Why isn't Internet free for everyone yet?

[Crazy Eddie]

Deks wrote:

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I've also predominantly met people in my life who don't ascribe to this rule necessarily... but, that doesn't change the premise that the system we live in operates on it.

Does it?

Considering we live in a country where growth in wages hasn't kept up with the rate of inflation in nearly 20 years, that appears NOT to be the case. There's a whole class of industry consultants called "efficiency experts" whose primary job is to figure out how to make workers do the same jobs for less money, or do more work for the same amount of money.

Your evaluation of our "system" is simplistic.

If I live in a socio-economic system where I have to have money in order to survive (let alone do anything else), I'd probably pick the higher paying option so I can ensure I have enough to live and maybe secure some kind of savings in the long run for other things.

That choice is a mere byproduct of a system I live in and doesn't demonstrate anything besides the premise that a person goes for the higher paid option simply because it offers more access than a lower paid option so they can ensure they don't have to worry about those things in the first place.

Which completely obliterates your strawman that "the system believes the only motivation is money." ALL of us here know better. There is, in fact, a hierarchy of motivations for workers, the most basic of which is SURVIVAL: you have a roof over your head, you have food on your table, you have electricity and clean water.

The basic problem is that someone has to grow your food, someone has to generate electricity, someone has to build your house, someone has to run the waterworks. All four of those someones have basic needs of their own, and all four of them in turn depend on four other people to provide those needs. The only good way for everyone to get what they need is for everyone to exchange what they have in exchange for what they don't have. The monetary system exists in the first place to make this exchange simple and convenient; if you eliminate the system, the problem still remains.

If you eliminate money from the equation though completely and base an economy around access abundance and user-ship, if there's a need to mop a floor of a Wal-Mart for an hour or two, fine, I'd do it (and with high enough rotation of people, you'd only need to do it for a fraction of the time, which would take say an hour depending on the size needed to be cleaned) - even though it would be unnecessary since that can also be automated.

Which is, in the end, a centrally-planned economy: a committee decides how much you need and sees that you get it at regular intervals, with the implicit understanding that you will work hard whenever you are asked to do so. No money needed, everyone is taken care of.

Historically, this hasn't worked so well in any of the countries that have tried it, for three main reasons:
1) The committee isn't always fair.
2) The people don't always keep up their end of the bargain
3) Automation requires a significant investment in technology and education, which the committee may not necessarily prioritize, even if they can afford to.

The flaw in the monetary system isn't that people aren't motivated by money. The flaw in the system is that the people who ARE motivated by money are driving the agenda for everyone else. Unless you can think of a solution for THAT problem, even a centrally-planned economy is doomed to fail.

The purpose of implementing automation to its maximum potential is to free people from the notion of being required to work so they are free to pursue whatever it is they want to do in life

And what if "whatever they want to do in life" is work?

To pose a question... are there things besides work in your life you expressed an interest in doing? Doesn't have to be re-education or travel.

To pose an answer: I would very much like to fuck a Puerto Rican stripper. I'd like to get a different one every day of the week so I never fuck the same girl twice. Maybe even get two or three at a time. It would also be awesome if I could pick up those strippers in a helicopter and fly them to my mansion in Southern California. And because automation is going to make all of that possible, I don't have to worry about how I'm going to pay for any of that; the mansion, the helicopter, the helicopter pilot, the aviation fuel, the strippers, and a year's supply of birth control pills should all be totally free, because I don't have to work and I don't need money.

To pose an answer from the opposite extreme: my 20 year old cousin dropped out of college two years ago. She has no job, no skills, no recognizable ambitions. She sleeps until noon every day, gets up and eats, then sits on the couch until 2AM playing video games, browsing tumblr and facebook. She is content to do this for the rest of her life if she had a choice; she is in the habit of being useless.

Your non-monetary system assumes universal altruism and moderation from all people. It totally breaks down in the presence of a the Greedy Son of a Bitch, or the Lazy Piece of Shit. You continually refuse to acknowledge the basic fact that many people choose to work, not because they need money (which they do) but because they need to be useful.

People wouldn't waste away doing nothing.

