a vpn is and life will continue. ( never underestimate the technological capability of someone , including your grandmother, to find a way to watch thier cat videos on the Internet )
einrealist 11y ago
How is publication specified? Is it a single word, a character, a millisecond of sound or video? I wonder how that scales. Could be the first real DoS of a ministry. Bring it on....
guard-of-terra 11y ago
Больше ада! Aka, worse is better. The idea here is: reasoning does not work. You reason for good things, against stupid laws, but you have no leverage. We'll have to walk thru pain, "fear and loathing", most of those laws will be passed somewhere, in a few years or decades they'll prove to not work. Then they will be gradually repelled. Now there will be leverage: "this law was tried in a country CCC and it went sour". We humans actually suck at designing something (like laws). Our only bet is evolution. You can't reason. You can only show. So we'll have to try ideas even when it's obvious they're stupid.
- PebblesHD 11y ago
  Sadly, the notion that 'It was tried in <country name> and didnt work so we should avoid it' doesn't really apply to politics. Consider Australia's current internet censorship and metadata legislation, the same laws have been tried all over Europe, the US, Asia and a host of other countries and proved worthless, and yet the government pushes forward with them. Its simply for appearances, the leadership needs to look like its tough on whatever the hot topic of the hour is.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    They have to be repelled somewhere in order to be proven worthless.
    - PebblesHD 11y ago
      I would be inclined to argue that their ineffectiveness at achieving their stated purpose combined with their gross violation of the privacy of everyone in the countries affected makes them worthless.
- Kenji 11y ago
  >Now there will be leverage: "this law was tried in a country CCC and it went sour". Yeah because that worked so well with the example of alcohol prohibition, really taught us a lesson about drug laws ;D
- 11y ago
demarq 11y ago
That is some North Korean level of crazy!
lovelearning 11y ago
Is the Internet really the biggest problem around, that governments spend so much time and effort controlling it? It's become a bike shed for governments.
mhuffman 11y ago
I am all for multi-tasking, but you would really think that Africa would have bigger fish to fry right now, without worrying about censoring the Internet.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- thescrewdriver 11y ago
  Ah yes, the good old republic of Africa. Who is the president of Africa?
  - snaix 11y ago
    "republic of Africa"? Africa is a continent that consists of at least 54 separate countries. It is like asking "Who is the president of Europe".
    - thescrewdriver 11y ago
      That's what my post was getting at, over-generalising about an entire continent...
      - snaix 11y ago
        Sorry, replied to the wrong thread. Was obviously meant for the parent thread :-/
    - mhuffman 11y ago
      It was a snippy comment. If you don't specify "South" Africa (which itself is a generalization), people can get jimmies rustled. It is like saying I live in America. People know exactly what you mean from context, but some will be pedantic about "America" including many countries in North and South America. If there were no context (not the situation with this post), then it could lead to confusion.
      - 11y ago
markatkinson 11y ago
Yes, I am from South Africa, and right now I have to remote into my home computer to shut it down, before our power provider (parastatal monopoly Eskom), shuts down the power across the whole of Cape Town for 2.5 hours because they are so severely miss managed. But yes, this seems appropriate. As others have mentioned if this actually became legitimate it would mean nothing. They have nobody to police this.
- spitcode 11y ago
  The problem is that when they do find someone the law is in place
spitcode 11y ago
Sign the petition, make it stop! https://www.change.org/p/film-and-publications-board-stop-the-internet-censorship https://www.change.org/p/film-and-publications-board-stop-th...

189 points by ghosh 11y ago

coldcode 11y ago

Everyone wants to crush their citizens. Except Iceland, maybe.

