Russian Duma proposal to create internet censorship
William Gardella
gardellawg at GMAIL.COM
Wed Jul 11 14:42:33 UTC 2012
Anne,
Anne Schumann <anne.schumann at TILDE.LV> writes:
> William, I do not agree that Germany has "widespread media
> censorship". Moreover, the plan to block the German internet for
> certain content has not been put to practice and paralleling the
> German situation to that in Russia is certainly a
> miscomparison. Germany and Russia cannot be compared directly, and all
> I was trying to point out (or suggest) is that such plans are not by
> definition undemocratic and typical for certain (undemocratic????)
> countries.
You're correct that Germany's plans for censorship of the Internet
remain unimplemented; however, for print, broadcast, and cinema, there
is already such censorship, supervised by the courts and the Committee
for the Protection of the Constitution (the federal domestic
intelligence organization which as you point out has so shamefully
failed in its main duty of protecting Germany from anticonstitutional
extremists). I should not have conflated the two initiatives.
> So before launching a public outcry, everybody interested in the topic
> should find some time for a period of reflection and information. As
> for the Nazi problem: it is shamefully true, yes, but unrelated to
> this discussion, and your mention of it here is rather offensive with
> respect to me, since I showed neither sympathy for these people nor
> disrespect for people who are different from me. So using this kind of
> argument in a forum discussion is probably not a fair move.
Of course I do not think that you are a supporter of the activities of
Nazis. My point there was that censorship rarely suppresses the ills it
targets, but rather pushes them underground beyond public detection. If
Russia implements an Internet filter (whether for child porn or
promotion of terrorism or ethnic violence or whatever), the immediate
result will be for such content to be accessed through anonymizing
proxies and darknets, where prosecution of people organizing to cause
actual harm will be that much more difficult--and where, as I have
pointed out from the UK and Australian examples, numerous innocent
citizens will be harmed in their access to information erroneously
excluded.
I do not believe that censorship is somehow the purview of only
"undemocratic" nations; most nations of all political forms are tempted
to do it at some time or other. My purpose in discussing the British
and Australian experience was to illustrate that the problem of managing
censorship within the parameters of the law seems intractable even for
very stable democracies.
I agree that the outcry should not come from us. Rather, we, as mere
bystanders, must try to understand what is going on and respect the
opinion of those really effected--namely, the denizens of the Runet, who
for the most part seem to be hopping mad about it.
> And btw, it should be clear from the quotes that not I referred to a
> pedophilian lobby, but Mrs. Mizulina.
Yes, I know that the quotation is from the author of the bill,
characterizing who is opposing her initiative. My only point in quoting
it was that the characterization is laughable.
>
> Again, criticism should be based on knowledge.
>
> Regards,
> Anne
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
> [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of William Gardella
> Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 5:00 PM
> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Russian Duma proposal to create internet censorship
>
> It is also, of course, worth pointing out that in cases like the
> national Internet filter in Australia (ostensibly also implemented to
> block access to sites suspected of hosting child pornography), the
> temptation quickly arose to use the filter for other purposes, such as
> blocking access to websites promoting "extremist" politics, and indeed
> using the filter that way--and even to block such innocuous content as
> websites advocating breastfeeding--was common practice until exposed
> by WikiLeaks. In the UK, where the government has outsourced such
> domain-blocking powers to an NGO called the Internet Watch Foundation,
> there have also been many cases of erroneous blockages, with no set
> process for appeal (and with the result that Wikipedia has sometimes
> been blocked in the UK, etc.). There appears to be no country on
> Earth with the ability to manage this power responsibly, and if there
> is, I certainly doubt it is the Russian Federation.
>
> Germany is a country with widespread media censorship that is
> nonetheless unable to adequately monitor the real Nazi cells operating
> within its borders, so the German example is telling, but not
> necessarily in the way you suggest. Crudely blocking domains stops
> citizens, but not criminals. And while you may be correct to suggest
> that German censorship is not incompatible with a democratic process
> (indeed, it is overwhelmingly popular), I would also say that it is
> totally illiberal and has not achieved its stated goals of getting
> extremist and exploitative content off of the German internet.
>
> And the suggestion that Russian Wikipedia editors and others concerned
> about handing this kind of power over to the Russian federal
> government are part of some «педофильское лобби» is pretty ludicrous.
> They're not concerned about the text of the law but rather how they
> expect it to be abused and selectively enforced on day one of its
> entry into force.
>
> Anne Schumann <anne.schumann at TILDE.LV> writes:
>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>>
>>
>> a friend of mine posted 2 useful links on FB that I would like to
>> share:
>>
>>
>>
>> - http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/
>> %D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%97%D0%B0%D0
>> %BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82_%E2%84%96_89
>> 417-6
>>
>> (includes links to sites where notes of protest can be sent to Duma
>> members and the president; I personally find the discussion page quite
>> interesting)
>>
>> - http://lenta.ru/news/2012/07/10/soft/
>>
>> with at least some information about the actual wording of the text
>>
>>
>>
>> My friend also correctly pointed out that a similar discussion took
>> place some years ago in Germany. What we can learn from this is, in my
>> view, that an attempt to limit the proliferation of pornography on the
>> internet per se is neither “crazy” nor “undemocratic” (and the NYT
>> article, I think, did not conclusively show that this new law is
>> indeed meant to suppress the opposition). However, such decisions
>> obviously need to be taken with care and it would be good to know more
>> about the actual content of the proposed law.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is from the lenta article:
>>
>>
>>
>> “В новой редакции законопроекта, отмечает издание, государство сможет
>> в досудебном порядке закрывать доступ к сайтам, содержащим детскую
>> порнографию, пропаганду наркотиков и информацию о способах совершения
>> самоубийства.“
>>
>> „Таким образом, из документа была исключена расплывчатая формулировка
>> о "вредоносной информации", за которую раньше также предполагалось
>> закрывать сайты без суда. “
>>
>> „Кроме того, в новой редакции законопроекта правительство оставило за
>> собой право сформировать собственный механизм исполнения его
>> положений. Ранее эти функции предлагалось возложить на "федеральный
>> орган исполнительной власти", отмечает "Газета.Ru".
>>
>> „В ответ председатель комитета Госдумы по вопросам семьи, женщин и
>> детей Елена Мизулина, один из авторов законопроекта, заявила, что по
>> ее мнению за протестами стоит педофильское лобби, которое боится
>> потерять свои прибыли.“
>>
>>
>>
>> Criticism should be based on knowledge, not presuppositions.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Anne-Kathrin Schumann
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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