You would be shocked and amazed by how many people would do EXACTLY that. There is an entire population of people in the inner cities who are defined by their ability to consume goods without producing anything of value to anyone.

One option on how to get there would be to for example... increase automation over the next 5 years to the level where people would be required of working 2 to 4 hours for 5 days in a week - without decreasing wages... and in the next 5 years, you further decrease the work hours.

Which has the immediate consequence of reducing everyone's wages, making the problem WORSE, not better. "But newtype, why would that reduce wages?" you ask. Because our economic priorities are set by greedy sons of bitches who ARE motivated by money: if automation reduces the cost of doing business, they don't pass those savings onto their workers, they KEEP IT THEMSELVES and screw everyone else.

You want a real solution to the problem you descibe? It's this: set the minimum wage to $20 an hour. I guarantee you that will IMMEDIATELY have the effect you're aiming for: people will work fewer hours, they will not have to worry about money anymore, they will spend more time doing things they really like outside of work, AND they will depend more on automation for all the stupid stuff they don't want to have to do anymore (that kind of salary can buy a lot of roombas).

[Crazy Eddie]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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Others may have said it, but I will reiterate: the Internet costs quite a bit to maintain. I don't think it will become "free" until things like water and electricity are also "free," which is to say it is unlikely to happen unless and until we live in some kind of Trek-like utopia, which is to say "probably never."

There ARE some countries in which water and electricity are "free", at least insofar as they are paid for by tax revenues and not by service fees to corporations. Mind you, most of those countries are socialist.

Privatization can do some great things, but private operators don't always or even usually take the long view of things and aren't as eager to invest in long-term infrastructure. Seems to me a partnered approach would be ideal: the government owns the internet and contracts with private companies to manage it; contract goes to the lowest bidder who can also demonstrate the best quality service for a particular region. Apart from potentially avoiding huge price-rigging monopolies (coughAT&Tcough) it would also encourage smaller companies to get involved that might otherwise be completely shut out of the market, while at the same time giving consumers guaranteed access as a public service, through tax dollars.

IOW: if you use the government as a giant consumer's union, then ISP's can't use the same "divide and conquer" tactics to squeeze out the competition and then run their prices through the roof. You put bargaining power back in the hands of the customers, prices would drop dramatically.

[gturner]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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Does it?

Considering we live in a country where growth in wages hasn't kept up with the rate of inflation in nearly 20 years, that appears NOT to be the case. There's a whole class of industry consultants called "efficiency experts" whose primary job is to figure out how to make workers do the same jobs for less money, or do more work for the same amount of money.

Your evaluation of our "system" is simplistic.

As an aside, Fredrick Taylor, the father of time-and-motion studies and scientific management, had some really interesting tricks to motivate workers. In one, he'd just be chatting with the workers about him being an "expert" and start reeling them in with things like, "Well, a 25 cent a day man can do a little, but anyone can do that much. You guys can move a pretty decent load, like a fifty cent-a-day man. But a dollar-a-day man, now a dollar-a-day man could move that big barrel over there. Are any of you a dollar-a-day man? From the looks of you, I'd guess not." Sure enough, one or two would rise to the challenge of pride, honor, and social advancement. John Henry even challenged a steam-hammer.

One trick Bill Gates used at Microsoft was a special slide into the cafeteria that could only be used by programmers who'd accomplished some nearly impossible level of clever and complicated coding. People would work like dogs to earn the right to slide into the lunch line. Management genius.

What worries me is what will happen to labor when management finally understands how WoW and other online games can keep people intensely focused on irrelevant tasks for days on end.

*****

"Carl, you look like hell!"

"I've put in 36 straight hours packing printers into boxes."

"What for?"

"At 850 boxes I hit level 37 and get the +3 Shield of Power."

"Jebus. You must be making a fortune in overtime."

"No, they don't pay me anything."

"Then why the f**k do you do it?"

"Because I NEED the +3 Shield of Power to smite Shelly in marketing!"

*******

People will work like dogs for imaginary gold and pretend magical powers, en masse, and think they're recreating.

Deks thinks the revelation that money isn't "real", a thing with physical position and mass, means it can't have real value. He's missing some abstraction layers or some little mental leap.

