Anarchy is coming to Europe

Politics in Germany and all over Europe currently goes mad. Politicians have spotted that the internet can do something they want. The discussion around the proposed law to block child pornography from the net has sparked ideas. The original idea was to block unlawful content. The original intention might be very well positive but the technical idea behind it is just nuts. A wall around a crime so you don't see it, wont stop the crime from happening. And there's plenty of laws to stop the crime already. The police are just too lazy to execute them.

Anyway, this discussion has sparked the idea to use network filters to block a few pages from the net. Now other politicians are getting the idea. Well if you can block child pornography with that, can't we use that tool to block something else too? And voilà the list of "we could stop this and that etc" starts.

http://netzpolitik.org/2009/buendnis-fordert-schaerferes-zensursula-gesetz/

The music and video industry wants to block the pirates of course. You know those few evil entities which ruined their business model. They just forgot to note that the music industry has ruined themselves because their business model just doesn't work in the new world and they didnt adapt.

Anyway, tomorrow it will be a politician who wants to block someone who says something bad him etc.

And there we go. The dangers are

- Censurship first class
- No more freedom of speech
- No more distribution of political power (see HADOPI). A single entity is accusing and judging and punishing. And that entity is not even voted in a democratic way. It is controlled by the music industry in the case of HADOPI in france.
- Small ISP's have to go out of business as they cant afford the investments needed in such net filters.
- The world gets split apart. Freedom of Information destroyed.

And no, this is not happening far away in a dictatorship controlled country. Its not china. Its right here in Europe. In front of your door!

Germans: go talk to your politicians. They have not understood the power of the internet yet. Explain it to them. Show them what they are trying to destroy. And vote for the petitions against censuring. And also consider voting for the petition to allow again to eliminate stupid digital right managements which has always been a pain in the ass in my eyes and its only purpose is to punish the legal user.

French users: go talk to your politicians. Ask them why they allow someone to get disconnected from the internet while still having to pay without a judge ever looking at the case! Its your civil rights which is at stake. You will suffer from it at the end.