Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Internet Your Rights Online

Yahoo! Given Reprieve In French Court Battle 209

Posted by Hemos from the national-international-transactional dept.
Spudley writes "The BBC is reporting that Yahoo! has been given a reprieve by a French court. The judge had previously ruled that they must block access in France to any Nazi-related auctions on their site. The judge has now asked for a panel to be set up, to provided technical information, before he decides the case." For more information, check out original article about this. It's a pretty interesting debate - how do national laws apply to the Internet?
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Yahoo! Given Reprieve In French Court Battle More

Yahoo! Given Reprieve In French Court Battle

Comments Filter:
  • Read the article, this is about Yahoo. Yahoo.fr has no Nazi stuff available. In the gambling case, the guy was a US citizen, therefore subject to US law. BTW, if Yahoo said No, probably Yahoo's assets in France could be seized, but short of blocking all of Yahoo's pages at the ISP level, there is not much that the French could do.

  • Just come out and say it (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You wanna know if chicks in Marseille are too hung up on anti-Americanism to keep you from getting laid.

  • This opens a whole new can of worms... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If French courts accept this interpretation, could China legitimately prosecute somebody who posts adverse information about it on French server, for example? Perhaps a better solution would be for all French users to register with the goverment, so that Yahoo could block their IPs. Let's see how they like that cake.

  • Can someone post a babelfish translation (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't read British

  • replies (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Its amusing reading all of these replies from arogant americans .. "yeah, we have total freedom of speech so europe will just have to stick it as well", or "what can france do to US companies? fk 'em". The fact is, we don't want freedom of speech USA style. We don't want people producing racist literature, we don't want our children to grow up in a world where people can advocate torturing and murdering people in public forums hiding behind the freedom of speech shield. Thats why European countries restrict some speech, not because we are information nazis, but because that speech is intended to have a negative effect on the people who read it and the vast majority of people find it distasteful and abhorent.

    btw, yahoo is easily capable of blocking french IP addresses from accessing nazi related auctions. I'm surprised at the technical ignorance of /. readers here.. yes, there are always ways around things like this, but thats the difference between publishing and smuggling.

    International law is strange - earlier this year a US court ordered a Hong Kong company (under the jurisdiction of China!) to pay damages of $18 million to a Japanese company and to cease production of its product line. Can you imagine the outrage if the reverse had happened - a Chinese court ordering a US company to pay up? The companies concerned were Bung vs Nintendo. So don't be surprised if you find yahoo is liable under international law after all.

  • Re:Finish this joke (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And the joke gets posted on cnnfrench.com as:

    A Rabbi and a *** walk into a bar.
    The Catholic bartender sez "Wot is this, some kind of joke?"
    The **** shoots the jewish owner and says "Yes! The joke's on him!"
  • Remember those medical marijuana bills in the U.S. that passed by an *astounding margin* (like 75-25, which is almost never seen, and beat school bonds) in Nevada, Alaska, New Mexico, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon, and (I think) 3 more states? They were all in the West.

    You forget one other, not in the West: Washington, D.C. The Powers That Be (the Federal Government) first refused even to let the referendum votes be counted, and then relented and merely prevented it from affecting the law. Note that residents of Washington, D.C. have absolutely no representation in Congress.

    A government that rules over people who have no role in determining it is usually called a dictatorship. Here, we call it Congress.

    I got your taxation wit
  • This is the reason why there should be only one world government, one judicial system and one world economics.

    Gods no. I have a trivial influence on the government of a nation of 270 million, or even a state of 5 million. I'd rather not see that diluted further.
  • I don't know about you but, even as a Jewish man disguised by a WASPy last name, I wouldn't want to walk around the country seeing swastikas on everything even if they were designed to destroy neo-Nazi solidarity!

    Don't you think that if you did, after a while it would lose its power as a Nazi-associated symbol? I don't think "Iron Cross" every time I see a + sign.

    Then again, widespread use of the word "f---" hasn't made it less of a curse word, so perhaps not.
  • When I said I did not think there was a concidence that there is a law against anti-semitism in a country of people which hates all things not french, I was making the implication that the government is telling the people what to think and in this circumstance, what not to think, which causes promotion of the nazi party and nazi doctrine which there is a law against.

    That may have been confusing, did you catch that?


    -[ Shanoyu - wtr - planetmofo.com ]-
  • Sir, I mean no offense but I fail to see how your ass is insightful at all.

    I am speaking specifically to the circumstances, most notibly where Hitler was prohibited from speaking to large groups of people, this caused Hitler to rise in popularity so that when he was finally able to speak to large groups of people he was then able to get large groups of people (who would not ordinarily come to his speaking engagements). I wont deny that the great monsters of history will be long forgotten by the time the general populace is ever forgiven, but there were a few circumstances in which hitler was censored, then uncensored, which is somewhat of a study on using censorship as promotion, courtesy of the Pre-Hitler German Government.

    Clearly the circumstances in france are not identical, however they are close.


    -[ Shanoyu - wtr - planetmofo.com ]-
  • Of course we aren't taught much history in america, we don't have seperation of School and State yet.

    But I am afaraid you are incorrect, when he first got out of prison he was prohibited from speaking to large groups of people, amongst other sanctions against him, and while Mein Kampf was not censored, it didn't need to be (or so it was thought). It was not thought that it would be published by any respectable bookbinder.

    It's illegal to be skeptical about certain things? Wow, thats worse than I thought.

    As for a country of people which hates all things not french, I was refering to the gigantic French-Identity crisis which afflicts both Quebec and France, breaking, entering, and attacking property of lawfully run buisnesses in france (Like McDonalds), refusing to sell transportation (like Subway tokens) to people whos command of the french language is not so great, and personally i've noticed you picking up an american hand gesture to show us how you feel about the citizens of the United States. (Clearly i've made the assumption you're french, so if you're not please attribute you to 'The french')


    -[ Shanoyu - wtr - planetmofo.com ]-
  • Well, that's still semantics.

