A double standard is better than no standard

I figured this would be a more cheerful way of presenting news & views, this time the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act", a bill proposing that the US Department of Justice can shut down any site that is accused of being involved in copyright infringement.

"Good job, China!"

Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt met with Chinese vice-president Xi Jinping, and discussed among other things the Chinese censorship of the Internet. Might we assume that the conversation went something like this:

Fredrik: Hey Xi, great job you're doing on that Internet censorship.
Xi: Why, thank you.
Fredrik: We're actually working on a similar project ourselves, but being a democracy we're don't really have a long history in restricting the public's opportunity to share thoughts and information. Perhaps you could share some experiences with us? We would like to have it in place by 2012.
Xi: Sure, no worries, with your technology and eagerness to restrict the public's access to information you consider "inappropriate" this could be up and running in no time.
Fredrik: Cool.

A taste of what is to come

The Americans got a little taste of what is to come in the near future when due to a DNS error they ended up behind China's "Great Firewall". This meant websites with inappropriate content were blocked.

Personally I don't understand what the fuzz is all about. I mean, they better get used to it as both the US and the EU are planning to incorporate similar Internet filtering, where the governments will be able to decide what information their citizens should be allowed to part-take in, and what should be considered "inappropriate" and blocked.

If all goes according to plan, the EU will join the likes of Iran, North Korea, Australia and China by 2012, with the US probably not far behind. Congratulations, you miserable enemies of freedom.

More Google evil

As if deleting blogs due to a claim of copyright infringement and censorship in China isn't enough, Google are now even censoring critics of the US government.

Seriously, Google, that "don't be evil" motto just seems out of date. Why don't you just change it to something more believable, like "don't be free" or "be censored"?

"Don't be evil" my ass

Do you own a blog hosted by blogger or blogspot? I do. And if I weren't too lazy I would move it away from these Googled-owned services asap, since these days they seem to be arbitrary deleting (yes, actually deleting all content, not just suspending the accounts!) blogs that they claim infringe on copyright. You know, if you happen to publish the lyrics to the chorus of your favorite song, or a picture you took at a concert. Those kinds of nasty crimes.

If you're like me, too lazy to actually move your blog, at least do a proper backup in case Google decides to go ahead and just delete it.

First the censorship scandal in China, and now this? "Don't be evil" my ass.

Bono says: Look to China!

U2 front man and tax refugee Bono comes out of the closet as a firm believer in China style censorship (more comments on this article are here, here, here and here). Who would have thought a guy who's based his image over the last decade on being some kind of human rights activist, would do a U-turn like this and embrace oppression:

We’re the post office, they tell us; who knows what’s in the brown-paper packages? But we know from America’s noble effort to stop child pornography, not to mention China’s ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it’s perfectly possible to track content.

Sure, why not. Let's make a "noble effort" to monitor all user's Internet traffic (and just forget about details like multiple computers sharing the same ip address and other minor details...) in order to protect an outdated industry refusing to renew itself and instead demanding special legislation in order to keep the profit growing. Yeah, that's the noble thing to do. You complete moron.

I also love the part about the rich, evil Internet service providers and the poor songwriters:

A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us — and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.

Swollen profits? Lost receipts? You might wonder what was in that pipe Bono just smoked. If anyone's making profit ripping off the "poor songwriters" it's the rotten to the core record labels. So please, Bono, stop embarrassing yourself by writing absolute bullshit about stuff you know nothing about, and stop promoting oppression and abolishing human rights in order to boost the profit of a vicious industry. It's really bad for your image.

If you want to read an intelligent piece of text on the subject, go read David Byrne's Survival Strateglies for Emerging Artists here. You don't have to be a slave to the CD manufacturing industry just because you want to write and/or perform music.

Or, if you're a friend of oppression, like Bono himself, read about how the Belarus are about to handle the "problem" of free speech and sharing of information. There are some good ideas to be found there.

Field trip to China

The brilliant newspaper The Local, bringing us Swedish news in English, has been censored by the Chinese government because of an article deemed to be inappropriate.

The brilliant website The Pirate Bay, bringing us all kind of culture from all over the world, has been censored by the Swedish government because certain links on the website are deemed to be inappropriate.

Unfortunately the Swedish government, relatively new to the world of Internet censorship, have not yet developed sufficiently sophisticated methods to actually keep "inappropriate" websites out of sight for long. I would suggest Swedish politicians take a field trip to China to study what they do there.

The free Internet is dead in Sweden

Stockholm tingsrätt have, by ordering the censorship of a website that has not been proven illegal, once again proved they are not only criminally incompetent, they are also setting a new precedent when it comes to Internet censorship in Sweden. In short, they're choosing the totalitarian approach, where "unwanted" websites are closed at will, joining the ranks of freedom loving and friendly countries like China, North Korea and Iran - with the exception that in the case of Sweden it's not at all about ideology, it's all about money.

From now on it appears any powerful organization or corporation can get a court order to block the access to websites they feel are a threat to their business. The free, uncensored Internet we've been used to in these parts of the world has just been replaced by a corporation controlled censorship system.

Kverulant.se puts the whole spectacle into perspective by showing how this mindless court ruling could impact the Internet.

If my blog is gone tomorrow at least you know what's happened.

Censorship here, censorship there

The Chinese government shut down the search engine Google.com yesterday, as it makes it possible for the Chinese population to do searches on topics the Chinese government dislike. Dutch copyright organization Brein wants to shut down the search engine The Pirate Bay, as it makes it possible for the Dutch population to do searches on topics the Dutch copyright organization, and presumably also the Dutch government dislike.

Since when is China a role model for Europe when it comes to censorship?

Iran is a role model for Europe

Nokia Siemens Network have built Internet infrastructure for the Iranian government, and as a part of this project they have implemented sophisticated ways to monitor the network, allowing the government to save and index information on individual users and their communication.

I'm guessing the Swedish government, and all of EU for that matter, is all ears. Perhaps they could arrange a seminar and exchange information and experiences on Internet censorship and surveillance, and get some good ideas on how to further tighten the screw on innocent citizens? Hey, while you're at it, invite China as well, they might have some valuable input. After all these two beacons of democracy seem to be the ideal for European politicians these days.

Look to China!

Swedish politicians should see great potential in this new software developed in China with the aim to block websites containing unwanted material. Apparently China's aim is that this piece of censorship software must be installed in every new computer sold from the first of July.

This could be a logical next step after IPRED2 has been implemented. If anything, it could help further boosting The Pirate Party's ratings just in time for the next EU elections.

Come on, Reinfeld & co., look to China once again!