I could perhaps try to convince him either that numbers don't really exist because they don't have mass, position, or energy, or perhaps try to prove that the number seven doesn't exist in nature, even under a microscope.

"See, there are seven amoeba!"

"No, that's just four amoeba there and three over there."

"Look again!"

"Now it's six amoeba and one amoeba. Still no seven.

[Alidar Jarok]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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You would be shocked and amazed by how many people would do EXACTLY that. There is an entire population of people in the inner cities who are defined by their ability to consume goods without producing anything of value to anyone.

I'm not quibbling with your overall post, but I am going to take issue with this. There are people in the inner city, small towns, and rural areas who consume goods without producing anything of value to anyone. By saying inner city you make it a racial thing when it sure as hell is not. You can be a shiftless drunkard in small town Kentucky or a squatter in rural Virginia just as easily.

[gturner]

Hey, being a shiftless drunkard in small town Kentucky is NOT easy! I've tried. Forty or fifty mile beer runs to the nearest wet county suck, especially when your Trans Am is on cinder blocks in the front yard.

[RB_Kandy]

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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Actually, there's a couple flaws with that argument.

First, if the government controlled it, the First Amendment would apply.

Well, that is an argument, however, freedom of speech only applies to an act of congress, no other branch of government. Example: The FCC is certainly government, and their job is primarily shutting down people who speak the wrong things (mostly nudity, gore, profanity).
It's true that one day all ISP's might be required to have a license to transmit data, and that it gets regulated by the FCC. The FCC has tried and failed numerous times to get control over the US internet system http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...250748540.html
Again, your first amendment right would only be constitutionally valid for the internet if the internet was controlled by congress. But if congress made another FCC and called it "The Internet Safety Commission" which controlled all telecommunications, that organization is free to make any and every law it wants, because congress is not silencing your speech, and because judiciary is not punishing you for it.

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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Internet Service Providers are free to block sites of rival companies

Nope, we have net neutrality. If the phone and cable companies have over turned it recently, I would appreciate a link.

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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or even censor your personal emails that you send to someone else (which they've been known to do).

While that doesn't really surprise me, or even bother me that much considering there's a billion email service providers, and they are a third party data storage and retrieval medium (as opposed to being the only physical means to transport raw data). I would still like to see a link.

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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Second, there are obscenity laws that apply to the internet.

There are no obscenity laws governing the internet. Many politicians and protest groups have tried, only one of those bills were ever passed, called CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act). This applies to schools and libraries only, and is not "enforced" but "encouraged" through a funding project called E-rate funding. Here is the official FCC government link http://www.fcc.gov/guides/childrens-...protection-act

If there is some other obscenity law that has gotten passed, I would appreciate a link.

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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However, direct government control might at least prevent the issue of corporate censorship. For example, if you sent a message about the Tea Party movement through yahoo mail, it would not have been received by the person you sent it too. But the government could not block it.

Can you show me a current example of ISP censorship? As I truly could care less about google, yahoo, youtube's individual corporate policy and User Agreement. If youtube says "a video of a woman performing sexual acts with animals will be a violation of our terms of service" that is a million miles away from an ISP intercepting the data of said video, and blocking it.
It's really the difference between Wal-Mart telling you that you must wear shoes on their property, vs a federal law that says all US citizens must wear shoes when leaving the house.

The government can already monitor your emails, and web surfing habits, just like phone tapping. And like phone tapping, they only do this as an official police investigation or if homeland security believes you have terrorist links. If they controlled it directly they wouldn't even need warrants, and their ability to really reach down deep into your system retrieving and planting data would be extremely easy.

[Methos]

Can't speak for wherever Alidar Jarok is, but in England, ISP Censorship is quite prevalent...

ISP can, and do, go out of their way to block various websites... They use the Cleanfeed database for censorship, and have an 'opt in' policy for their advanced censorship, where any website having adult terms in the name, or tags of the website, will be blocked from viewing on your account.

