Neowin.net

I'm not in any way condoning hate sites, I personally hate racism in all forms, but I think that I'd rather have a bunch of hate sites on the internet, knowing full well we have complete freedom to do what we like there, as opposed to the internet being monitored and moderated by a governmental body.
It's the price we pay for freedom.

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."
- Voltaire

Yeah, This statement pretty much sums up what I have to say. Even though we disagree with it, We have to accept it the pros and the cons of freedoms

i don't want hate sites closed down. one way to look at it is at least you can monitor these people and see who they are if they're promoting their hate over the internet. if you close them down then they're gonna go elsewhere to promote their hate, and if thats in RL then that could be much worse.

I hope this fails, not because I am for racism, but because who is the EU to define what is a "hate site" and what isn't?

drygnfyre beat me to it, thus:

Wow... how very EU of them

uh oh, I've just made neowin.net a hate site... better shut us down

ban hate sites?

right...so then the EU parliament starts blocking everything they consider "immoral"

this thing should not have even been brought up in the first place...it's a direct attack to free speech

"the content of the sites they host "
Someone knows a free webhoster in switzerland? ...
Sorry, except the "free speech" reason, what's the sense of it that a german ISP ban this site, and I can choose a webhoster outsite EU?
And what about all the free webhoster without any strictly access control, like funpic?
Or the content on his own, wikis, blogs, forums?

But yes, I am agree all the politicans from the EU need some reasons to exist, that cost only a lot of money, no more..

So basically it's one kind of fascists banning another kind of fascists.

We’re bound to have a heavily monitored Internet within the next 10 years. Just take a look at it: the EU wants to ban hate sites, the U.S. has complete control over the internet, and is endorsing an “Internet 2″, which many believe will bring an end to privacy, and the RIAA is enforcing DRM on copyrighted material. There isn’t trust, there isn’t freedom. The Internet is already becoming the opposite of what it should be. Why can’t we have a reasonable “no limits” zone? People can determine for themselves what is right and what isn’t. Why do we need the EU and the U.S. deciding for us without letting us form our own opinions?

Racism is bad in most of our minds, mine definitely included, and so are hate sites. But we can decide that for ourselves, and “the machine” can’t moderate everything for us. Web 2.0 is all about user-generated content, and yet the Internet 2.0 is headed towards the opposite: heavily-moderated content. Two things that we used to think were parallel are suddenly changing direction very quickly, and the final fight is upon us. The Internet is not powered, controlled, or moderated by one person or government, it’s run for the people, by the people, and is here to liberate the people.

Maybe this is a trust issue, in fact, it definitely is, but if one person is untrustworthy, why does everyone have to pay the price? Torrents, for example, are good technology: they create a network to download from instead of relying on one person or server. But because they are often used for illegal things such as cracks and piracy, they are looked upon as bad things by people who, quite frankly, don’t use them for anything, so they really don’t care whether they exist or not. But I use them for things like downloading various distributions of Linux and other large files that would put a large amount of load on one server, costing money.

We pay for the service of freedom when we buy an internet plan; it may come with conditions, and if you don’t like them, switch ISP’s. It’s not that easy when it comes to how the whole Internet is run: there is no way out. Once legislation is put in place by an extreme power in the world, it sticks, and it can’t be overruled. Most of us do not live in a palce where free speech does not exist, but we, as Internet users, are all headed towards a reality: governments control our lives on the Internet.

Don’t even get me started on China. Political opinions on the Internet? No way, you’ll have to find ways around it. The Internet in China is nothing but a page with a giant hole in it, and that hole is where freedom is in the rest of the world. I feel bad for the Chinese, I really do, but at the same time, they’re ahead of their time. We’ve worked for hundreds of years for freedom, liberation, and the one thing that gives us the most is slowly becoming something much less exciting.

The fight begins now. I know I’m not the only one who enjoys being on the current Internet, where we can do what we want, to a reasonable extent. Piracy is wrong. Racism is wrong. Freedom isn’t, and I want mine back.

Last edited by simon360 on 24 Apr 2007 - 00:42

My god, this facist group never stops ... first they're throwing political dissidents in jail under hate speech, now they're controlling the Internet.

Why do liberals, who claim their for free speech, continue to be in favour of this organization? The bigger government gets, the more power it takes, the more facist and controlling it becomes ... its common sense, which is why we smart people want smaller government - not an extra bloated layer of more politicians to control the people.

They're seizing the markets, with they're war on American companies, they're dissolving national governments (more power for them), and now banning free speech and controlling the Internet - but I'm sure its all worth it, imagine how much we'd suffer if we had to pay tarrifs on German cars or French wine - the horror.

Is it that much of a suprise the European Union has turned into the Soviet Union? When you put hundreds of unelected politicians together, they're bound to get power hungry and turn into facist pigs, which is why we need smaller government and constitutional rights to say what we want and elect who we wish, the EU has taken away both those rights.

If any UK citizen wants to air their concerns on this matter, here are the websites for the two disgraceful MPs who are pushing for this ban on free speech:

http://www.glynford.com/ Glyn Ford, a Labour member.
&
http://www.claudemoraes.net/ Claude Moraes, also Labour.

Yes, lets all have websites of ponies and flowers.

While I'm against it, I can see people getting upset if there is a website specifically about them attacking them, and there is nothing they can do about it. I'm sure then they'd want a ban on hate sites.

We are supposed to live in a democracy.

I don't like the BNP, NF or some other nazi hate filled groups, however they should be able to speak their mind as long as it does not break racism laws and I think the other law is section 4, to cause aggravated racism, to insight racism etc.


Who is going to Police this?

Someone start a petition on the UK Downing Street petition site, I'll sign it.

How about go F yourselves?

Remember these are the same countries that would not step into Bosnia to defend their rights to freedom of LIFE. Freedom of speech, give me a break...... When you are ready to fight for life, then talk about speech. Speech is all they are good for.