

France lobbies G8 for Internet control and censorship - Tsiolkovsky
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/20/france-lobbies-g8-fo.html

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tttp
France had an unfortunate history of self censorship from the media and active
control of the public media from the president(de Gaulle that controlled the
only TV channel, Mitterand ordering illegal wiretapping of journalists)

The actual french President is a control freak. Sarkozy has strong
relationship with most of the private media owners and is using it.

He has since the start of his mandate tried to control the internet eg.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/13/france...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/13/france-
three-strikes)

He is (ab)using a common view in France that speech should be controlled and
freedom of speech isn't absolute. For instance, it is illegal to make
xenophobic or racists comments. La quandrature du net is doing a good job of
exposing the latest of his attacks and, hopefully public pressure can shame
him out of his willingness to control everything.

He likes the French motto of "Liberty, equality fraternity". If enough people
see him trying to replace the first one by censorship, he might be less
aggressively trying.

Fortunately, his approval rate is record low, part of this is likely due to
his abuse of power and willingness to control everything. Unfortunately, the
best opposant is currently accused of sexual abuse.

Then, another member of the G8 is Italy, with Berlusconi as the president....

Interesting countries, all in all.

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notaddicted
Freedom of speech isn't a law of nature, and it wasn't handed down from God or
whomever. In the United States it is provided by the Constitution. In Canada
we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and hate speech is forbidden, for
example, members of the Westboro Baptist Church are banned from Canada.

~~~
DrJokepu
Actually, the US constitution does not provide any rights, it _does_ assume
that Freedom of Speech and other rights are inherently ours and it only limits
the powers of the federal government.

~~~
ugh
Isn’t that a distinction without a difference?

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loy22
As a French I don't vote anymore. The truth is that Freedom is incompatible
with having full time elected people at all scales of the society, since they
need to justify their work by taking all kinds of unsollicited stances and
intempestive measures.

Left or Right ? Both of them will spend the most of their time fulfulling
their purpose : to make new laws. Generally on a wide range of topics they
don't understand (not only the Internet).

Unfortunately, the blank vote isn't recognized in France: abstention is the
best option. So far, no political party suggests that we drastically reduce
the number and power of representatives.

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keane
I think your stance should be commended. However, while they do say "We want
full time parliamentary elected representatives, free to set their own agenda,
free to control the country's budget, free to debate all public issues...",
what are your thoughts on <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Alternative> ?

~~~
loy22
In the age of the web, we have the power to make democracy more direct. I also
believe we don't need so much statemen whose daily job is to make new laws. A
strong and centralized state is mandatory during war, and that's it.

In aviation, a lot of crashes could have been avoided if the captain released
the commands instead of desperatly hook on them, because the plane is
programmed to get back on its feets alone.

It think it would be the same for our governments, people would be really
surprised to see that the world wouldn't collapse if you removed the bulk of
our elected and non-elected statemen. We give them too much credits. The
industrial revolution happened in spite of them rather than thanks to them,
that's why every western european country encountered about the same progress
overall with different political systems. Unless a certain amount of freedom
was missing, progress grew naturally. Thats what happening right now with the
Internet.

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omouse
Ah, the G8 and G20, only getting things done that benefit everyone at the top.
These meetings are meetings for collusion, none of the leaders represent the
actual values of voters.

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guard-of-terra
"(and not just Russia)" Interesting angle, considering that article doesn't
mention Russia anywhere else nor links to anything which does.

~~~
kiiski
Russia is the evil country by default.

~~~
gbog
I thought it was China.

~~~
pluies
But China isn't part of the G8.

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tluyben2
Italy + France trying to get some of glory back they once had. Wanting to have
the success Germany has had these past years. Problem is that Germans like
quality and working while the French, Italians, Spanish, Portugese and Greek
do not. The latter countries protest against unemployment (???), higher
pensions ages and higher taxes. They waste time instead of working for their
countries to get better. Then get in a few corrupt presidents who like to be
popular instead of running/saving their countries (give me Merkel any day over
those imbeciles in FR/IT/ES). France needs to do something to get it's former
glory back, so yeah, why not try to get 'control' over the internet?

Disclaimer: I live in NL/FR/ES, not in Germany. I spent a lot of time in all
4, although my main country is NL; the Spanish and French are just lazy.
Nothing else to say about it; they really do not want to work, just maintain
their level of comfort. Come on; protesting unemployment? They want cushy jobs
from the government in government run facilities so they cannot get fired.
What crazy attitude is that? /endrant

Edit: downvoters; reply and tell what's wrong with this; I live(d) in all
these countries; I know the people and I know the mindset. Most inhabitants
agree with these sentiments. Maybe you (hopefully you live in one?) don't, but
you can have the decency to reply he?

~~~
dexen
Your contribution sounds like repeating common stereotypes. Now we all know
stereotypes often have a grain of truth to them, but nonetheless it's useless
to use them as argumentats.

At any rate, protesting unemployment can be understood in various ways.
Suppose the protester's postulates were: less taxation on small business,
simplier laws to ease running small businesses, wide-ranging education on
running own business, a bit of import/export protection -- now that'd make
some sense, right?

The thing about unemployment is that you can't _just_ stand up and work on
something and then sell it -- aside of labor (what you have), you need capital
(both liquid assets and infrastructure) and enought knowledge to pull
bargaining with (parts, materials) vendors and customers as well as to
navigate the legal framework.

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mattraibert
There is not a shred of content in this article. The beginning restates the
title and introduces a quotation that restates it several more times.

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cheez
Patricians want to control the plebs. Yawn. Wake me up when humans are not
power hungry.