spcoll 11y ago
Factors that prevent states from going totalitarian: - small size - decentralized/local government structure - limited geopolitical influence - high level of education of the population - history/culture of democracy Large, powerful states with a lesser educated population will inevitably drift towards totalitarianism over time. This implies the use of various means of population control, with total surveillance being first and foremost.
- vollmond 11y ago
  Only in combination, though. There are dozens of "small size" "limited influence" dictatorships, no? Esp in Africa/Latin America?
- nl 11y ago
  Disproof by counter example: Singapore (the "history/culture of democracy" is arguable I suppose).
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    Singapore is centralized, has comparatively large population, especially for its size, and no history of democracy. That's where you become halfway there.
- frozenport 11y ago
  >>Large, powerful states with a lesser educated population will inevitably drift towards totalitarianism How about India? Don't treat states or societies as people, they are not people rather they are made of people. Totalitarianism isn't the outcome of a system it rather the outcome of the people oppress and the cowards who do nothing to stop it.
  - arandomafrican 11y ago
    I'm not sure India is the best example either. Sure, at the National political level, it's a democracy. But there are several issue that allow citizens of some lesser democratic states enjoys more freedom in some cases... (it's very un-even though) Religious rights, women's rights... Or the amount of power that some have at the local level (cast issues, landowners, etc..).
jkot 11y ago
Did not Iceland banned pornography?
- rpedroso 11y ago
  Certain politicians in Iceland wanted to ban a particular subset of pornography (hardcore, violence, etc). I don't remember hearing that any progress was made on that legislation, but I could just be uninformed on that front.
tomjen3 11y ago
They want to ban porn though. Any country left that actually cares about freedom, other than Germany?
- Apocryphon 11y ago
  Oh, the historical irony
  - gpvos 11y ago
    Their feeling of guilt about their history is the reason they care about freedom at least a little bit more than others.
- Xylakant 11y ago
  > Any country left that actually cares about freedom, other than Germany? Last time I checked (5 minutes ago), we didn't. (german speaking)
  - kuschku 11y ago
    The day when even the Spiegel titles "DER VERRAT – BND und Bundesregierung gegen deutsche Interessen" (in english: "THE TREASON – BND and federal government vs. German interests") you really can’t say the country cares about freedom :/
- 1ris 11y ago
  No, no, we just pretend. We are the USAs and the NSAs bitch like all our neighbors.
- e12e 11y ago
  Banning porn can be seen as wanting to ban oppression/exploitation. Freedom is not absolute -- because at some point one persons freedom interferes with another persons freedom (AKA your freedom ends where your fist meet my face). A lot of people will pretend that porn is about freedom, that selling sex is about freedom, that selling drugs is about freedom... And while you can make arguments for all those things, that's not to say that any kind of legislation by definition is "anti-freedom". Legislation can be a means to enforce freedoms too.

buyx 11y ago

The only saving grace is that the Department of Home Affairs (of which the Film and Publications Board is part) is so incompetent that their reach exceeds their grasp, and it is relatively easy to circumvent their authoritarian tendencies. Until recently many South African Apple device owners had Kenya accounts to buy games (including most educational content) because of the Board's refusal to allow South African App Store games without rating every game itself (eventually they relented). Home Affairs, which also handles citizenship and immigration, is a mess, and has made the South African passport worthless thanks to rampant corruption and incompetence (historically anyway- corruption may be improving a bit, but the damage is done). Their latest trick: to require burdensome documentation from international travelers with children ostensibly to combat child trafficking (because of by dubious data from a lobby group that caught a Minister's ear). It's expected to severely dent the Sputh African tourism industry. TlDr: Even if these proposed censorship regulations come to pass, it is unlikely that they will have much of an effect thanks to the incompetence of the would-be censors.

peferron 11y ago
In the short term you are right. However the legal authority to enforce censorship will be established. All it will take is for the Department of Home Affairs to become less incompetent and suddenly things will become very serious. I think history has shown us that it's rarely a good idea to assume that people will remain incompetent, that puppet dictators will remain puppets, etc.
jorangreef 11y ago
As a South African, the department of Home Affairs in the Western Cape is actually doing an excellent job regarding birth certificates, passports, ids etc. The bottleneck is in Gauteng.
- buyx 11y ago
  As I intimated, things are improving in some areas thanks to improved IT system controls, but the quality of the improvement is very very uneven. Even in Gauteng, some offices function excellently, while others are awful. It comes down to the individual branch managers. There still are huge bottlenecks in dealing with "refugee" claims, and with the legal immigration processes, and the legacy of past corruption (last 25 years) is still haunting South Africa. Based on overall performance, I think "incompetent" is still a fair characterisation.