    Taking it at face-value, incompetent would mean "not competent"; this could be construed as unskilled, ignorant, or not versed in a field, just as unqualified could be... But I suppose it has worse connotations attached to it, regardless.
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • It's about time a judge realized that he's incompetent to legislate what he doesn't understand; it's rare that they ever back down and admit their mistakes.

    Now if only we could teach Congress the same lesson...

    Mind you, I'm not saying there should be no controls placed on the Internet, or the computer industry in general; just that they should be informed.

    If it were possible to start a tech-savvy regulation board that occupies the same sort of position as the FDA or the FCC, but in charge of computers or the internet, I'd be all for it. But I have a feeling that they either wouldn't be impartial or wouldn't be tech-savvy, or wouldn't get anything done...

    So as usual, we'll probably have to do it all ourselves, and attempt to advise the people who have and exercise the power over what they do not understand.
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • First, about the marijuana. Why should eBay "as a respectable company" pull such an auction? How can you possibly equate marijuana with human body parts? Yes, ofcouse I'm biased, because I'm Dutch, but it's also a fact that marijuana is less addictive and less damaging than alcohol. All aside from the fact that I've never seen a stoned person beat somebody almost to death "just because he was stoned", whereas I have seen drunk people do that.

    Second, about what makes that page illegal. The matter is rather complicated in its own right. First, I assume that the French legislation about racism is at least very similar to the Dutch. Here in the Netherlands, it is illegal to say or display anything racistic. Since Nazis were obviously racists, that also includes Nazism and things associated with it. However, it is not the swastika that's banned. It is an ancient religious symbol that is in widespread use in eastern religions, and as such, there is nothing wrong with it. Displaying swastikas, Nazi flags, Hitler's speeches and such in the interest of history is okay aswell. But painting a swastika on the wall of a Jewish burial ground is not. But here comes the bit that's really relevant to this issue: it is illegal to sell or import any items such as flags, uniforms, gas canisters and Hitler's book Mein Kampf.

    It is not illegal to buy or own such stuff. It is however illegal to sell or import it. So basically, it would be legal for you to make a Nazi banner yourself, as long as you don't display it publicly, and don't sell it. The rules are becoming more forgiving though. In many right extremist marches Nazi banners and arm bands are displayed. Quite often right extremists have to be protected by the police to be safe from offended people.

    You may say "it's been over 50 years, get over it." But on the other hand, it was _only_ 50 years. Many people still alive, including our queen and her mother, have lived through that war, have actually seen the atrocities. Most elderly Jewish people in Europe have survived spending many years in hiding, or even Nazi camps. My own grandfather lived in a swamp for three years to hide from the Germans, my grandmother was once arrested and beaten almost to death because she had lost her ID, even though she had a note from the police that she had lost it. My parents' neighbour lost a hand when the allies bombed my home town to root out a Nazi military encampment.

    On top of that, war and genocide is going on right in Europe's back yard, right inbetween Italy and Greece, both members of the European Union, cutting all roads to the latter. Dare deny that we have a good reason to be sensitive when it comes to right extremist materials.

    Third, about the application of national laws to the Internet: they don't. But they do apply to the operators of the servers, and to the people surfing. Thus it is a good decision, imho, to pull the debated materials from yahoo.fr, because yahoo.fr's operators have to obey French laws. However, yahoo.com's operators do not, and thus have every right to keep displaying those goods. A French surfer buying those goods would break his country's laws, though. If not by buying it, then by importing it.

    Yahoo has no right (by US law) to bar French people access. The French government however can definitely decide to bar access to yahoo.com from French providers, but that just wouldn't work. IMHO, the best solution would be to pull it from yahoo.fr, and maybe put a notice on yahoo.com that it may not be legal to import the discussed materials to other countries and to check that before purchasing it.

    Ofcourse, IANAL...

    )O(
    Never underestimate the power of stupidity

  • UEJF is the Jewish students Union sueing Yahoo, BTW, for the sole purpose of getting free prime time visibility.

    I've put the URL to their online forum in my .sig for quite a while. Quite a few people came there to challenge their action. Interestingly, there was initially no official response from the Union, only from a few young jews who INITIALLY supported the UEJF's action. Initially ...

    Initially because those lamers, instead of responding to the issues raised, started deleting posts! That's right, they started censoring. No wonder. Anyway, those who used to supported started turning around and are now flaming them. Interesting!

    Even more interesting is that the guy officially in charge of the forum started posting, and he has quite a short temper, and he publically made a fool of himself.

    Also, if you read amongst the flames, what you see on the part of those fine people, is actually some kind of perverted racism. They refer to non-jews with the term "goy" in a rather derogatory way shall I say.

    Those people are just ridiculous. And please keep in mind who the enemy is here. On every french speaking newsgroup, NOBODY supports them.

  • I think you mean "associating", not "assimilating". "assimilating France with socialism" would mean that the previous poster was an active participant in the socialist takeover of France.

    Actually, "assimilate" means "to make similar", so it's somewhat correct, but that is a pretty big stretch.
  • The difference is direction. We don't let our crypto toys leave the country, but we aren't making swiss crypto toys (i.e. ssh) illegal to be offered to americans. The analogy would be if France said that American crypto sites must block access from France to sites that offer American crypto. This is not what happens. I don't necessarily agree with crypto blocking, but it's an entirely different argument.
  • The point is, in that case the gambler is breaking the law, not the casino.
  • You see, in the U.S. marijuana is evil. eBay will not allow marijuana auctions for PR.

