Well, if this got pulled through and the U.S. government would really block social networks (I doubt it though; people care more for facebook than politics nowadays), all you would have to do is log in via any non-American proxy server, and the topic is done.
But that's not the main issue.But now let's get down to the real problem here - which is not social networks and copyright issues. It's the state being allowed to block any and all websites,
just because they can.
The topic is all too familiar to me, because Germany has decided to do something like this, too. Not affecting copyright, but
everything else. It's just that we have less people who actually care - it got pulled through before anyone here said anything about it. Plus, some of our politicians want to remove anonymity from the Internet - completely.
Any Internet block is, of course, meant to block "terrorism", "violence", "freedom of speech", "political views" and "opposition". I heard of the new American bill on a multitude of sites today, and I hope for you that the control bill doesn't get passed.
The official goal of governmental censoring basically blocking stuff like illegal pornography and its ilk, yet it does not do that (at all). The "just look away; and if you dare look, you're gonna be gangraped by us" tactic of approaching things is a horrible mess. Plus, it is against a multitude of laws. You know, small ones like
a) The first amendment (or freedom of speech in most countries)
b) Any law concerning private data
I'm of course only mentioning two general terms, but anyone with more knowledge on topics such as this can post a shit-ton of pages of things this works against.
A little more in-depth about Germany now...You visit a site that got blocked for illegal contents? Too bad. The police is gonna knock on your day in the future, because you saw a site (have fun wiping your HDD for good). - - - That's basically how our Internet "stop signs" work and migods, am I happy to never have encountered one.
Like I said, it already exists in Germany, but well... our current actual political parties don't want to change anything about it and a petition with 134.000 people has been plain ignored.
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The following video is about the German situation (German text, Eng. sub), yet you will see that the similarities to the U.S., England and a lot other countries.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]I'll just suggest ya to give it a watch.
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FYI, the state is giving you trojans so they can snoop through your personal file with more ease. No joke here. It's legal for them to do that. Plus, you would be surprised how many people got jailed for just clicking a link some dude posted.
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[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Okay, quick question here: How many people could have clicked something like that out of morbid curiosity, thinking it's a joke or just plain not paying attention? Or even worse - because someone used your Wireless connection?
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Life sucks, fellas. Going back to Germany - one last comment: We have got one tiny political party (not a single woman in it, afaik) that is against all the constant surveilance. Too bad they don't know half a shit about politics, so they won't help us either.
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Horrible topic, non?
Have a good one - I might just make a thread about the data-saving monster that is
facebook (which I am forced to use for a while now and I do not want to know what kind of facts they have about me already).