Russian ISP Blocking Political Opposition Websites
from the this-is-the-concern dept
I am still not convinced that we need special laws mandating net neutrality, but I find the arguments from telcos that no one would ever block sites or services to be highly unbelievable. There have been cases of it happening in the past, and there are cases of it happening now. Shocklee points us to the news that a Russian ISP has been blocking websites that the government has dubbed "extremist," even though they include political opposition sites like Garry Kasparov’s Kasparov.ru, Solidarity's Rusolidarnost.ru and the National Bolshevik Party's Nazbol.ru. Combine that with attempts in the UK and Australia to give the government the ability to make up secret lists of sites that should be blocked by ISPs, and you can see why some believe it's important, as a fundamental principle, that ISPs should allow access to any site. US telcos say that they are in the business of encouraging free speech, and they would be crazy to block sites, but what we're seeing around the world suggests that there are times when ISPs do decide to block sites, and it's often due to political pressure from governing parties.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: blocking, censorship, net neutrality, politics, russia, websites
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Yeah...
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Re: Yeah...
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Home is where the URL is
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Free Press
I do not want the government getting into my internet.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7103
http://libertypatriot sforjustice.ning.com/profiles/blogs/liberty-examiner-freepressnet
http://precursorblog.com/conten t/freepress-wants-transparency-everybody-freepress
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mjc5YzFiY jdiZGM1MjE1OGJjZDExNDlkM2IwMjQ3YzM=
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-motley/2009/03/18/huffpo-p iece-calls-obamas-fcc-silence-right
I am more for Ron Paul every day.
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Well, that's the alternative.
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All lines should be shared by all competitors that should build infra-structure together and no one should be able to discriminate traffic at the transport level only at the service level.
The pipes are dumb and the explosion of ISPs will regulate the market better then anything anyone could do.
Instead of having 2 or 3 options how people would like to receive a paper with 100 of ISP offerings?
You pay one bill for transport and other to access your service provider.
That is a truly competitive market.
It works in Asia and in some parts of Europe why it wouldn't work elsewhere?
Without competition there is only one solution, legislation and is not even good is just not as bad as leaving the market to the whims of two or three monopolistic companies.
Now even with competition governments still would have the chance to block something, and is right there the problem, without puting it in writing governments don't care to abide to commom sense or society only their interests.
Those the need to put at leas guidelines defining where we want to go.
Like the constitution that don't define laws but say how those laws should be governed and show to society what the laws were intended for it even stops the government from legislating at will.
The internet should have one first emendement too.
"Congress should make no law respecting traffic of data, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, the press, the public or free way of passage"
It could be better I know but the idea of a compass is what I really want to see writen, laws will come after those guidelines are in place.
If there is no compass people just go in any direction, confusion takes place and governments and special interests takes over.
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Re:
your formulation offers absolutely no protection to me personally whatsoever, and frankly, I gotta be on MY side.
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Internet Bill of Rights.
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This is another one of those ...
Its a scary thing for the government in charge. The problem is People create groups and get together outside the allowed limits imposed by government.
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