Online freedom bye bye.......?

Robertnpmk

Robertnpmk

Robertnpmk

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I have this general feeling at the moment that our internet freedoms are being squeezed from every angle.

What do you guys think?

Do you think that free speech online is going to be pushed underground behind VPN and the like?
 
Yes - it is inevitable.

The interwebz is growing to a point where anything is possible on it - legal or illegal.

Governments don't like that - they also don't like people having to much information or making their own views known about things freely. They also have the power to twist the reasons for restricting access (which is even more worrying - because the general population will get behind it - even though they will suffer the consequences of the changes)

10-15 years from now - I hate to see what this country will have done to what should be an open and accessable WWW. No doubt, they will then start tightening their grip on mobile coms (texts, 3G, 4G data) and whatever new technology is in place for true free speech.
 
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I disagree, we should worry (and we should) about our free speech in general, it's a red herring to look at it on the internet as the argument seems to centre around being anonymous on the internet so that you can say things that you could not say off the internet.
 
If you go to a country you expect there to be laws and a police force to enforce them. The Internet is a place that people go to like any other, I don't see why it shouldn't be policed, just because it's not a 'physical' place.
 
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I wouldn't be surprised if VPNs and anonymising services become hugely popular in the years to come.

Seemingly innocuous comments made online are landing people in serious trouble these days (for example, the guy who vented his frustration at Robin Hood airport on Twitter). I don't have a problem with the internet being "policed", but it has to be done proportionately and with common sense.

Funny how the likes of China are often criticised for censoring free speech, yet we're heading in that general direction ourselves. :(
 
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Personally, if I was the one 'watching people', people who use Tor and anonymizers would be at the top of the list, and I've have people work on a way to get through them.
 
The trouble is we were given freedom and proved that we couldn't use it in a responsible manner, the only alternative is regulation. Sadly our generation were the internet pioneers and through greed, ignorance general weirdness we have blown it for everyone that comes after us.

Oh and just to clarify freedom of speach is not freedom of responsibility and never has been, you can say pretty much anything you like in this country and get away with it however step over the line and abuse your freddom of speach and you should expect the consequences. This obviously does not apply in the case of the man and Robin Hood Airport that had nothing to do with freedom of speach and everything to do with a stupid legal process.
 
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To many people on the web these days & just like everything else when Joe public invades they spoil it, Was the same with Raving. :(

Nowadays the Comedy is almost loss in a World that cannot tell the difference between real people & fakes so everybody scrabbles about trying to seek that popularity buzz they seem to not be able to do without.
 
The trouble is that governments often act in a knee-jerk and overreactive fashion, which means things are clamped down on to such an extent that reasonable law abiding people are penalised as well.
 
What it is that you feel you cannot currently do on the internet that you think you should be able to do?
 
Yes it's worrying, the internet should have remained a place where governments should have no place to poliece people and stay out of it. But like all things they want to control it for their own gains and the people are too dumb to prevent it.
 
Tyron said:
Yes it's worrying, the internet should have remained a place where governments should have no place to poliece people and stay out of it. But like all things they want to control it for their own gains and the people are too dumb to prevent it.
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The internet would have stayed like that had it not become a haven for criminals, perverts and the source of 99% of pirated material. If we'd all just stuck to our wordpress sites with flaming logos, ICQ and a bit of legal online retail the government would never have taken an interest. Sadly we filled th internet with pron of the most worrying kinds and and terrabytes of pirated material. Somebody has to regulate the internet because clearly we the users are not capable of self regulation.
 
a1ex2001 said:
The internet would have stayed like that had it not become a haven for criminals, perverts and the source of 99% of pirated material. If we'd all just stuck to our wordpress sites with flaming logos, ICQ and a bit of legal online retail the government would never have taken an interest. Sadly we filled th internet with pron of the most worrying kinds and and terrabytes of pirated material. Somebody has to regulate the internet because clearly we the users are not capable of self regulation.
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Pretty much this ^^^

I don't mind about them clamping down on piracy, porn, and anything else that is illegal, fair enough, direct insults to people as far as I'm concerned should be dealt with as well.

But if they clamp anything else down, it's just getting ridiculous in my mind
 
RDM said:
What it is that you feel you cannot currently do on the internet that you think you should be able to do?
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Illegal stuff.

All which is happening is very slowly Internet laws are coming in line with real world. You haven't lost freedom.
 
Sefirosu said:
If you go to a country you expect there to be laws and a police force to enforce them. The Internet is a place that people go to like any other, I don't see why it shouldn't be policed, just because it's not a 'physical' place.
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policing is one thing. for example stamping out child porn. but its more than that. look at australia. a 'mellow/liberal country'? my arse. they are trying to ban all kinds of things just because they dont like that idea. we wont be long.

tories blocking socialist sites? i know it sounds silly but you never know. of course labour will block things they dont like, such as well educated people in the drugs argument who want reforms (if they sack their own advisors who knows)

its a scary future.
 
We actually need to be protected from ourselves, property theft is widespread on the net and there are still quite a few people who think that the should be allowed to steal whatever they want in electronic format.
 
Morbius said:
The trouble is that governments often act in a knee-jerk and overreactive fashion, which means things are clamped down on to such an extent that reasonable law abiding people are penalised as well.
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you can thank the sun and the daily mail etc for all that. people need to abandon reading ****** newspapers.
 
Personally unless governments introduce a Chinese style mandate there is no way on gods earth they can regualte it tightly or maintain any kind of real control. For every block / ban / control a government puts in place user groups will find 10 ways to circumvent it.

Controlling the internet is going to be akin to trying to control outerspace.Its simply and impossible task without introducing legislation that will directly impinge on people freedoms, thus leading us into a new police state era. I think there will be a revolt before the people would allow that to happen.
 
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