Do you wanna know something? They'll get their way as well. All under the guise of "terrorism" or "protect the children" or whatever the acute and current threat is. If they don't get their way by themselves, then they'll band together with some other countries to strong-arm whatever company into compliance, because "wouldn't it be a shame if you couldn't do business in a market of ~740 (EU) or ~35 (CAN) million people and what we ask in return is such a small thing...".
Now I apologize in advance for this (long) alarmist opinion (and a bit of a hijack), but here goes: I don't think many people actually understand the seriousness of the problems we, as users/inhabitants of the Internet, are actually facing today. I think it is done! It's over! The Internet was a cool experiment but it has failed. We lost that game and need wipe it clean & start over again. The Internet has not turned out to be this great engine of empowerment and democratization. It has instead turned out to be a most superb instrument for repression and control. The more I think about this, the more I become convinced that there is very little to be salvaged from it. To many folks, the Internet, in effect, is facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and a couple of other large players/feudal lords (who they are is depending on your locality); everything else is something they get to *through* their feudal lord, that is if they ever leave the feudal lands (cf. Google AMP). Nation-states are seeing this as well and they too want their slice of the cake of control - after all, the only purpose of any government of the day, is to still be the government of the day, tomorrow. And what a gorgeous way to see into the future by tapping into the thoughts and desires of your populace... They either become the One Pipe everyone talks through and watch for anything on that pipe, they co-opt (some of) these large players or they work on a combination of them. Instead of a tool for freedom, the Internet has become a tool for oppression: everything you do online is being monitored, monetized, processed, quantified and then used against you, never in your favor. Whether this is as mundane as hiking the price for whatever locked-down widget you're buying the next day from a shopping website that uses dynamic pricing or as life-altering as to stick charges against you based on your online habits. Back in the day, surveillance was creepy because you could see the guy in the raincoat with the newspaper following you. It was expensive to do so it was done sparingly. Nowadays, it is cheaper to monitor everything and anything, 24/7/365[.25] than it is to target the surveillance so why not put everyone under surveillance. And you don't ever see the vast armies of faceless machines that do the monitoring, those are hidden away in far-away data centers. The epitome of a panopticon! It's also cheaper to keep the data around than it is to put in place systems that sunset data after a certain age, so why not store everything forever? After all, we may want to go back to "T minus 20 years" in case we want to /really/ hurt you. /You/ may not remember what you did then, but /we/ certainly do! To come back to the subject of censorship: I believe it was Noam Chomsky who uttered that "...the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum..." I think that this is a very good description of what the Internet/Panopticon has become and is on the path of becoming even more. As to Lauren's point regarding "My view is that Google should consider cutting off all services to countries that make such demands. Period.": I think that's a very naive approach and frankly, I find it very similar to a Stockholm syndrome: "let them see how well they do without my favorite Feudal Lord". There are billions to be made in a market of 35 million people (+740 million in Europe). What makes you think that google will forgo such a lucrative market? I know, I know, they "did this in China, though, didn't they?" Well no, no they didn't. They didn't walk away because of censorship, google is perfectly fine with censorship (it's code change and special cases that they are against). They walked away because they didn't want to give the CG access to all their data and because their life was being made miserable by the CG until they did. I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to what that means for the feudal lords who are active in China. I, for one, am looking forward to google (and the others) being diminished to a "white page" for every single thing... an NXDOMAIN response would be even better. I think the world will be a better place when that happens (barring it being replaced with an even more evil feudal lord). More and more, I've come to see that the problem is not technology, it is people/our nature. The technology we create is just another manifestation and extension of our own nature. We keep focusing on technology thinking that it will solve the problem of our nature, but we are going about it the wrong way. First, our nature needs to change before we will be able to create technology that will properly address these issues. Until then, we'll just keep working on re-enforcing our own shackles while thinking (or being told) that we are building wings. And all of this makes me a sad, sad cookie... because change is hard, and it's an uphill battle against a mentality that is set on not wanting to change. I'm not optimistic... On 06/28/2017 03:29 PM, Cecilia Tanaka wrote: > I didn't delete Lauren's comments because they're the best part of the > message, haha!! ;D > > (I know, it's tragic, not funny.) > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: "PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility) Announcement List" > > > Idiots on Canadian Supreme Court demand right of GLOBAL Google censorship! > > Google Must Delete Search Results Worldwide, Supreme Court of Canada Rules > > http://fortune.com/2017/06/28/canada-supreme-court-google/ > > The Supreme Court of Canada ruled against Google on Wednesday > in a closely-watched intellectual property case over whether > judges can apply their own country's laws to all of the > Internet. In a 7-2 decision, the court agreed a British > Columbia judge had the power to issue an injunction forcing > Google to scrub search results about pirated products not just > in Canada, but everywhere else in the world too. > - - - > What a complete batch of power-grabbing idiots on the Canadian Supreme > Court. My God, they demand the right to impose GLOBAL censorship? What > total asses. Beyond stupid. More dangerous than President Chump when > it comes to speech rights. Because the EU wants to do the same thing > with their nightmare "Right To Be Forgotten." And China too. And > Russia. And France. And more. And there are vile, sick politicians > here in the USA who would do this same thing if they could figure out > how to get it past the First Amendment. It's a race to the lowest > common denominator censorship bottom. My view is that Google should > consider cutting off all services to countries that make such demands. > Period. Otherwise, one day Google Search results pages will be nothing > but a big white empty space. -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