    Imagine the headlines ...

    "Online Auction Site eBay Enters Drug Dealing Business."

    :-)

  • Just to mention something: most polytechnicians I know are pretty well versed in computer networks, the Internet and whatever. So I think you picked up a bad example here.

    On the other hand, you have got to take into account the man in the street, the vision of the average politician, the vision of the average journalist. Those people do not know the intricacies of TCP/IP networking (as the average man in the US). They are used to having technical solutions designed for them as any problem arises.

  • Define "French elite". By certain standards, I am a member of it. Yet, I do not defend horrors such as cédérom and whatever.

    The truth is that we have an aging political personnel that is a bit backwards. Everybody has this; think of the amount of Bible-waving intolerant fundamentalists there are in the US congress. Do you prefer a guy who just grumbles about a few foreign words or one that wants to tell you how to fuck, drink and how the world was created?

  • Yahoo has a subsidiary in France, which can be fined.

    Furthermore, it is possible that the matter takes a while to get settled definitely. They haven't yet appealed; then they could appeal to the supreme court for a question of law or procedure. Given the chronic overload of the courts, this could take years!

  • I think you mean "associating", not "assimilating". "assimilating France with socialism" would mean that the previous poster was an active participant in the socialist takeover of France. As he or she is a "heavily-armed American", I find that unlikely.

    Although I don't wish to state my opinion in such a strong manner, I do think (along with the previous poster) that the government of France is more socialist that the government of the United States. Common symptoms include much higher taxes, more government regulation, and more services provided to the citizen by the state. In some cases this is good for the country (the USA isn't perfect, that's for sure) but insofar as socialism can be blamed for the French government's position on Nazi-related items, socialism is evidently not so good for the freedom of speech in France.

    ...signed, a not-very-heavily-armed (but then again, the pen is mightier, right?) American.

  • I think it's reasonable for the country of which you are a citizen to expect you to follow its laws. You generally don't stop being a citizen just because you are temporarily on the soil of a different country. If you don't like the laws of your government, there are other countries that you can be a citizen of. Or you could lobby to change the laws of your country.

    I'm hoping this ruling is overturned, as it's completely wrong, IMO. Using this logic, some despotic regime would be within its rights to prosecute its citizens for criticizing it while in the U.S.

    That probably happens all the time already, but nothing bad happens to the person if the U.S. refuses to extradite such a person and grants them permanent asylum and/or citizenship.

    <flamebait>

    Unless you're a 6-year-old kid being dragged home to a dicatatorship - in that case, the U.S. is a big 'ol pushover.

    </flamebait>

  • Yes, they will give in and compromise with the French, and everything will be lovey-dovey with both Yahoo and the government of France. But my question is, "Why?"

    Actually, according to a previous /. article which I am too lazy to look up, Jerry Yang basically told the French court to stuff it. He said they would not be changing any content on Yahoo.com to please the French. I think they did change Yahoo.fr, but that's so their french sysadmins don't have to go to jail :)

  • Wow, some very interesting and informative background - thanks.

    I'm not saying France == Socialism; I was already aware that Sweden is much more the socialist country. Still, when you consider relative levels of taxes and government involvement in the ordinary citizen's life, from an American perspective the French system bears many of the same attributes as other socialist countries. France != Socialism and the socialistic symptoms that are present in France may not be due to true Socialism, but from this side of the pond it is pretty clear that France is closer to many of the ideals of socialism than the U.S, and thus is considered to be "more socialist" than the U.S.

  • > Talking about assasinating one's leader in a
    > country like that is illegal at best.

    that would be illegal in the US as well
  • Ok, so maybe it's slightly off-topic.

    from the BBC article:

    "Similar cases are also unfolding in other countries, including Germany, which recently banned Nazi slogans as web addresses.

    German justice minister Hertha Daebler-Gmelin
    called such sites "a new threat to our society", and said Germany would do all it could to fight such sites, even beyond its borders."

    Sounds like thay might be forced to invade France, Belgium, and the Netherlands...again.

    Oh, the horror!

    --- Te gustibus non disputandum est.
  • First, France has been invaded by the Nazi's. When you get the enemy on your land, it leaves pain for a long long time. The Frenchs are still wounded by the war. Far worst than the US.

    Don't the people in the Langue d'oc region still hate the rest of france for something? I thought it had something to do with the cathars?

    Eventually France will get over the Germans, or they will start a retribution war with them.

  • I was refering to the Albigensian crusades, the Languedoc region, the septimanians, the cathars and anything else involved on the south coast of France. I had heard some of the people in the region still consider themselves occitan?
  • The Nazi says, "I'm really sorry about what happened; I was just following orders!"

    The Rabbi looks upwards with a puzzled look on his face.

    The Nazi says, "What, what is it?"

    The Rabbi grabs a heavy pewter pitcher and brains the Nazi with it.

    The Bartender says to the Rabbi, "What was that for? I thought Rabbis were peaceful, and I'll have no trouble from anyone in my bar!"

    The Rabbi looks upwards again, and tries to explain.

    "I'm really sorry, I was just following orders!"
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • <rant>

    Yahoo is based in the US, pays US taxes, operates according to US laws. Why should France have any say in suing Yahoo over activities that are legal in the country Yahoo is established? France should go after its own citizens for buying/browsing this stuff, if they are going to go after anyone. This would be like an American going to Amsterdam and buying illicit drugs and the US suing the drug dealer in Amsterdam! No, if you are going to fuss about it, go after the American who broke the law, not the drug dealer in Amsterdam who was following his country's laws.

