Wider control? 2

[chiph]

Annan's big assumption is that the Internet is a zero-sum game. That: By more sites being in English, it takes away the ability of other sites to be written in your local tribal language. This is obviously not true (despite the continued rumours of IPv4 address shortages), as anyone with the skills can write a site in any language they want.

Look at the Klingon Language Institute. Their site is written in a number of languages, from Arabic to Welsh, and yes, Klingon too:

http://www.kli.org/kli/langs/KLItlh.html

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[Stella740pl]

So, what encoding do one select in order to read Klingon properly?

 

[rosieb]

Maybe I'm missing the point, but what struck me were:

....as well as over who should rule the internet

Similarly, the divisive issue over who should administer the internet has also been put on hold.

The UN, through the International Telecommunication Union, is keen to take over from the semi-private Icann organisation

To avoid a clash at the summit, the thorny issue has been given to a working group to look at new ways of running the internet and report back to the Tunisia summit.

These imply, to me, that control is the real issue here. Someone wants to decide what is relevant to the real needs of people and, presumably, prevent the publication of irrelevant information. However well-meaning, that is dangerous.

<aside>I used to work for the company which &quot;invented&quot; ISBNs and ran the book numbering agency in the UK, they always maintained that they had a letter of commendation from Gen. Franco (of Spain). Apparently he had the system adopted to make censorship easier - you couldn't publish without an ISBN, which could only be acquired from the censors. </aside>

I quote this simply as an example of how easy it is to take an innocent initiative and use it to limit the information available to real people.

 

[MasterRacker]

Rosie, that's the point I was trying to make exactly.

There's still a group out there that resents the Internet being opened up to the unwashed masses and even worse, carrying <evil>commercial</evil> content. Threre are many other that want to control content for various reasons.

There are many governments that fear losing control if theri populace were to really get free access to their activities. They really resent the fact that the Internet is difficult to censor. Many of these countries are members of the UN. Anyone want to play connect the dots?


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[lionelhill]

It's easy to start seeing evil plots behind everything. That way lies paranoia and madness.

I'm inclined to think that all this is, is someone using a political-correctness statement (&quot;the internet ought to be relevant to normal citizens of third world countries&quot to justify asking for a very large budget of public money to play around creating internet sites (been on html course, want to make pretty site...)

I'm pretty ignorant on world income levels, but isn't it a bit irrelevant providing websites? I mean, what proportion of ordinary people currently have a reliable way to look at them?

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

Once we have people desiding for us what information we can and can not see we stop being free. Now there are caviates here. I don't include child p0rn or information that promotes other human rights violations in the information everyone should have access to. Reporting on both those topics is ok. Decisions have to be made on a case by case basis when an issue does come up.

The job of creating like a huge

http://WWW library

sounds good. But really...that is as hard as actually creating a library that holds information that everyone in the world would want to read. I can tell you that most of what is in my local library isn't relevant to me as far as I'm concerned.

 

[GwydionM]

SemperFiDownUnda, have you thought matters through? Control of information is always wrong, and also sometimes justified? I think that there is every justification for heavily controlling or even suppressing information about activities that we have decided to suppress. And crime reporting is much too details, so that anyone who watches television gets a basic guide to how to commit crime successfully. No doubt professional criminals would know anyway, but a lot of the worst deeds are committed by people with no criminal background and would have no idea about most of the forensic tests if popular dramas didn't insist on giving all the details.

As for control, the world-wide flow of information is currenly dominated by commercial interests and Anglo culture. Anyone can post almost anything, but just try getting people to pay attention. The 'free' media are significantly more right-wing than the general population, and have over the decades succeeded in shifting public opinion in a right-wing direction.

 

[sleipnir214]

GydionM:
The $64 question is, &quot;Who decides?&quot;

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[rosieb]

SemperFiDownUnda
You can't have caviats. Either content is controlled or it isn't. If it is, someone decides what is controlled - to paraphrase &quot;Who controls the controllers?&quot;.

I agree that action should be taken against those whose content is repugnant, but who decides that, and how?

(I don't have an answer....)

Rosie

 

[MasterRacker]

Here's a definite eye of the beholder re GydionM's last comment. If you asked me, I's have said the the free media were far more to the left than the general population.

So no if we say the media needs to be more centrist, who say's which way they have to move? Any kind of active control just isn't going to work.


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[Onyxpurr]

Who's to say what's relevant to me? As a matter of fact there is tons of data on the net that I never knew existed before and I find relevant now. I almost find this discussion similar to one you may find on book banning. And in case anyone is wondering...I'm against it.

Of course it's easy to fight for free speech when you live in such a great place such as this.

 

[chiph]

There's an article in The Economist (their quarterly technology update) that talks about how Open Source Software is more widely available (well, Duh) and in more languages than Microsoft products. There is a guy in South Africa who has a team of volunteer translaters converting Open Office into Swahili, etc. There is another group of volunteers in India translating Mozilla into the 18 official languages of India (India also has over 1000 regional dialects, no word on progress on that side!)