M

[Methos]

RB_Kandy wrote:

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There are no obscenity laws governing the internet. Many politicians and protest groups have tried, only one of those bills were ever passed, called CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act). This applies to schools and libraries only, and is not "enforced" but "encouraged" through a funding project called E-rate funding. Here is the official FCC government link http://www.fcc.gov/guides/childrens-...protection-act

If there is some other obscenity law that has gotten passed, I would appreciate a link.

I'm not meaning to be disrespectful here, but that's both hilarious and so wrong it's pathetic...

Again, let me point to England... Here we have both the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, and the Obscene Publications Act 1959...

Both of which are used, and abused by the government and police, to blanket censorship on the internet and email systems...

here's CJIA 2008 - LINK

here's OPA 1959 - LINK

Now, the legal jargon there pretty much speaks for itself... but let me break it down for people into broad strokes...

Yes, I am going to be discussing porn and adult images here, because that is what these laws are being used to censor...

There have been several cases lately, prominently dealing with adult images and pornography, where the government / police is using these acts to censor and curtail what is viewable on the internet.

These acts aim not only to censor adult images on the internet, but actually enforce jail sentences for people viewing these images, even though the images depict legal acts.

Yup, let me re-enforce that statement... doing these things IS PERFECTLY LEGAL, but viewing images of them, even photos of yourself doing these acts on the internet or email IS ILLEGAL and will end with a 5 year jail sentence...

And for those who don't believe me here, here's the latest trial of this BS censorship put into effect...

Again, link deals with legal jargon and discussion of an adult nature, just to warn you

http://obscenitylawyer.blogspot.co.u...s-extreme.html

And you can actually see how bad this went, by doing a twitter search for the tag #porntrial

https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23PornTrial

So, let me give you a brief run-down of this trial... The defendant was arrested for having emails of an adult nature in his hotmail account... note, again, these pictures showed perfectly legal acts, they were not available for public viewing, nor were they on any public server... they were on a private email account and were sent between him and a friend... no one else saw or witnessed these pictures in the public domain.

So, the police, using this 'extreme pornography' law, covered by the Obscene Publications act, and under the cover of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, arrested the defendant for possession of the images, and proceeded to take him to trial for them.

Now, the defendant was found innocent on all counts here, but i'm using this case as a way to explain the censorship in England... not only have i outlined 2 laws here that the government enforces to a degree where public pictures of legal acts are now illigal... but to a point where even private pictures that aren't discussed on a public forum, can be prosecuted under the obscene publications act.

If people would like, i can post 5 more trials covering these laws in the past 4 years, all of which deal with the same sort of law and legal ramifications, of images and literature being censored, and the defendant being prosecuted and facing jail time, for photographs or video private, consensual and legal acts.

Not only does censorship exist on the internet, but it exists to a frightening, and often life changing degree for those who are charged, and blanketed with the governments censorship programs.

M

[Alidar Jarok]

RB_Kandy wrote:

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Well, that is an argument, however, freedom of speech only applies to an act of congress, no other branch of government. Example: The FCC is certainly government, and their job is primarily shutting down people who speak the wrong things (mostly nudity, gore, profanity).

Actually, no. The first amendment absolutely applies to executive action. Although I'm trying to remember a case specifically, I think New York Times v. United States is at least relevant. The justification for the FCC power isn't that the first amendment doesn't apply to the executive but that, because broadcast airwaves are a limited resource, the government can regulate it more in the name of the public interest. This was decided in the Pacifica case in 1978, but there's been talk of reconsidering it in light of recent changes. Either way, the FCC can only regulate broadcast television and only for indecency (as opposed to the normal first amendment standard of obscenity outlined in Miller v. California.

Nope, we have net neutrality. If the phone and cable companies have over turned it recently, I would appreciate a link.

Actually, while phone companies are common carriers and are bound to carry communications fairly, internet service providers are not. There's been no Supreme Court case to declare this, but the Brand X from the 9th Cicuit did squarely hold this. While there have been calls for net neutrality laws, there is no current net neutrality.

Link regarding yahoo censoring emails

There are no obscenity laws governing the internet. Many politicians and protest groups have tried, only one of those bills were ever passed, called CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act). This applies to schools and libraries only, and is not "enforced" but "encouraged" through a funding project called E-rate funding. Here is the official FCC government link http://www.fcc.gov/guides/childrens-...protection-act

If there is some other obscenity law that has gotten passed, I would appreciate a link.

