China’s success has proven that countries can succeed without adopting western liberal freedoms. In fact, success adopting only a small subset of economic and personal freedoms, and none of the political freedoms. The economy is good, the state is stable..
Proof of concept for non-liberal systems.
This means freedoms need to be argued for on their own merits. Free speech for its own sake. No censorship for its own sake. etc.
Much harder. Much more prone to compromise and erosion.
[0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen...
Hardly. Especially on the left. Including such issues as the ban on breastfeeding photos, ban on trans people using their names, and widespread failure to ban hate speech.
(I'm sure I've seen one case of someone recieving a pile of death threats, reporting them, getting told they were "not offensive", then reposting them as an image to say what sort of garbage facebook tolerates .. and then getting that post deleted by facebook. But not any of the original abuse.)
Furthermore, the country most in favor of limiting free speech to protect minorities, Germany(70% pro, 29% against, total population) , ironically has the most experience with the dangers of both extremes of allowances on speech. On one hand the Nazi's were able to rise to power partly because they were able to publicly scapegoat groups of people who were eventually slaughtered en mass. On the other hand you have the Stasi who would torture and murder people based on a whiff of being critical of the ruling party.
Look, I'm for free speech, but lets not pretend that its an issue that doesn't require a modicum of nuance to approach.
The ideal "find your words despicable but defend your right to say them" is not all that common in practice, never has been. It's an idealist's position.
I'd guess that the results have more to do with political leanings on the underlying issue, than the free speech one. IE, the more concerned with hate speech, the more illiberal they are in the survey. Change "offensive to minority groups" to "spread lies about the President," and I suspect a different spread.
It needs to be courts who defend these things and they'll do it, if the laws are there.
I had to look that one up. A tankie is a hardline stalinist who defends old USSR policies in all cases. I really have a hard time believing that there is a rise in people like that.
The whole "antifa is just as bad"/"hard right and hard left are the same" thing just helps mask the real rise of the alt-right who have amassed a lot of power, they just helped elect a president. The hard-left has nowhere near that much power.
Tankies? I think of that as the Communists who supported Stalin's invasion of Hungary in the 1950s. What does that mean here?
The ECHR Article 10 recognises this:
"1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."
.. which is how Germany can have its ban on Nazi symbols.
I agree though. They haven't. Even in countries with a high regard for free speech, there are exceptions. Nor is internet censorship the end of democracy.
But, directionality is important in politics. China provides an alternative example, that breaks many of the "rules" entirely. You can have a great firewall. China does. It's doing OK. Why can't Turkey? Why can't India? Why can't the EU?
^thanks for posting, btw. I've never read it, and I'm a citizen.
^^Ok… that caveat appears 5 times, allowing the limiting of 5 different rights for almost any reason any member state decides.
This really bothers me. I wish they had left these rights out, and only included rights that they can actually agree on.
China thinks it should be illegal to say something that threatens the stability of the governing party as an institution, so they control information more heavily. But it's not yet clear what they've proven in the past 60-odd years. Remember that their centralized system did also lead to things like the 'Great Leap Forward'...
People still call the 250-year-old USA an experiment, and apparently it still has some surprises up its sleeve. So what does that make the upstart PRC? Certainly not a bedrock reaching back to Neo-Confuscionism and beyond.
I don't think so:
>..."shouting fire in a crowded theater" refers to an outdated legal standard. At one point, the law criminalized such speech, which created a "clear and present danger." But since 1969, for speech to break the law, it can’t merely lead others to dangerous situations. It must directly encourage others to commit specific criminal actions of their own.
http://civil-liberties.yoexpert.com/civil-liberties-general/...
China breaks from the “norm” drastically in a lot of ways. It doesn’t recognise the right of the public to elect officials, for example. There are lost of countries with flawed/fake democracies but most have democratic constitutions, officially. China is different.
20-30 years ago, liberal democracy was the only game in town. All new states formed on this basis. None of the ex-soviet states opted for official one-party constitutions, because it wasn’t one of the options.
There are many one party states, in practice. They don’t make it official. For example Egypt & Syria (also Iraq & Libya, formerly) have been one-party republics for 3 generations. Officially, they’re democracies because it was considered the only legitimate way. They rely on fake elections, emergency laws or some other theatre to get around their own official norms.
My point is that if arab revolutions of the 60s or post soviet revolutions of the 90s had happened today, they may have opted for the “Chinese Model” instead.
But, constitutions aren’t written every day. Laws are. Regulations are written every minute.
I’m trying not to be normative or negative about China. Just noting that China as an example, has an impact. It’s now a superpower and acts as a role model. A moderate position on internet censorship is now someplace between “uncensored” and “china.” Anything in between is within the “normal” range.
It is very hard to prosecute someone based on threats. You have to be able to prove intent to follow through.
The west is an example of a region that can succeed without "western" liberal freedoms. "Western" liberal freedoms in the west were things attained after becoming wealthy and stable.
However, freedom is not. Freedom is well defined. The right to travel. The right to exchange your currency, or your work value. The right to buy and sell stuff with foreign countries (ie: trade).