    If this holds up what's to stop small countries from using something like this as a monetary advantage? A small country quietly makes a law that it know a rich, American Internet company violates (say distributing pornographic pictures). They let the violation occur for a while, make a little fuss, but the Internet company doesn't do anything... then BAM, sue the company for millions.

    This whole case shows two things:

    • The French don't think their people are mature/intelligent/wise enough to handle multiple viewpoints or have freedom to express extreme ideas.
    • The whole world is stuck in this, "Blame someone else" syndrome. Spill hot coffee on your lap? Sue McDonalds! Your citizens are buying Nazi items? Sue Yahoo!

    </rant>

  • The way I understand it (and I'll try and get confirmation of this as soon as I can), is that it is illegal to make a _profit_ from anything Nazi related, or to promote the Nazi party.

    Not at all. It's perfectly legal to make a profit from selling non offensive Nazi-related stuff (you can sell Mein Kampf with the proper disclaimer).

    It's amazing how so many people specualte and give opinion when they obviously don't know shit about the topic.

  • The French government is not simply objecting to these items being sold to French citizens.

    This is NOT about the French government. This is about a crappy jewish student union abusing the law and justice to get free publicity. Nowhere in this case did the govt intervene or comment. Some losers (UEJF [uejf.org]) sued, the tribunal is hearing their request, there is no sentence yet, there is no govt intervention, there is not much actually yet.

  • ERR, maybe on a different planet, in a different galaxy, but there's not such thing that I'm aware of.

  • The indication I got from a lot of the reports I read is that it's not just promotion of articles relating to the Nazi Party but the exhibition, display or sale of any items relating to Nazism.

    Then you understand it wrong. Look, this trial is stupid enough in itself, you don't have to add your own to it.

  • Did you realize that this entire article violates Godwin's Law?
  • It would depend which way the swastika points...

    I have a photograph of an altar in Lapland (I'm part Finnish) which has two swastikas on it - pointing the same direction as the Nazi Harakrista. They're blue - the same colour as that used on Finnish miltary aircraft until the end of the Continuation War.

    In the semi-pagan folklore that prevailed in Northern Europe until a few hundred years ago, the swastika was a symbol of the sun. It's unfortunate that it has become a symbol of hate for so many people.

    Chris

  • I do have a file of all IP blocks corresponding to network located in France, extracted from the RIPE database [ripe.net]. It's not based on DNS. Of course, there are perhaps a few networks located in France that are not in that file, but the vast majority of them is inside.

    Turning that file into a filter is just a matter of programming (I have other things to do now, but I might do it soon if needs be).

  • It's possible to get a file containing all IP blocks registered by a French organization. Just extract it from the RIPE database [slashdot.org]. Proof: I did it.

  • French law prohibits promoting material that encourages racial hatred (and other crimes - for instance you cannot write in the press that a certain person should be murdered).

    The reason why nazi paraphernalia is targeted like this is that most people do not like nazis parading. Let me explain a few things to you:

    • France was invaded after brutal fighting that left quite a lot of soldiers dead (on both sides). Go to any French college, look at the monument to the dead.
    • French citizens were routinely rounded as hostages. Many were forced to work in Germany.
    • French and foreign jews were slaughtered en masse.

    All this, admitted, happened because of the complicity of an ultraconservative puppet government put into place by the nazis.

    Now you understand that when an holocaust survivor sees nazi stuff, he gets a bit nervous and wants it banned. Yes, there are some holocaust survivor still alive today. And many people feel the same way.

    It happens too in the US. Several US criminals (take Ira Einhorn, for instance) have been sentenced to steep civil penalties so that they can't make money out of money or film deals. What is the reason? People do not want criminals to parade, nor do they want people to parade with instruments of crime.

    Now, perhaps the injunction on Yahoo was clumsy (I think it is). But you can see it does come from very understandable human reasons.

  • You don't fight Nazism by practicing its methods.

    No, but you can fight it by bringing skinheads out into the open and showing people how ridiculous and small-minded they really are. I recommend practicing that approach with every kind of fanatic, whether they be white supremacists, religious fanatics, or oppressive governments. Guess which one is looking silly in this case.

  • Except for the fact that you have private property. You have a social-welfare government, not a socialist government.

    And British "free press" is seriously in doubt anyway, considering the Offical Secrets Act, no constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech, no written constitution period. But that's the difference between a subject and a citizen, I guess.
  • How about it didn't have anything to do with the war? Hey, Lincoln didn't even issue the Emancipation Proclamation until September, 1862.

    Let's face it, the _expansion_ of slavery was the killer political issue. The northern states were overpopulated and lacked farmland. Opening the new territories to slavery meant huge plantations not little farms. Don't think for a minute that your typical white northerner cared a whit for slaves. Basically this issue devolved into a states-rights fight that turned into a shooting war. Slavery was an issue, but the issue was "How much?" not "Let's not".

    Big-picture, I think the Marxists are right on this one. This really was a conflict about _economics_ (slave economy vs. capitalist economy) not how to love your fellow man.

    Of course we still haven't solved the race issue in the US. Last I checked the NAACP was complaining about Jews. (I know, "..but Judaism is a religion, not a race" -- YOU explain it to the NAACP!)
  • Whilst the presence of the above does tend to indicate the presence of a more socialistic government, the strength of 'freedom of speech' laws is incidental to the socio-economic[1] model.
    Whoops! In your zeal to use a big word and a footnote, you got your political theory backwards.

    Actually, the underpinning of freedom from government tyranny is private property. When the government can take things away at will (socialists call this "redistribution", everybody else calls it "confiscation") they can pretty easily deny you you're right to speak, since the means of communication are generally owned or dominated by the government who saw fit to confisicate, er, redistribute those items first.

    As an intellectual exercise, name the leading free-press sources in socialist North Korea and Cuba. Now, do the same for the United States and Britain. Compare lists. Which is longer? Surprise! It's not the one from Havana and Pyongyang.