Well, there's the general 18 U.S.C. § 1465, which prohibits distribution of obscene materials for the purpose of sale. Otherwise, there's no specific law covering obscenity on the internet, but they have the power to do so under first amendment jurisprudence (Reno v. ACLU covered indecency, not obscenity and was properly struck down). It's also valid for state laws to ban pornography on the internet and I'm not about to check all 51 jurisdictions to see if there's one on the books.

Can you show me a current example of ISP censorship?

The example I have an internet link for is for email service. I can cite a book for an example of comcast censoring in its capacity as ISP, but you would have to acquire the book to confirm my information.

The government can already monitor your emails, and web surfing habits, just like phone tapping. And like phone tapping, they only do this as an official police investigation or if homeland security believes you have terrorist links. If they controlled it directly they wouldn't even need warrants, and their ability to really reach down deep into your system retrieving and planting data would be extremely easy.

No. This is factually wrong. The Fourth amendment applies to government searches. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, they can only search your emails if a substantial purpose is foreign intelligence (not just terrorism and generally not terrorism). However, under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, phone tapping can be done for any criminal investigation. Either way, they need probable cause to believe a crime is being committed and approval in advance of a magistrate (or FISA court judge). DHS is actually not involved, since wiretaps are under the purview of the Attorney General.

Internet searches fall under the same principle. There might even be stronger protections because it's analogous to mail cases, but this hasn't been fully hashed out. Generally, the contents are protected, though, without legal justification. This is the same whether or not the government owns the service. For example, the post office can't open your mail without legal cause.

[RB_Kandy]

Methos, all my proclamations about the internet and government vs corporate censorship applies to USA laws.
I do not know anything about the legal system in the UK, China, Israel, Iraq or even Canada. I'm sure all of those different territories have drastically different laws, methods of enforcing laws, laws of rights and of communication rights.
Because I am only American, I am only familiar with the corporate and government structure in my country.
I thought it would be obvious from the post between me and Alidar Jarok, that we were referring only to American politics and rights. After all, there is no first amendment right (of free speech) in the UK, nor is there an FCC, Homeland Security, Tea Party, and GOP.
I'm not even sure if there is a congress in the UK. You people got something called Parliament. I know nothing about the corporate or political atmosphere over there.
I've heard about something called Cleanfeed when the Australian government dictated the kangaroo internet over there and decided to block websites that might offend people, and the bill passed under the guise of protecting children.

All the citations I ask for from Alidar Jarok, are citations of occurrences in the USA. After all, I'm sure ISP's can block rivals and anything else in nations like Iraq and China. I have no doubt to these things.
So when I talk about legal rights on the internet, I mean your legal right as an American citizen; not all of the various laws that exist for ISP's, businesses, advertisers, consumers, servers, hosts, for all the countries of the world with a telecommunications infrastructure.

[RB_Kandy]

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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Actually, while phone companies are common carriers and are bound to carry communications fairly, internet service providers are not. There's been no Supreme Court case to declare this, but the Brand X from the 9th Cicuit did squarely hold this. While there have been calls for net neutrality laws, there is no current net neutrality.


Link regarding yahoo censoring emails

I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you divide telephone companies and ISP's. All ISP's (that I am aware of) are telephone companies and cable companies. I am 90% positive that the moment a cable company supplies internet or telephone services they are bound by all laws the telephone companies are bound by. But I am going to look into that to make sure.


As for there being no active net neutrality law, I guess I have to look into that. And because I was the one that made the proclomation, the burden of proof is on me.


