Google to Censor Blogger Blogs on a ‘Per Country Basis
@ThreatLevel
They aren't the only ones. Twitter and possibly others will follow after ACTA passed far outside the reach of US public opinion in former Soviet block. Americans are prone to mistakenly think International policy doesn't affect those living in the United States. This is one instance where the US State Dept. was in on the censorship melee.
ALL THINGS MUST CHANGE
There are a lot of "information concubines". You know who you are. That would be the overindulged user-contributor-subscriber relationship to the free online services provided by Google, Facebook, Twitter and many other Internet services. Most everyone is on the hook for at least one free social network or mail service. The mutually beneficial relationship has been full of compromises, surprises, and discovery. The bad news is the party might be over as copyright police have shown up to break up the free love fest with censorship.
Censorship is injecting poison into a business model reliant on the User *as* the product. User partnership is endangered due to government attempts to continue failed policy in SOPA with International Internet policy in ACTA. Almost immediately following its passage, Internet service providers are feeling the hardening pinch of limits on content around the world.
ACTA's endorsement by the United States shows that second face of American Internet "freedom". SOPA-PIPA was wholeheartedly shot down by the Internet community, who threw their back into defending their business models, e-commerce and users rights. ACTA remained mobile as global policy hawks were waiting in the wings to sting content providers. There were strong copyright defense arguments embedded alongside flawed application of censorship for the WorldWideWeb. China would be an example of the equal opportunity offender by violating IP royalty patents, protected material and censoring free speech. They are a reason why governments are inspired to do more to protect International copyright, spiked with some envy of China's ability to silence lippy citizens.
To the surprise of many, the actions of world leaders moved ahead with little consideration of the immeditate impacts on the public interest using the Internet. It has resulted in some notes of open contrition to the tune of "WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!"
"I signed ACTA out of civic carelessness, because I did not pay enough attention. Quite simply, I did not clearly connect the agreement I had been instructed to sign with the agreement that, according to my own civic conviction, limits and withholds the freedom of engagement on the largest and most significant network in human history, and thus limits particularly the future of our children." - Helena Drnovšek Zorko, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Slovenia
I'm interested in what Scry. Hillary Clinton's excuse was, since United States citizenry had made it abundantly clear that both SOPA and PIPA were unacceptable for reasons of censorship, after a visable defeat in the Congress House and Senate.
A WINTER FOR THE NET
Google, Twitter and other Net reliant businesses are being hobbled by ACTA censorship. Users like myself are considering a move to other platforms as ACTA impacts of censorship policy move ahead. Internet business hands are being forced to hurt the ones they need to continue: the users.
It is a sad time for everyone. Bloggers and Vloggers cannot blog and be seen. Netcasters cannot netcast and be heard. Twitterers cannot tweet.
It is very depressing to sink your resources into a web based platform as both a business and a user and lose investor incentive to censorship. The overall promise of Internet freedom is that you can say what you need to say, be who you need to be and exercise your freedom of expression. Through ACTA all of this is being imperiled.
The best hope is for the Anti-SOPA/PIPA community to continue to move ahead: approaching other nations as signatories who refused vote or voted down ACTA, propose ways to help the copyright community so they are not left out in the cold, and ban iron fisted approaches and muzzles for the Internet.
Don't worry or lose hope. The free version of the Internet has a lot of friends. ; )
