I have had threads removed before. You even messaged me saying you thought my post was fine and Armand did too but you said you were out voted on the matter. I got censored. That's how gardeners corner controls what they want on the site and what makes it unique. If you could just post what you want on hear it would be a mess.
As far as I understand it, the proposed law applies only to the US of A. Unless our government has sneakily given control of Britain to the US now, then we're sort of safe. BUT, sites that we use that are hosted in the US will be at risk. As I understand it, that could even be sites that are distributed, but have a hub in the US. Even UK sites could be at risk if they are hosted on servers in the US. The trouble is, lots of sites are, because hosting tends to be cheaper in the US than it is here. There is one thing that the US government has overlooked though, and in my professional opinion as an IT chap of some considerable experience, the US government is being incredibly stupid on this point. Mind bogglingly so. You see, the new law wont stop illegal internet activity. It will simply push it a bit further underground. I say this to the US government, lookup terms like "HTTP Proxy", "VPN", "UDP tunnelling". Then after doing some simple research to learn how easy it is for even a mildly keen individual to circumvent many restrictions, I would urge the US government to consider how much foreign revenue will cease to come into the US for services such as internet hosting, once everybody from individual to multinational corporation withdraws their hosting contracts from US based data centres, and moves it all into Europe and Asia. I say good look to the yanks. Let them do it. It will sting the web for a short while until everyone moves their hosting services to somewhere outside the US jurisdiction. Then less money will go to the US, and more will come here and to our European neighbours.
I have always believed in free speech of some fashion or other. There is no country in the world that has full free speech, including ours. But, as I understand it, these bills are about commercial piracy and have been instigated and supported by Hollywood and the Music Industry. Unfortunately, it will have far reaching consequences on the Web and the ability to speak freely as it will be used and abused by those organisations with vested and commercial interests. I think Hydro has either misunderstood the definition of free speech or failed to recognise that having the ability to speak freely has its own responsibilities. Free speech is not a weapon to be used of offend, hurt, agitate to kill or wound innocent people, or use maliciously without being accountable. Some people can't, or won't, recognise that their remarks are offensive, hurtful or extremist, and some recognise the fact but don't care. Those people abuse the ability to use free speech sometimes claim to be "contraversial" but are in fact just hiding behind behind the word. Writing a post even on such a Forum as Gardeners Corner, Hydro, still carries a personal responsibility to recognise whether or not your post is hurtful, offensive or malicious before you post it, whilst not sheltering under the illusion that the post is contraversial and therefore more important that being hurtful, offensive, or malicious. If people did that we would not need Moderators on any Forum. So don't confuse this legislation as being of benefit to the Web. This is something contrived by Big Business for their own interests or though you will find it will restrict yours.
I do get a bit rankled when certain music videos are not visable on u tube due to copyright rules. Is this a UK thing? As I normally get a message saying this video is not allowed in your country. As to posting on forums its really down to the owner to decide what to allow and what not to I guess. After all, we are all just guests of the owner, and the Mods decide if its suitable. I imagine you could get your own site and write whatever you want to at the moment.
I think I misunderstood what is being proposed earlier. It looks like it is about blocking US citizens access to 'foreign' sites. They already have laws for closing down sites that are hosted on their own territory. Now they are talking of blocking access to certain sites from within the US that are hosted outside the US. That being the case, I'm struggling to understand the problem. If the good folks of the US want to isolate themselves like China has (although in China it was not by public choice), then surely that's their choice.
I don't think the "good people of America" want the legislation, Clueless. I think it's a case of Big Business having a bigger and more powerful voice than the ordinary American citizen and pushing it through using money and influence to do so.:D
Pete, Under the rules, if even a link was posted on GC to another site that has contraversial material, GC could be blacklisted also. Just because a 'user' posted it. Think of how hard it is for us to 'Police' every single post on here. We rely partly on users reporting bad posts/topics for us to take action on. But a hidden link may be harder to spot. As has been pointed out above, there are corporations (aside from music/movie producers) that have a vested interest in restricting how information/ news is shared. Just Google 'Rupert Murdoch Sopa' , Murdoch is against Google in a big way, which is just one company that would be hit hard. Mozilla have also Emailed users informing them that if the bill goes ahead, it will cause a profound effect on the whole of the internet.
The vast majority of the population of China haven't seen the attached image. That's the direction Sopa and Pipa will take us. ******* scary.
Too true about hidden links, spammers come on here in the middle of the night, don't make any posts but leave a link. If the anti spam software doesn't pick it up and we get someone else joining before dawn, we have no way of picking it up without going through all 10,000+ members accounts:DOH: We could get done for a link that we know nothing about:DOH:
With respect, the Tiananmen Square incident is not a joking matter and should never be forgotten. If we trivialise things like that, it kind of implies that it doesn't matter. It was a shameful incident, in which an innocent lad was killed by his own nation's military, just because he spoke up for what he believed. His death, and the way it happened, was a great victory for the dictatorship. He was quite literally crushed by the might of the state (he was run over by a tank).
Crushed by the mite of the state!! Hahaha Sorry Clueless but I literally burst out in laughter when I read that bit at the end.
There are a few videos on Youtube, entitled 'Tank Man' and there are 8 parts (good quality too!) Here's a link to part 1/8 :- The Tank Man 1/8 - YouTube
