4 ms·

The internet is already censored worldwide. We censor copyrighted works, pornography (< 18 y), libel, etc.

by okasaki 11y ago

forrestthewoods 11y ago
Censorship wouldn't be so bad if it was just "click yes to proceed"!
azinman2 11y ago
That's a per-country situation. Copyright is not universal, and even age of consent is per country. Various countries like Indonesia ban all porn, some countries outlaw animal porn, other's allow it. Etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_survei...
- kuschku 11y ago
  And the US opinion on these things is applied worldwide. People are arrested in New Zealand and Germany even though they didn’t break local laws by hosting pirated content. If the US can enforce their laws on the web, why should France, China, etc not be able to do so, too?
  - azinman2 11y ago
    It's not opinion. They've entered mutually agreed upon trade/copyright agreements explicitly. Similarly New Zealand or Germany can enforce its copyrights in the US.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      Yes, it is an opinion. There are laws that are above those agreements, and they are continously broken by the US. Again, and again, and again. We have to be on a web where stuff like nude boobs is considered NSFW, where sites that allow users to sell used digital goods are instantly sued to death, etc. These things are all based on a US-centric moral framework. The whole web is full of that. And Google, a company that, until recently, was legally headquartered in Ireland, applies only the US moral standard for their products. Even if I am in europe, I can’t upload a movie to YouTube that is allowed to be shown on TV in Germany during daytime just because the US moral standard says nude boobs are not okay. If the US and its companies want to force their moral and legal standards upon us, we will force our standards upon them, too. Which is one of the reasons why TTIP contains the "local IP" part: Only sparkling wine made in France may be called Champagner from then on, only Parmesan made in Italy may be called this, etc.
      - cheald 11y ago
        > If the US and its companies want to force their moral and legal standards upon us, we will force our standards upon them, too. This is incredibly silly reasoning. Google enforces the standards it chooses (generally American standards, in this case, as it is an American company) on its own properties. That's quite a far cry from imposing your own set of values on a third-party service provider. The equivalent would be to start your own service which imposes your own set of standards (which, I'll point out, exists in the form of DailyMotion and LiveLeak, among others), not to say "well if you get to apply your standards to your service then I get to apply my standards to your service."
        kuschku 11y ago
        I made the same point before, but: If a German company operates within Germany with German customers completely legal according to German law, and then gets fucked over by US institutions forcing US banks to seize the money of that company just because the actions (which happened solely under German law) were not according to US law... Then it is the exact same situation. If the US can dictate our companies laws, we can dictate their companies laws, too. The Euro was made also to reduce the influence of the dollar for international trade, and especially the countries within the EU have almost no contact with the dollar anymore, nor do most companies here. Which makes sure the US can’t just seize their assets (like they used to seize assets of companies because "if they trade in dollar, they operate under US law")
        AndrewKemendo 11y ago
        Except it's all based on trade agreements and negotiations. The US didn't agree to German drafted laws so they don't apply - if Germany didn't want them then they shouldn't have signed them. If the argument is that the German population doesn't want them, then that's an internal issue and not the US' problem, as we negotiate with state actors, not citizens.
        kuschku 11y ago
        No, that's not the case: The trade agreements have a very limited scope, and the US oversteps those boundaries consistently. Our government in Germany ends up sending not even a strongly worded letter to the US because they don't want to risk the international relationship, but the official position is that these actions are illegal. It's just like the NSA affair. And the fact that in the Microsoft case a US judge stated that, even though the servers in question were in Europe, the US could seize them because the internet was a US invention and the company had made business in the US just shows the issue: the US legal enforcement consistently oversteps nations boundaries.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Per country, but the way the laws work (from my non-lawyer understanding) would mean that any company with an office in one country would have to censor those results for other countries as well. If Google was hosting/indexing/etc. certain illegal material in a country where it was illegal, it could still be in major trouble in the US and many countries in Europe.