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

&quot;You can't have caviats. Either content is controlled or it isn't.&quot;

Ok let me change what I said a bit. Nothing is controlled but if you choose to put child p0rn up on your site I hope the authorities come down on you like the wrath of the gods.

Nothing is black and white. Freedom of information is close but i would not put child p0rn in that bucket. But since web publishing this type of content is covered in what we are talking about then the bucket becomes grey.

Its like my butcher knife. Nothing wrong with it until I take it out and kill someone with it. The web being like the knife.....some things you just shouldn't be able to do with it and if you do then you should be stopped and made to pay. Anyone saying that publishing pictures of exploitation of children is ok need serious metal health treatment.

 

[Onyxpurr]

I don't think anyone here is saying that. But that not a matter of free speech as it is a wrong against a human child.

Just like a recording of murder would be wrong too. Not because of it's publication on the net, but because of the act recorded.

My friend and I were having a similar discussion recently about this. People here like to spout about certain freedoms, but then if you say something they don't like, they try to restrict your freedom to say it. So once again, who determines what is allowed to be said and what isn't?

 

[Georgi1chuikov]

I will number my thoughts on this as they are very differnt form each other
#1 Whenever I see Kofi Annan complain about &quot;richer nations not contributing enough&quot; I feel like I am about to get bent over (no vaseline, no reacharound)and more of my money is about to go to that inefective wast of money debating society called the UN.
#2 I welcome all people on the earth that have the ability to use the internet to use it in any way that best helps them no matter what language they need for themselves(even tho I preffer English as i am mono-lingual)
#3 &quot;Nonsense content....&quot; This statement of what is and is not allowed on the internet would terrify me if it came from an organization that actually followed up on what it says.
#4 SemperFiDownUnda, You are a good guy, I like your posts, but &quot;Nothing is black and white&quot; is an absolute statement and therefore a contradiction of itself

 

[rosieb]

SemperFiDownUnda

I'm not advocating kiddie P0rn, but, I believe, if you allow any kind of official censorship, you offer the possibility to limit the availability of all types of information. If a site breaks the law, and maybe we need new, international laws, the person responsible should suffer.

In reality, there is a major legal push against such people who promote really despicable material, this should be supported. (OK, my gut feel involves castration with a blunt knife.) But, in a real environment, these things should be handled through the appropriate legal channels.

Opioniated, always; correct, occasionally; so, enlighten me.
Rosie

 

[Onyxpurr]

These seem to be some of the problems introduced by the technology. What if the website that hosts the images is US based, however the act committed was conducted in another country where it is allowed?

 

[SemperFiDownUnda]

The fact is that the international laws about this type of content are there, thank god. I live in Australia these days and every few months we see a new broadcast of world wide raids agianst individuals and groups that promote this. It my be a matter of symantics but I concider these laws a form of censorship, that is needed.

Weather you like it, hopefully you don't, or not these sites could be construded as just informational as they might not have directly been involved in the illegal acts. The fact is the the world as a whole does not accept this and the derivative information so sure you can publish it but you are breaking the law. A banned subject is a banned subject. If there are laws, and agian thankfully there are international laws along with local laws, that prohibit content, and that is what this is, then that is censorship. The fact that individuals can get that censored content to the masses doesn't change the fact that it is a form of censorship. We are being told what we can and can not look at. I fully accept this.

&quot;&quot;Nothing is black and white&quot; is an absolute statement and therefore a contradiction of itself &quot;

I'm not going to go into the symantics of my statement. We all know what I and everyone else means by this type of statement.

It doesn't matter if you like it or not we do live in a world of censorship. To Censor - &quot;forbid the public distribution of...&quot; There are many things that we do this for. Much of your personal information is Censored from the public. Do you think your public information should be shared with the world? Right to privacy is one area that contradicts the statement that nothing should be censored. And we fight for this on both sides. Private citizians fight for the right to have their personal information censored from the world while media fights to have celebrities personal information exposed to the world.

 

[sleipnir214]

I think we can all agree child pornography is so abhorrent that there is no jurisdiction where it is allowed. In cases like this, international law handles this largely black-and-white problem quite well.

It's the stuff that isn't black and white that is problematic.

Outer Foobazica has outlawed Romeo and Juliet because of its depictions of suicide. But a Project Gutenberg mirror site in the U.S. has that play available for download, and an Outer Foobazican has just downloaded the text. Now a little grey has entered the picture.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[DrJavaJoe]

In a world of international laws that define what should be and shouldn't be on the net, I think that it will be pretty unanimous that child pornography is not right.

Though the problem will be is we will still have access to the lowest common denominator, for example in the United States a woman bearing her soul must be at least eighteen, but what about the countries that say it is sixteen or maybe even fourteen. The fact is someone into child porn will always be able to do a search and find the site from the countries with this lowest common denominator. This is what is going to define the content on the web. The question then lies on whether to censor this information, do we say because this country has less stringent rules than us that our populas cannot see their content, we weed out the bad content from this country or do nothing?