Re: Could anyone explain this please?
From: DesertCactus (desertcactus_at_emailcorner.net)
Date: 07/02/04
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Date: 2 Jul 2004 05:50:16 -0700
> >
> > Well at least we haven't (yet) got to the point where publishing such
> > things is illegal.
>
> You sure about that? Rushton was in danger of being arrested on, of all
> things, the charge of HATE CRIME.
It will probably happen under the justification that such works
'incite racical hatred' I doubt they actually do though. I don't think
someone is going to read one of his books and then go out and kill
someone because of it.
Free speech is an important thing.
I remember reading a article about how the german authorities are
telling google.de (the german branch of google.com - notably the most
used search engine) to REMOVE 'Hate-sites' from their lists.
Of Course the germans are worse or better (depending on your opinion
about whether such things should happen) than other countries because
of their guilt over their nazi past.
Have a look at the below article about google censorship:
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Google censoring web content
Should Google decide what counts as an unacceptable website?
Technology consultant Bill Thompson doesn't think so.
Since its creation in 1998 Google - at www.google.com, as you probably
know already - has become the world's best search engine and the
starting point of choice for almost all my web queries.
It has even generated its own verb - to do some googling around means
sitting there playing with queries and exploring the obscure parts of
the Web that are revealed by looking for odd or even improperly
spelled phrases.
Nobody expects Google, or any index, to be perfect, since the Web is
growing and changing so fast and many parts of it are generated from
databases and therefore essentially impossible for a search engine to
find or classify.
However, researchers at the highly-respected Berkman Center for
Internet and Society at Harvard University have found that the company
is actively removing sites from its database, and that this censorship
is going unnoticed.
Regional differences
Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman have built up a reputation for
their careful analysis of the ways in which web content is filtered,
censored and controlled.
They have looked in detail at the practices of national governments,
specifically China and Saudi Arabia, and provided lots of useful
information for those of us who want to promote freedom of speech both
online and offline.
The censorship of the French and German versions of the Google
database is a clear demonstration of just what is wrong with internet
regulation today
Bill Thompson
Their latest paper deals with the differences between the results
returned when searching google.com, the US/world version of the site,
the French site at google.fr and the German site at google.de.
They have discovered over one hundred sites which can be found by
searchers in the US but not by those in Germany or France.
They are mostly sites that feature racist material or that deny the
existence of the Holocaust, such as Stormfront, a white pride site
filled with white nationalist essays by former Ku Klux Klan leader
David Duke.
Legal battles
Responding to the discovery, Google spokesman Nate Tyler said on tech
news programme ZDNN that the sites were removed to avoid the
possibility of legal action being taken against the company, and that
each site was removed only after a specific complaint from the
government of the country concerned.
On first sight this seems perfectly reasonable - after all, Google
isn't a public service but a private company trying to make money out
of its technology and database, and it has no obligation to index
everything.
It certainly has a duty to its owners (it's a privately held company)
to stay out of legal battles with governments, since they can be
pretty expensive.
Unfortunately things are not that simple, and the censorship of the
French and German versions of the Google database is a clear
demonstration of just what is wrong with internet regulation today.
What is happening is that a government is saying to Google: 'we don't
like that website - so drop it from your database' and the company is
acquiescing.
The people running the website aren't told. The people looking for the
website aren't told - they aren't even told that this policy exists.
The rest of us aren't being told either - Google's Nate Tyler said
clearly that 'as a matter of company policy we do not provide specific
details about why or when we removed any one particular site from our
index.'
The result is that one of the web's most important tools is being
deliberately broken at the request of governments, with no publicity,
no legal review and no court orders.
The sites involved may or may not be illegal in France or Germany - we
don't know because the case never comes to court, and is never tested.
All we know is that they aren't wanted.
I would rather have a net where Google and other search engine
providers had a legal obligation to provide full and comprehensive
results to the best of their technical ability
Bill Thompson
The problem is not that content is being censored - that is inevitable
and in many cases desirable.
I agree with our current laws against child pornography and have no
difficulty at all endorsing the view that these sites should not be
allowed online.
I'll support the team at Google if they want to spend their time
removing them. In fact, a search for 'lolita pictures' finds 291,000
entries in the US index, so this is obviously less of a priority for
them.
The problem is that Google itself is deciding what should be censored
and that its motives are entirely commercial, making it possible for
government agencies to influence it without having to go through due
process or defend their requests in public.
I believe we need to move towards an internet that is properly
regulated, where decisions like this can only be made through the
courts.
I would rather have a net where Google and other search engine
providers had a legal obligation to provide full and comprehensive
results to the best of their technical ability and to inform searchers
of any areas where content had been removed from their index on legal
grounds, even if that also gives governments the ability to block
certain sites from the index.
As it is, we have private companies like Google deciding what we can
and can't see based on their self-interested readings of
poorly-drafted national laws
Bill Thompson
Telling nobody
I know that would give the government of the People's Republic of
China the power to censor what their citizens can see online - but
they have that power already and use it, building firewalls and
filters around their part of the net.
At least if the whole internet was properly regulated and brought into
the legal framework that governs all other areas of our life we would
be able to have a sensible discussion about the limits of regulation
and control.
As it is, we have private companies like Google deciding what we can
and can't see based on their self-interested readings of
poorly-drafted national laws, taking advice from unnamed and
unaccountable Government agencies and telling nobody what is going on.
Anything has to be better than that, surely?
And what happens when someone in the French Ministry of Culture reads
this article and decides that, by giving publicity to Stormfront, I am
acting against the French public interest?
Will they dispatch a quick e-mail to Google and ask them to remove
this page - or this whole site - from their index?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2360351.stm
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