  • The only logical solutions are

    1. Repeal it as an unenforcable law
    2. Set up a national firewall like China
    Anything else will just lead to more inconsistencies and hypocrisy. Because when you get right down to the bits, the entity that is transmitting the hate speech in France is some common-carrier router.
    ---

  • (Obvious rejoinder:) In America you don't seem to be taught much History. Hitler was not silenced and censored. He was put in prison, true, but that was for attempting to take power. He wrote Mein Kampf while in prison. The book was not censored until after the war; nor were his ideas or his party made illegal.

    There is no law against "anti-semitism" in French. There is a law stating that it is illegal to deny the existence of a genocide. Now though I disagree with your arguments, I agree with the conclusion that such a law is utterly stupid, and, above all, very dangerous (it has given rise to a frightening witch hunt, and some genuine historians have been brought to justice because they had said certain things about the Armenian genocide, I think). There are also laws against discriminations in general, but nothing specific against anti-semitism; those laws I am rather in favor of.

    As for "a country of people which hates all things not french", this is a gratuitous troll, and your post should have been moderated down for that if not for anything else.

  • there were no hypothetical questions?

    No no no. That's someon's sig.

    What if someone in Spain was using a loud speaker to auction off Nazi paraphenalia near the French border in such a way that the French people could hear? What would the judge do? He should do the same thing in this case.

    What if someone from Amsterdam floated a hot-air balloon advertising certain adult services such that the picturesque advert could be seen from other countries where such pubi^Hlic displays were other-than-legal? What would the judge do then? He should do the same thing in this case.

    If your country has laws that makes it illegal to see information then contact your leaders and inform them that they need to round up every person with access to the internet and throw them in jail. If there is also public access to the internet, then inform the leader that they need to round up everyone in the whole damn country, including themselves, and lock up the whole bunch. Stupid problems require stupid solutions afterall.

    BTW, I do draw a distinction between having access to information and acting on it.

  • The judicial branch of the US government made a ruling that ICraveTV was performing illegal acts even though it had no jurisdiction to say so and was completely legal in Canada.

    -- iCEBaLM
  • A couple of important points:

    1. This is about Yahoo!France, not Yahoo! and the difference is pointed out in another thread above.

    2. The US, as pointed out in a previous post, has tried and convicted a person on criminal gambling charges even though the man and his business (and his servers) were all located in a country where gambling is legal.

    However, the conclusions you draw are somewhat accurate. Other than a French fine of Yahoo! or taking Yahoo.fr out of their domain space, it does not look like France could really do anything to the parent company.

    Also, you may have inadvertantly touched on the most effective way of shutting down a major web site such as Yahoo! If the French army invaded the corporate and technical offices of Yahoo! the administrative staff would be overwhealmed by the droves of surrendering French, unable to continue their duties the entire organization would grind to a hault from the bottom up.

  • 1. Anything like what france is doing is stupid.

    2. what the American did was LEGAL where he did it so he should not be bothered.

    3. anybody that thinks otherwise is probably a Fed that does not know jack about what freedom is all about

  • No, it is good for diffrent nations to have incompatable laws (not allowed to censor Nazis in the U.S., but required to censor Nazis in France) as this limits the multinationals and exposes people to diffrent laws and clutures. I'm saing that we do not want the internet to be governed seperatly from the countries.. we do not want the internet to be governed at all.. at least not in a traditional sence of the word, i.e. the powers to censor, tax, regulate, standardize, etc.

    We want to internet to be governed by it's protocolls which we want to be developed by an academic style meritocrasy, i.e. that's cool lets write some programs which use that and see what happens. The internet needs no government.. only research and development.
  • I'm dutch, not french. but on the nazi-related stuff: in the netherlands 'Mein Kampf' in it's original form is outlawed. However.. an annotated version is NOT. Basically it has some views added from the other side(tm). It's not censored. The laws here are not against nazi-related, they are against Nazi-propaganda, and I wouldn't be surprised if french laws were something like that too.

    //rdj
  • I don't agree with either, but banning 'heil-hitler.de' (the URL that caused all the ruckus) makes more sense to me than banning stuff like microsof.com (no, I don't know whether it's a real case.. but it could be..)

    //rdj
  • saudi arabia just completely blocked all of yahoo for nudity.. btw.. selling marihuana over the web from amsterdam probably WILL get you arrested: marihuana in the netherlands is officially still a controlled substance. Only officially though ;)

    //rdj
  • What would it be illegal to stand on the border and shout into France?

    Or, even more accurately, what would it be illegal to say over the telephone in France, regardless of where you are?

    Or, yet more precisely, what would it be illegal for you to put as the outgoing message on your answering machine that anyone in France might call and hear?

  • I said:
    I bring up how nice it would be, for the stability of the world at least, if someone shot the Iraqi leader in the head.

    Not in that context, no. I can converse for hours on the subject of 'what would happen if Bill 'Oops, let me wipe that off' Clinton got capped' or 'how the world might change if someone nuked the UN' or even 'who would be moving into the White House if somebody blew Dick Cheney up with a compressed air hose/giant cartoon bellows' Conjecture and discussion is fine, threats and conspiracy are not.

    But I flame in vain.. I should have phrased that 'talking about the assasination of one's leader'.
  • No, those are not the only options.

    Say I'm talking on the phone to someone in Iraq. I bring up how nice it would be, for the stability of the world at least, if someone shot the Iraqi leader in the head. Talking about assasinating one's leader in a country like that is illegal at best.

