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by AdleyEskridge
5234 days ago
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> Censorship is only permitted if content is found to be illegal content in accordance with this treaty. > All false information stored to misguide, scam, cause damage, trap users financially, or mutilate collateral are illegal content. The italicized text concerns me. Not because there's anything wrong with it, but because I can easily imagine an unscrupulous politician claiming (for instance) that arguments critical of government economic policy are "false" and are intended to "misguide" and "cause damage" to the economy and well-being of the nation. The Constitution of the United States has been rendered effectively worthless by this very tactic—a couple of its clauses are routinely used to justify anything, because of their less-than-specific wording. I suspect documents like this are a symptom of the cure rather than the cure itself. They can only be enacted—and can only continue to serve their purpose—as long as the citizens and their politicians support the documents' causes. |
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We've been having this debate about the Internet for years and decades later, we're still not willing to stand up for the bad speech to save the good speech. (You can't have one without the other -- that's what that amendment was about.)
Yes I think it's that black or white.... Iran has shown us it IS possible to go back to the stone age, and the scary part is, the US and Canada BOTH have a 1984 bill in play as I write.
We've come a long way in terms of technology, but people are less willing to stand up for the free flow of information than ever. We are crawling back into Plato's cave.
As difficult as some information can be (and it's strictly that -- information -- bits -- not murder, or rape, or worse; not a physical act but merely the vapors of physical acts), I think I'd rather have the truth and an open sky than the comfort of a lie.
I'm more afraid of a world without Wikileaks than one with Wikileaks.