lusus 11y ago

Sounds about right for the fpb in sa. They make a lot of talk about protecting against pornography specifically child pornography. Given south Africa's current trend of sexual violence against minors it's understandable but they are pretty much unable to enforce anything. The sa government has a very mediocre understanding overall of how the technology that makes up the Internet works and likes to propose rather broad and technically unfeasable laws that inevitably are either ignored or eventually abandoned. It wasn't that long ago that they expected any isp to be keeping packet logs of any traffic through thier network for a period of five years on the off chance that the police might need it. It took a fair bit of back and forth to get them to realize how absurd such an approach was. I would expect that if this does come to pass and youtube is blocked etc, that even the most naïve user will suddenly discover what a vpn is and life will continue. ( never underestimate the technological capability of someone , including your grandmother, to find a way to watch thier cat videos on the Internet )

einrealist 11y ago

How is publication specified? Is it a single word, a character, a millisecond of sound or video? I wonder how that scales. Could be the first real DoS of a ministry. Bring it on....

guard-of-terra 11y ago

Больше ада! Aka, worse is better. The idea here is: reasoning does not work. You reason for good things, against stupid laws, but you have no leverage. We'll have to walk thru pain, "fear and loathing", most of those laws will be passed somewhere, in a few years or decades they'll prove to not work. Then they will be gradually repelled. Now there will be leverage: "this law was tried in a country CCC and it went sour". We humans actually suck at designing something (like laws). Our only bet is evolution. You can't reason. You can only show. So we'll have to try ideas even when it's obvious they're stupid.

PebblesHD 11y ago
Sadly, the notion that 'It was tried in <country name> and didnt work so we should avoid it' doesn't really apply to politics. Consider Australia's current internet censorship and metadata legislation, the same laws have been tried all over Europe, the US, Asia and a host of other countries and proved worthless, and yet the government pushes forward with them. Its simply for appearances, the leadership needs to look like its tough on whatever the hot topic of the hour is.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  They have to be repelled somewhere in order to be proven worthless.
  - PebblesHD 11y ago
    I would be inclined to argue that their ineffectiveness at achieving their stated purpose combined with their gross violation of the privacy of everyone in the countries affected makes them worthless.
Kenji 11y ago
>Now there will be leverage: "this law was tried in a country CCC and it went sour". Yeah because that worked so well with the example of alcohol prohibition, really taught us a lesson about drug laws ;D
11y ago

demarq 11y ago

That is some North Korean level of crazy!

lovelearning 11y ago

Is the Internet really the biggest problem around, that governments spend so much time and effort controlling it? It's become a bike shed for governments.

mhuffman 11y ago

I am all for multi-tasking, but you would really think that Africa would have bigger fish to fry right now, without worrying about censoring the Internet.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
thescrewdriver 11y ago
Ah yes, the good old republic of Africa. Who is the president of Africa?
- snaix 11y ago
  "republic of Africa"? Africa is a continent that consists of at least 54 separate countries. It is like asking "Who is the president of Europe".
  - thescrewdriver 11y ago
    That's what my post was getting at, over-generalising about an entire continent...
    - snaix 11y ago
      Sorry, replied to the wrong thread. Was obviously meant for the parent thread :-/
  - mhuffman 11y ago
    It was a snippy comment. If you don't specify "South" Africa (which itself is a generalization), people can get jimmies rustled. It is like saying I live in America. People know exactly what you mean from context, but some will be pedantic about "America" including many countries in North and South America. If there were no context (not the situation with this post), then it could lead to confusion.
    - 11y ago

markatkinson 11y ago

Yes, I am from South Africa, and right now I have to remote into my home computer to shut it down, before our power provider (parastatal monopoly Eskom), shuts down the power across the whole of Cape Town for 2.5 hours because they are so severely miss managed. But yes, this seems appropriate. As others have mentioned if this actually became legitimate it would mean nothing. They have nobody to police this.

spitcode 11y ago
The problem is that when they do find someone the law is in place

spitcode 11y ago

Sign the petition, make it stop! https://www.change.org/p/film-and-publications-board-stop-the-internet-censorship https://www.change.org/p/film-and-publications-board-stop-th...