    What does he do? He either tells me to drop the subject, or hangs up. If Francois W. Publique, French citizen, hits up Ebay and finds a Nazi helmet, he has the option to hit the back button or leave Ebay entirely to stay within the law.
  • I had heard some of the people in the region still consider themselves occitan?
    Yes and rightly so. France annexed the south of France in the 13th century. Occitania has always (and still is) much closer culturally speaking to Catalonia (i.e. Barcelona et. al) than the north of France. Unfortunately, in France, it seems only Paris count for something.
  • It would depend which way the swastika points...

    does it point the way of the Nazi, or does it point the way that Greek crosses as well as other religious symbols point?

    Again, it also has to depend on the context of the item. A swastika is just a symbol, but if the symbol in question relates to the Nazi party, then that would be illegal
  • God, the number of clueless posts here is amazing. Here go a couple clues to work with people.

    1) National laws apply when a crime is commited inside of nation.
    2) The only way the internet can affect a national law is if the transaction occurs across national boundaries.
    3) If you're going to do international transactions you have to obey all applicable laws for each nation involved.

    My personal opinion is that if Yahoo can't work with French laws, then they shouldn't have any business dealings there.

    Secondly I think it's obvious that E-Commerce sites like are going to have to implement a form territory restrictions to ensure that they don't sell material which is banned in certain territories. This is not that big a deal, these companies need to respect the law of whatever country the customer is in.
    --
    Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
    If you can't be informative, use my name
  • It doesn't matter where the servers are. Doing business with someone while they are on French soil brings on French jurisdiction. It's the same reason why someone in Minnesota who gambles with an offshore internet casino is still breaking Minnesota law.
  • The casino is breaking the law as well, it's just a matter of whether the local jurisdiction can get their hands on them.

    Here [gamblesearch.com] are some interesting links talking about the issue.

  • So? We're talking about jurisdiction relating to international transactions taking place via the Internet - not whether the law itself is stupid. Like another poster noted, the situation is similar to that of offshore Internet gambling.
  • Basically, if you do business in a certain area, you are bound by the laws of that land. In Yahoo!'s case, they have buyers and sellers on their auctions from France, so they have to obey the laws just like any local site would. If you don't want to be governed by a certain country's laws, don't do business there (i.e. ban users from that region).

    In this case, Yahoo! will have an interesting decision to make. They can

    get rid of Nazi-related auctions,

    get rid of French users, or

    come up a means to prevent French users from accessing Nazi auctions.

  • Bingo! That is it exactly. The only way to fight bad speach is with good speach. Using the tactics of authoritarianism to fight authoritarianism is, to put it kindly, stupid.

  • ...that it isn't just U.S. courts that are complete idiots regarding the internet.

    The technology to block French users from the US based Yahoo is not just "immature".. it's flat out impossible.

    The only good sign is that the French judge may, like his American counterparts, eventually "get it" and leave foreign sites alone.

  • Whether it is "right or wrong" or not I wear an SS belt buckle in remembrance of him.

    It's right for the reason you do it, but it's wrong because it can offend someone whose father was shot in the back of the neck by an SS man, while laying on the ground of a pit he was forced to dig.

  • My point wasn't that the purpose of the civil war was to end slavery, but that abolition was a direct result anyway. Lincoln made it clear that he'd rather keep the union together than end slavery; the emancipation proclamation occurred when it was obvious that there was no peaceful way to do this.

    Of course we still haven't solved the race issue in the US. Last I checked the NAACP was complaining about Jews.

    This is something I've never heard of. Could you provide a source for this information? Not only was one of the NAACP's founders Jewish, but the organization was one of the few American groups that spoke out against the Nazi treatment of Jews during the early years of their persecution.
    --
  • This isn't what the BBC article [bbc.co.uk] says. In it, the author states:

    Yahoo!'s French site, www.fr.yahoo.com, currently offers no Nazi memorabilia...

    ...and goes on to state that the judge wanted Yahoo! to make access to these auctions by French citizens "impossible". This goes beyond changing what's available on the French website.

  • This is an interesting question.. I wonder if people have too quickly jumped to the conclusion that the online auction houses don't really have a responsibility to respond to local laws.

    To an extent, I think they do. What if someone in Amsterdam were to post an ounce of marijuana on eBay? It would get taken down, because it's not legal to sell here. We're obviously respecting US laws. Now, granted, the French are pretty silly - but they *may* have a legitimate gripe about having their laws respected.

    PS -- Just kidding about that silly French remark.. :)

  • Theres a stream of thought in the Humanities called 'semiotics', in short, it's the study of symbolic representation in cultures. Part of this suggests that there are two major components to a 'sign'. A signifier and a signified. Now in the case of a swatstika, generally this sort of works out to be that the signifier is the swatstika, and the signified is naziism. (What is the sign and what it represents. It's kinda like pointers in C!.

    One rather successfull tactic in combating the power of these oppressive symbols (And amongst alot of sociologists and psychologists there is agreement that symbols can really disturb people), is to reconfigure them.

    Take the word 'bitch'. Traditionally it's kinda signified 'stupid bad woman'. But a lot of women have been using it to mean 'powerfull woman'. Ie my sisters proclaimation that she is 100% bitch and proud. The same thing applies to the word 'n*gger'. Many afro-americans have been using it in a non derogatory way. It's reclaiming the signifier, and saying 'screw you-- this word is mine now'. It's also a type of pointer math.

    The problem is however, that while a swatstika did indeed mean 'peace' to budhists many moons ago, it now means 'naziism' to most people.Trying to dislodge the signified and reconfiguring this has a grave danger of leaving no pointers to the fact of nazi horror, and before long histories little 'java garbage collector' is gonna come along and we'll forget one of the most important lessons of the last 100 years.. That is, that extreme (maybe all) right wing politics can lead to absolute horror.

  • That's the worst solution I've ever heard.