Think your country ban travelling for 6 months to save up on hard currencies. Think your country banning certain imports (luxury)
China might be good for the average and bottom person but not for the freedom seeker.
I agree that it's perceived that way by many, and perception is reality to a great extent.
However, the jury is still out. Many countries have advanced to China's level of development while remaining authoritarian. S. Korea and Taiwan did it from roughly the 1950s to the 1980s. But it's hard to name one that advanced beyond that without adopting democracy.
It's also interesting to look at in historical context (all of the following is based on memory from reading Chinese history; probably a few details are off): Before the Opium Wars in the mid-19th century, China saw itself as the center of the world, far superior to all other nations, and had been using the same political system, under a variety of rulers, since roughly 250 BC (with many long interruptions).
The economic and military superiority of the Western powers was a shock, and China tried to adjust by changing as little as possible in order to maintain the culture and political system (and political power of the elite, of course). The steps they took were something like the following: First they tried to just buy the weapons, but that didn't work - you need skilled people to maintain them, supplies, etc.; you need skilled commanders and training; and you need to build them yourself or be dependent on foreign powers. Then they tried just hiring, then training a few people. Then realizing they needed the foundation of Western intellectual resources (science, open inquiry, etc.) to use Western tech effectively and to compete, IIRC they tried to open Western education to just a few. ... None of the half-measures were nearly effective enough, and in 1911 the Qing dynasty collapsed and a period of civil war began which ended in 1949 when the Communists conquered the country. Due in part to the horrible behavior of the Western powers and of others such as Japan, who all took advantage of China's weakness (remember that the UK actually controlled a major Chinese city until 1997), the period from the Opium Wars to 1949 is called the Century of Humiliation by some.
The recent attempt to adopt a Western economy without a Western political system seems, in a way, to be a continuation of the 19th century policies; I'm not sure it will be successful. The Communists are like the Confucian dynasties in other ways too. For example, the focus on corruption fits perfectly; a well-known theory of the cycle of the dynasties includes them collapsing under corruption. The Communists are fighting hard not to have history repeat itself, but IMVHO, it's no coincidence: A great advantage of democracy is the great reduction of corruption (though there still is too much); the free press reveals it, opposing parties harp on it, and the corrupt get voted out of office. Imagine the corruption of a U.S. political party that had been in office since 1949, couldn't get voted out of office, had no opposition, and controlled the press.
I'm sure China would happily adopt "western liberal freedoms" if didn't mean opening their citizens to brainwashing by western media and all their data being accessible to the CIA.
That is, countries who hold the presidency will use it to try to get movement on some issues that they care about, but it doesn't have anywhere close to enough power to get something passed which the other member states do not agree with. Real power sits with the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Parliament in various proportions.
It wouldn't be news that Estonian politics is delving into censorship/surveillance; tacking on "EU Presidency" just ads faux-gravitas.
I can see where they are coming from though; I'm pretty sure the investigations of Internet usage that turn up on politicians desks contain pretty disconcerting information about the human condition.
Who have the first conversation that we finally see as "the Estonia government want x". The same I would like to know about the free trade agreements.
As a guess, it's due to the threat to Estonia from Russia, which includes Russian cyber attacks and propaganda. Russia has used propaganda operations very effectively in Europe and the U.S. If the U.S. has trouble protecting itself, imagine Estonia's situation.
In response to the same issue, earlier this year (IIRC) I read about a similar call for government oversight of Internet publication by someone high in the UK government (but I didn't hear about it again after that).
Never underestimate that.
I'd like to give a shout-out to epicenter.works, an Austrian NGO, which I've been following the last 1.5 years or so. I think it's hard to get the public engaged in these topics, but they seem to be really determined.
Here's a google translate link to one of their latest articles / achievements (preventing a 'surveillance package' in Austrian law):
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=h...
October 2000, there were a worldwide online vote to select some members of the ICANN Board of Directors.
Yups. Exactly this is what's going on in my opinion as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
Pasting the content here in case it goes down (I did not include the in-paragraph hyperlinks though).
However, here is the leaked document they reference in the first sentence: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/aug/eu-council-copyright...
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A Council of the European Union document leaked by Statewatch on 30 August reveals that during the summer months, that Estonia (current EU Presidency) has been pushing the other Member States to strengthen indiscriminate internet surveillance, and to follow in the footsteps of China regarding online censorship. Standing firmly behind its belief that filtering the uploads is the way to go, the Presidency has worked hard in order to make the proposal for the new copyright Directive even more harmful than the Commission’s original proposal, and pushing it further into the realms of illegality.
According to the leaked document, the text suggests two options for each of the two most controversial proposals: the so-called “link tax” or ancillary copyright and the upload filter. Regarding the upload filter, the text offers two alternatives:
* Option A maintains the Commission’s original proposal of having in place an upload filter which will be under the control of platforms and other companies that are hosting online content. Although it removes mentions to “content recognition technologies”, in reality, there is no way to “prevent the availability” (another expression which remains in the text) of certain content without scanning all the content first.