As for the link, I found it very interesting. It reminds me of that Google "Islam is" auto search or auto complete search field function.
If you don't know what I am talking about, it was where if you go to google and type something like "Christianity is " it gives you search suggestions like "Christianity is a religion, is wrong, is good, is true, is false, is a cult" and so on. And you could do this with all the major religions. Type in "Islam is" and you got nothing.
Well Google fixed that and proclaimed they were not protecting Islam, it was an error in their search algorythm. Which is pretty much what yahoo said. Here is a video by youtuber The Amazing Atheist demonstrating that all the religions have search recommendations but not Islam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qott73xMyLk


A lot of people will say that a corporation blocking something like a search suggestion autocomplete or an email that contains a politcal agenda that might have a repatative phrase, is complete censorship and not the result of an error in spam filters and algorythms.
However, there was a thing on Youtube where the word "sneeze" would only give you an error message when searching for it. All other words displayed results, just not the word "sneeze". I can't see a motive for blocking that word for a day.
Then there was another word, that was also completely pointless as it had nothing to do with controversy or politics, that Youtube would not display for a day. So there actually can be errors.
I've also had my mail and other peoples mail on yahoo and hotmail get stuck in limbo for a day, and the message contained nothing political. If I recall, it was just a few pictures of my rottweiler.
So strange glitches have been known to happen. But OK, there might actually be censorship going on.
I appreciated the link, and I will look more into it.

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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Well, there's the general 18 U.S.C. § 1465, which prohibits distribution of obscene materials for the purpose of sale. Otherwise, there's no specific law covering obscenity on the internet, but they have the power to do so under first amendment jurisprudence (Reno v. ACLU covered indecency, not obscenity and was properly struck down). It's also valid for state laws to ban pornography on the internet and I'm not about to check all 51 jurisdictions to see if there's one on the books.

So what you are saying is, you have no proof that any current obscenity law in the US is being enforced in regards to the internet?
If so, that's what I just said.

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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I can cite a book for an example of comcast censoring in its capacity as ISP, but you would have to acquire the book to confirm my information.

I am aware of this. They throttle bandwidth not as a result of what you are viewing, but of how much data you are consuming at any given moment. Some times they slow you down for a few hours, some times they cap you after 50 gigs for the rest of the month, and slow you down to dial up speed, and get away with saying "unlimited" broadband because they don't actually disconnect you. This is not only true for Comcast but for all ISP's. When users plugged into a node are consuming far more bandwidth than anticipated, the system overloads, hits its limit, and certain people must be throttled. This happens in areas that have a poor system, and Comcast doesn't feel like upgrading their system. When enough people complain that they are going to FIOS for internet service, Comcast upgrades their system so that they don't need to throttle customers bandwidth. I can honestly say they've never throttled me, and I am the sort of dude who downloads a 100 gigs from a bit torrent, on Monday, and then spends the rest of the week watching hi definition youtube and netflix movies, while having a 3 way video chat. i.e. I am an ISP's worst nightmare. Thank god I don't pay by the gigabyte, and be broke in a heart beet and crying "I want free internet!" But yes, I am aware of there bandwidth throttling and how they aren't very fourth coming with this information. But it doesn't violate the principal of net neutrality because it does not go by the source of data, just the amount of data. It's no different than a cell phone cutting you off because you went over your bandwidth limit, not because you were talking to your white supremacist pals or talking about the joys of Islam, or having dirty talk with the girlfriend.

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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No. This is factually wrong. The Fourth amendment applies to government searches. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, they can only search your emails if a substantial purpose is foreign intelligence (not just terrorism and generally not terrorism). However, under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, phone tapping can be done for any criminal investigation. Either way, they need probable cause to believe a crime is being committed and approval in advance of a magistrate (or FISA court judge). DHS is actually not involved, since wiretaps are under the purview of the Attorney General.


Internet searches fall under the same principle. There might even be stronger protections because it's analogous to mail cases, but this hasn't been fully hashed out. Generally, the contents are protected, though, without legal justification. This is the same whether or not the government owns the service. For example, the post office can't open your mail without legal cause.

Well I might be wrong about Homeland Security then. However, I will argue that the Patriot Act, in spite of any wording such as a "in extreme cases" "with probable cause" "strong evidence" that this law has been used, put into practice, to mean "any damn time we feel like it", or in some cases "because you were a Ron Paul supporter".
Would you like links to examples of law abiding citizens being detained without legal rights, having their computer activities monitored, all because they belong to an unpopular or politically incorrect organization?
As a friend of mine used to say "it is less important what rules are on the books, and more important is the people who interpret their meaning".

[Maurice]

gturner wrote:

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And they all nod their heads up and down for yes and side-to-side for no. Purely random chance. Purely.