The internet is already censored worldwide. We censor copyrighted works, pornography (< 18 y), libel, etc.

by okasaki 11y ago

The internet is already censored worldwide. We censor copyrighted works, pornography (< 18 y), libel, etc.

forrestthewoods 11y ago

Censorship wouldn't be so bad if it was just "click yes to proceed"!

azinman2 11y ago

That's a per-country situation. Copyright is not universal, and even age of consent is per country. Various countries like Indonesia ban all porn, some countries outlaw animal porn, other's allow it. Etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_survei...

kuschku 11y ago
And the US opinion on these things is applied worldwide. People are arrested in New Zealand and Germany even though they didn’t break local laws by hosting pirated content. If the US can enforce their laws on the web, why should France, China, etc not be able to do so, too?
- azinman2 11y ago
  It's not opinion. They've entered mutually agreed upon trade/copyright agreements explicitly. Similarly New Zealand or Germany can enforce its copyrights in the US.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Yes, it is an opinion. There are laws that are above those agreements, and they are continously broken by the US. Again, and again, and again. We have to be on a web where stuff like nude boobs is considered NSFW, where sites that allow users to sell used digital goods are instantly sued to death, etc. These things are all based on a US-centric moral framework. The whole web is full of that. And Google, a company that, until recently, was legally headquartered in Ireland, applies only the US moral standard for their products. Even if I am in europe, I can’t upload a movie to YouTube that is allowed to be shown on TV in Germany during daytime just because the US moral standard says nude boobs are not okay. If the US and its companies want to force their moral and legal standards upon us, we will force our standards upon them, too. Which is one of the reasons why TTIP contains the "local IP" part: Only sparkling wine made in France may be called Champagner from then on, only Parmesan made in Italy may be called this, etc.
    - cheald 11y ago
      > If the US and its companies want to force their moral and legal standards upon us, we will force our standards upon them, too. This is incredibly silly reasoning. Google enforces the standards it chooses (generally American standards, in this case, as it is an American company) on its own properties. That's quite a far cry from imposing your own set of values on a third-party service provider. The equivalent would be to start your own service which imposes your own set of standards (which, I'll point out, exists in the form of DailyMotion and LiveLeak, among others), not to say "well if you get to apply your standards to your service then I get to apply my standards to your service."
      - kuschku 11y ago
        I made the same point before, but: If a German company operates within Germany with German customers completely legal according to German law, and then gets fucked over by US institutions forcing US banks to seize the money of that company just because the actions (which happened solely under German law) were not according to US law... Then it is the exact same situation. If the US can dictate our companies laws, we can dictate their companies laws, too. The Euro was made also to reduce the influence of the dollar for international trade, and especially the countries within the EU have almost no contact with the dollar anymore, nor do most companies here. Which makes sure the US can’t just seize their assets (like they used to seize assets of companies because "if they trade in dollar, they operate under US law")
        AndrewKemendo 11y ago
        Except it's all based on trade agreements and negotiations. The US didn't agree to German drafted laws so they don't apply - if Germany didn't want them then they shouldn't have signed them. If the argument is that the German population doesn't want them, then that's an internal issue and not the US' problem, as we negotiate with state actors, not citizens.
        kuschku 11y ago
        No, that's not the case: The trade agreements have a very limited scope, and the US oversteps those boundaries consistently. Our government in Germany ends up sending not even a strongly worded letter to the US because they don't want to risk the international relationship, but the official position is that these actions are illegal. It's just like the NSA affair. And the fact that in the Microsoft case a US judge stated that, even though the servers in question were in Europe, the US could seize them because the internet was a US invention and the company had made business in the US just shows the issue: the US legal enforcement consistently oversteps nations boundaries.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Per country, but the way the laws work (from my non-lawyer understanding) would mean that any company with an office in one country would have to censor those results for other countries as well. If Google was hosting/indexing/etc. certain illegal material in a country where it was illegal, it could still be in major trouble in the US and many countries in Europe.