    Personally, I think one government is inadequate even for a single nation. Remember those medical marijuana bills in the U.S. that passed by an *astounding margin* (like 75-25, which is almost never seen, and beat school bonds) in Nevada, Alaska, New Mexico, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon, and (I think) 3 more states? They were all in the West.

    Personally, I wish every day that the Union had lost the civil war, and we had three nations - the North, South, and West.

    To those of you who are British, I'd like to ask - despite all the really ugly wars you had throughout this century, do you really think it would be better to have been sharing a government with France and Germany all along?

    As for the internet, it needs to be strictly controlled for abuse (I wouldn't mind Interpol hunting down spammers and script kiddies, yanking their 'net connections, and putting them on "don't use a computer or you'll be seeing prison time" parole for, say, five years), and completely free in terms of content. Local governments should decide whether they want their citizens to have access to things that are completely free in terms of content. If France doesn't like Nazi material on the internet, it should just cut all the cables going to the country. In my mind, it's that simple.

  • IIRC, several years ago an American who had set up a white supremicist neo-nazi website went on vacation to Norway (I believe) where he was immediately arrested and deported to Germany, where any nazi or neo-nazi propaganda is illegal. The American was tried and convicted and had to do jail time. The U.S. government did not intervene.

    What does this mean for Yahoo? The French government has no legal authority to require Yahoo to remove any material from any US-based servers. However, the French authorities have every right to arrest, try and convict the Yahoos responsible, should they set foot in France. Due to European extridition agreements, Yahoo execs (Jerry Yang comes to mind) would be well advised to avoid that European vacation.

  • Wow! My very own imposter! I'm impressed (not).
  • Well, I have no need of another account... why were you posting what you were posting? You weren't doing what other imposters tend to do... you were just posting (if a bit inane) normal stuff.
  • I think the answer to that is fairly simple:

    they should not have to take down the marijuana for US legal reasons. I guess I feel that Ebay as a responsible corporate entity should take it down, as they do with auctions of body parts, etc. However, I don't believe that eba should be required to take it down. Now, if someone in the US bought it, it would be illegal to ship the marijuana to the US (for both parties involved? I don't know). I think that the French case should be handled similarly: The auction should stay, but it should be illegal to ship the item into France. I don't know exactly what the legal reasoning is, but I bet that its that it is illegal to sell such things in France. However, I doubt that the actual pages are illegal. The article on ZDNN that I read didn't explain it very well. Perhaps someone could fill in. BTW: IANAL.

    ---

  • I think eBay should act as respectable corporate US citizen. That doesn't mean they will of course. What I mean by this is that they should try to stay in the spirit of the US law, which forbids selling marijuana. The only difference between that and body parts is that most people have a much greater objection to body parts (myself included). Also, most (not all, I believe) countries make sales of body parts illegal, including the US. eBay could say that such auctions are illegal somewhere and so they will be left up, but I think that is irresponsible and that many people would object. So the French Yahoo! (and perhaps the english one too?) should similarly be responsible and act in accordance with the intent of such laws, whether or not hosting the auction is illegal. They should simply pull the auction and be done with it. In general, I agree with your senitments.

    ---
  • Since when is it my responsibility as an entity of a seperate state to uphold and obey the laws of another state? I am very interested in the official response from Yahoo.

    Yes, they will give in and compromise with the French, and everything will be lovey-dovey with both Yahoo and the government of France. But my question is, "Why?"

    Why is compromise the first thing that both business and government (or organization and government, in the case of most special-interest groups) look to when they clash on any particular topic?

    Why can't someone of some stature just stand up and say, "Hell no I won't do that, it goes against everything I stand for!"

    I'm awaiting the CEO, President, or celebrity that does just such a thing, and planning on backing them 100% despite my opinion of what the situation is.

    I would have backed Lars with his stand against Napster if he wouldn't have stood behind the RIAA and requested government action.

    I would have backed PETA if they wouldn't have called on the government to make a decision regarding the removal of an offensive website.

    I would have backed Netscape, Sun, and even possibly AOL, but they continue to hide behind the judicial system, and promote fear, uncertainity, and doubt about what a world without them would be like.

    I'd like to challenge big business, big interest groups, and big people altogether to try something new: Don't take the easy way out. Nowadays, getting the government involved is the wimp's way of handling a problem.

    Not to mention how much all this "governement" involvement is making us the piss at the bottom of the gutter. The difference between myself and the rest of the accumulation is that I know I'm nothing.

    For the first time in world history, all humans exist under a government in which not a single person reading this message had any involvement in creating.

    For United States citizens, it is our money and our troops being used by foreign countries irresponsibily and without reason.

    For other countries, it is those damn Yanks with their freaking "pop culture" and liberal views corrupting society.

    The only solution is for the US to drop support of the UN.

    US: No problem
    Other countries: You can't do that!

    I would like to see a President who would. Unfortunately, Bush isn't the one who would do it. I'm not an isolationist, just someone who notices that the current situation is getting us nowhere, so we need to rethink it.

    And to answer a previous poster's question:

    If someone wanted to put a kilo of Mary Jane on Ebay, and it was illegal here, Ebay would be required under US law to stop the auction.

    If someone wanted to put a kilo of Mary Jane on an Amsterdam auction, and the US didn't like it, the US can shove it and forget about the whole deal.

    I don't see what is so complicated about it. If someone is doing something I don't like, I have the ability to speak, to request, to announce, and to plead.

    If after that they still want to do it, I should mind my own fscking business and go about my life.

    It doesn't get any simpler than that.
  • about freedom of speech, is that everyone is all for it as long as its speech that does not upset them..

    I say you dont make ugly problems like facism go away by trying to hide them in the dark - Shine the light on them and expose them for what they are. Stupid.