* Option B is, at best, a more extreme version of Option A. In fact, it seems so extreme that it almost makes the first option look like a reasonable compromise. This may, of course, be the “diplomatic” strategy. In this extreme option, the text attacks again the liability regime of the e-commerce Directive – which, bizarrely, would not be repealed, leaving us with two contradictory pieces of EU law but adds a “clarification” of what constitutes a “communication to the public”. This clarification establishes that platforms (and its users) would be liable for the copyright infringing content uploaded by its users.
The proposals in this leak highlight a very dangerous roadmap for the EU Member States, if they were to follow the Presidency’s lead. The consequences of these flawed proposals can only be prevented if civil society and EU citizens firmly raise their voices against having a censorship machine in the EU. We will be turning on our call tool at savethememe.net before each of the key votes in the European Parliament. Make use of the tool, and call your representatives to stop the #censorshipmachine!
No, you can’t enjoy the music you paid for, says EU Parliament Committee (05.07.2017) https://edri.org/no-you-cant-enjoy-the-music-you-paid-for-sa...
Proposed Copyright Directive – Commissioner confirms it is illegal (28.06.2017) https://edri.org/proposed-copyright-directive-commissioner-c...
EU Copyright Directive – privatised censorship and filtering of free speech (10.11.2016) https://edri.org/eu-copyright-directive-privatised-censorshi...
Copyright reform: Document pool https://edri.org/copyright-reform-document-pool/
(Contribution by Diego Naranjo, EDRi)
======================================
I read that as "corporations can enforce copyright... I can't"
See Youtube drama of a news organization using someone's video without attribution or payment... and then filing automated copyright claims against the original, because parts of the "copyrighted news broadcast" appear verbatim in the video.
But in recent decades, as technology has made it easy for individuals to produce copies, this has shifted into a couple of large entities vs the individual.
The first few moves in that direction (copiers, analog tape recorders) were largely ignored or papered over by exceptions because policing them were a practical impossibility.
But with the net every home have a implacable snitch. And thus there is a policing potential emerging that may well make STASI look like keystone cops.
When corporations are allowed to enforce the rules, they bend them so that the corporation profits. They also then 1984 the whole situation by using double-speak to explain the situation.
I once worked for a company that announced they were doubling our conmission rates from 5 to 10 percent.
They couldnt be happier to tell us all about how they were going to pay us more, so we quickly suspected something weird was going on.
Well that all was slowly revealed when 3 months later, commissions on deals were being "denied" in full. "Deal is too large." "Deal is not in your territory." "Deal is not on a commission elligible product."
So the rates were doubled. But 2x of $0 is still $0.
Its like all the "shocking" revelations on the corruption of elections using voting machines -- hardly surprising given that the manipulation guarantees "legitimate" power from the people, the cost is fairly low relative to payoff, and the effect is largely untraceable.
That is because instead of building mesh networks out of our routers, mobile phones, home servers, raspberry pis, we, in Europe, are waiting on the {government,council,leadership,isp,bigco} to do it for us. It would be more than possible to build city-wide networks in the UK and cross-city connections with, for example, long range ubiquity, without and ISP or corporation or BT involved, but nobody seems interested, because nobody care any more. Virgin blocked a few more sites, "meh".
I know this sounds like a rant, but I'd really love to see a worm which turns every wifi capable device into gigantic mesh network and see how ISPs panic.
Your upload is my download. A user uploads an HTTP request to a server, and the server uploads an HTTP response to the user. Of course that sounds unnatural compared to the user downloading the HTTP response. But the difference between upload/download is purely semantic and only distinguishes the intent of the user. Regardless of terms used, data flows in one direction, then back in another. The only distinguishing factor is its direction and whether or not both sides can establish the initial connection. So in that sense, a server uploads data to the user, who implicitly permitted the sever to do so when establishing the connection.
This misappropriation of technical language to advance a policy goal is revealing in that it shows the concept is fundamentally unlegislatable and therefore unenforceable, or worse, arbitrarily enforceable.
This is just part of an ongoing legislative pattern of the past 5-10 years. My reading of its trajectory is that regulatory regimes will eventually require licenses to run any service behind public IP addresses, to register domain names, and to advertise BGP routes or run public DNS resolvers. When coupled with centralization of inbound routing infrastructure (transatlantic fiber) and/or increased regulation of IP transit companies, this licensing legislature will work effectively.
Direction-wise, this is true, connection-wise, it's not. There is no active connection initiated from the server to the client; it's one long connection that is client->server, only the direction of the data changes.
This phrase makes the article seem overly dramatic. The proposed directive is all about copyright and not about censorship in the common sense. So, if I own the copyright (e.g. I wrote a blog post critizing the European Commission), this directive doesn't apply to me.
The article seems very alarmist and light on detail. This draft may well be pretty bad, but I'd recommend reading it to form your opinion.
I'm not saying the DMCA is a good thing or a bad thing; I'm just trying to get calibrated to what is being proposed in the directive. Thanks for the help!
