

Google chairman: Internet blacklists make us more like China - timwiseman
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/eric-schmidt-internet-blacklists-make-us-more-like-china.ars

======
noonespecial
Oh. I've seen this episode! The government asks for broad powers in order to
solve a specific problem and then just adds those powers to its bag of tricks
to use whenever convenient to creatively prosecute "bad" people. _(1)_

Don't like bitcoin? Don't understand Manga but have a _baaadd_ feeling about
it? There's an app for that!

 _(1) Its either that or the professor builds it out of coconuts and they
don't get off the island. Either is equally likely._

------
latch
These new laws are brutal and scary. It's nice to see individuals and
companies fighting this. I agree with their sentiments and their point of
view.

However, playing the devil's advocate, I'm not sure I'm 100% convinced by
their (or my own) arguments. What happens when you apply the argument of
_shutting down parts of the Internet, even for a seemingly good reason, is
still censorship_ to more socially unacceptable things? Messages of hate,
tools for murder, child pornography?

Doesn't Google already sensor the internet for such things? Are we just trying
to avoid heading down a slippery slope (which I fully support)?

I guess I'm just trying to get a sense for how this differs from those other
cases I mention, and how the arguments being made apply in the context that
things are already censored.

~~~
yanw
It is tax-funded protection for IP owners.

It threatens internet safe harbors and requires intermediaries to act as law-
enforcement.

The potential for error is huge and any false positive can be disastrous to
online business.

It sets a precedent for government censorship of the internet.

It is hardly a perfect solution, it will not stop 'piracy'.

The problem in question is highly exaggerated and very much self inflected by
the same industry that is lobbying for these measures.

~~~
latch
If you take out your first sentence and your last phrase, which are both
subjective, isn't the rest true for all forms of current censorship?

I'm having a hard time reconciling my thoughts that censorship is bad with the
fact that I'm thankful that some stuff _is_ censored. Is the only difference
between the two that I want to pirate stuff but I don't want to look at child
pornography?

Also, I still think that if you're going to call out all forms of censorship
as something bad, that the ends never justify the means, than you better be
prepared to answer why you're already censoring stuff.

~~~
jrockway
By your logic, we should all live in government-run internment camps, just in
case anyone wanted to produce child porn. Solitary confinement and constant
State supervision would prevent that.

It would also prevent everything good that has ever come out of a free
society. Art. Medicine. Literature. Technology. All gone forever.

Is preventing child abuse so important that it's worth trading in our
humanity?

------
pasbesoin
As I've been saying for some years now, China is/was the prototype.

~~~
narrator
Well in a way the proposed regime is more restrictive. China doesn't really
care that much about intellectual property rights for instance.

~~~
jeffool
Not exactly related to this story, but...

A friend in China is taking the GMAT, and was confused about a question, and
asked me to word it differently for her. When she typed out the "critical
reasoning" example (Given A and B, deduce which of the following is true,) it
was something to the effect of:

"The computer industry's estimate that it loses millions of dollars when users
illegally copy programs without paying for them is greatly exaggerated. Most
of the illegal copying is done by people with no serious interest in the
programs. Thus, the loss to the industry is quite small, because__________"

The answer being "most people who illegally copy programs would not purchase
them even if purchasing them were the only way to obtain them."

Kinda blew my mind that this was on a test. I mean, sure, it's true, but
still.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Hey, this coin has two sides. Most of the illegal copying is done by people
with no serious interest in the programs. Most people who illegally copy
programs would not purchase them, when it means for considerable sum of money
and lengthy sign-up and payment process. Therefore, if there is a way to sell
programs with easy price tag and via authomatic painless process, it's
possible to sell N times as much.

Where N is the "old" ratio between piracy and purchases.

That's how iPhone economy works.