Not all humans do this, even if it's common in the majority of countries. Bulgarians do a short nod up for "no", and a sort of head wobble for yes.

In many parts of the Indian subcontinent a side-to-side head "bobble" is a sort of indeterminate "yes/no/maybe".

[MacLeod]

RB_Kandy wrote:

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Methos, all my proclamations about the internet and government vs corporate censorship applies to USA laws.
I do not know anything about the legal system in the UK, China, Israel, Iraq or even Canada. I'm sure all of those different territories have drastically different laws, methods of enforcing laws, laws of rights and of communication rights.
Because I am only American, I am only familiar with the corporate and government structure in my country.
I thought it would be obvious from the post between me and Alidar Jarok, that we were referring only to American politics and rights. After all, there is no first amendment right (of free speech) in the UK, nor is there an FCC, Homeland Security, Tea Party, and GOP.
I'm not even sure if there is a congress in the UK. You people got something called Parliament. I know nothing about the corporate or political atmosphere over there.
I've heard about something called Cleanfeed when the Australian government dictated the kangaroo internet over there and decided to block websites that might offend people, and the bill passed under the guise of protecting children.

All the citations I ask for from Alidar Jarok, are citations of occurrences in the USA. After all, I'm sure ISP's can block rivals and anything else in nations like Iraq and China. I have no doubt to these things.
So when I talk about legal rights on the internet, I mean your legal right as an American citizen; not all of the various laws that exist for ISP's, businesses, advertisers, consumers, servers, hosts, for all the countries of the world with a telecommunications infrastructure.

Well whilst it is true the UK doesn't have a written constitution, Freedom of Speech falls under several areas

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Euopean Convention of Human Rights

Sure some of them include provisions that restrict it, such as you are not allowed to incitement to racial hatred.

As for Parliament, it serves more or less the same function as your congress. It debates bills and votes on them becoming law. Now I'm not saying there aren't differences between the two because of course there will be.

[gturner]

Maurice wrote:

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Not all humans do this, even if it's common in the majority of countries. Bulgarians do a short nod up for "no", and a sort of head wobble for yes.

In many parts of the Indian subcontinent a side-to-side head "bobble" is a sort of indeterminate "yes/no/maybe".

Very interesting. I guess that exception sort of "proves the rule" because they have to make videos to explain it.

Regarding free speech and the internet, I don't know if it's been brought up but the Internet and text messaging might have profoundly different effects in very free societies and very censored societies.

Since people can communicate more freely and easily because of these technologies, but governments can also more easily monitor what the people say (via automated searches), the effects will vary profoundly based on how different governments act. In the analog era of the old Soviet block, such as East Germany, the government depended on having people report things they overheard their neighbors say, or had to have an agent listening to a wiretap or bug in real-time. Nowdays such a government could just sit back and collect text messages and e-mails, allowing the discontented members of society to freely and unequivocally incriminate themselves, and then move on to the purges.

It's yet another case where making collective action or industrial production easier could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the circumstances. Railroads made it easier to move food, vacationers, or armies. Machine guns made it easier to employ fewer soldiers or kill more people.

If we're hotly debating whether our railroad cars should allow strippers to give lap dances, we're probably in the safe zone.

[Alidar Jarok]

RB_Kandy wrote:

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I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you divide telephone companies and ISP's. All ISP's (that I am aware of) are telephone companies and cable companies. I am 90% positive that the moment a cable company supplies internet or telephone services they are bound by all laws the telephone companies are bound by. But I am going to look into that to make sure.

No they are not. It actually was a Supreme Court case, though. Nat'l Cable & Telecomm. Ass'n v. Brand X Internet Servs., 545 U.S. 967 (2005).

So what you are saying is, you have no proof that any current obscenity law in the US is being enforced in regards to the internet?
If so, that's what I just said.

No. I said the law currently exists to prevent obscenity on the internet (at least for sale) and that the official Republican Party Platform says that these laws should be enforced. In fact, obscenity prosecutions took place in 2005 with the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force. You claimed that the government could only prevent obscenity if they own the internet services but can't do it now, which is wrong.