    --------------------------------------
  • The reason for (if French law is the same as Dutch law) is that most of these items fall under the category 'inciting race hatred' or 'discriminatory'. Publication of material of this kind can be a criminal offence in most European countries.

    It is similar to laws regarding nudity in content accessible by children in the US, which, by European standards, are strict to the point of being absurd.

    The reason that these kinds of laws exist in Europe is that not only that a lot people who are old enough have suffered from the consequences of racism/national socialism, but also that for the European democracies as they exist after the war, the very reason of existance is related directly to WWII and its horrors.

    Especially since the 1960s the moral framework and justification for democracy and European integration has racism and national socialism as a negative reference point. Anything that condones these ideologies is by definition an attack on the European democracies, hence the zealousness with which they are fought within the bounds allowable by a normal democracy

    Of course there are grey areas but they are much the same as with the decency laws, you are right in that they are the price of curtailing freedom of speech in a certain direction, but it's a question of priorities. Sander

  • But fascism by court decree...

    I wish Europe would get over this awful era. I've got some nifty items which bear swastikas, which were made at least 100 years before WWII. Would I have to accompany these with some french certificate before selling on Yahoo?

    Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000

  • Europe is rather edutaining (Score:3)

    by Shanoyu ( 975 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @09:31AM (#862199)
    I am perpetually amazed with Europe's ability to repeat the mistakes of the past. Hitler was silenced and censored before, but unfortunately this did not work. It did not stop Hitler then, and it would not stop a new Hitler now.

    The reason for this is that if you cannot reach Point B from a point A that does not exist. If you allow Hate Groups to speak without government interference, then others will have reason to speak and rally against them. That is, the French should not need the help of their government to understand why Anti-Semitism and racism is ridiculious and wrong. I do not believe it is a concidence that there is a law against anti-semitism in a country of people which hates all things not french.

    To elaborate, it is very possible that the very existance of these laws against anti-semitism creates anti-semitism by virtue of it's distrust of the morality and sensibility of the peoples it is enforced upon.

    In america, we've always felt that Anti-Semetics and racists make themselves look like idiots without help from the government or anyone for that matter. Should Europe choose to continue this trend of censorship, I fully expect Europe to see a new Hitler.


    -[ Shanoyu - wtr - planetmofo.com ]-

  • Protecting citizens from government (Score:3)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @01:05PM (#862200) Homepage Journal

    My response is, "No matter how many hundreds of guns you own, if the government decides to kill you, they are going to do it. They have these new things called tanks and helicopters, and you don't."

    Heh. Some would argue that the purpose of Second Ammendment is to give the citizens the means to stand up against the government, should they ever need to defend themselves from it or even overthrow it. That doesn't sound like too much of a far-fetched interpretation either, given the times that it was written.

    But if one interprets the right to bear arms in that way, then it would include things like tanks, helicopters, and -- good grief -- tactical nukes.

    As you can imagine, no one (including me) wants the Montana Freemen to have nukes, so there's a strong incentive for not interpreting the ammendment in this manner, regardless of whether that was its original intent or not.


    ---

  • Good Judge... probably (Score:3)

    by DarkMan ( 32280 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @08:15AM (#862201) Journal
    This is actually a good sign. The judge has asked for more technical details. Hopefuly it can be pointed out to him the problems.

    1) French law makes it illegal to promote items relating to the Nazi party [0], making it illegal for Yahoo to auction nazi items in France.

    2) American consitution makes it illegal for Yahoo to be forced to stop (under free speech).

    3) Yahoo.fr has pulled the specified aution pages, but french people can still see them at yahoo.com.

    So the judge is probably [1] weighing up whether it is a greater wrong to allow some french people to seem these items, or to attempt to force Yahoo to block the french.

    One interesting point is that I don't belive [2] that the judge can specify technical details of implementation, just "pull it" or "you can leave it". If he decided to pull it, then Yahoo either have to block *.fr, or a list of all french IP addresses.

    The formar is possable, but not complete, the latter is complete, but probably not possable. And let's not start on proxies.

    All in all, I think it's good that the judge reailiese that there are technical issues, and is looking into them.

    [0] Probably a little excessive, but that's beyond the scope here.

    [1] And this is only my opinion

    [2] IANAL

  • Re:Here's one answer (Score:3)

    by iCEBaLM ( 34905 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @09:01AM (#862202)
    Well the deal here is that because the US thinks it controls the world, it also thinks its laws apply to the entire world, so the judicial branch of the US government thinks it applies to the entire world, regardless of reality.

    Case in point: ICraveTV, Jon Johansen.

    -- iCEBaLM

  • Re:This opens a whole new can of worms... (Score:3)

    by flatrock ( 79357 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @11:13AM (#862203)
    Perhaps a better solution would be for all French users to register with the goverment, so that Yahoo could block their IPs.

    A better solution would be for the French government to find a way to prevent French citizens from reaching those sites domestically. They should not be trying to force a company in a different country to enforce their own national laws. Yahoo has abided by their laws on their site which was created for the French. The servers for the site in question is not in France. If the French government wants their citizens banned from accessing content on them, then it's the French government's problem, not Yahoo's. If the French can't block the user's domestically, then they should be able to approach Yahoo and see if Yahoo would be willing to implement some method of blocking their users, but the government better be willing to pay for it.

    The French government seems to have a problem understanding other countries don't have to enforce their domestic laws for them. Our government here in the United States also suffers from this delusion from time to time.

    If the French government can't deal with this then Yahoo should probably sell their French assets. If they don't have any assets in France, there's probably not much the French government can do if Yahoo choses not to comply with their wishes. If the French govenment doesn't want to play nice, then let them play by themselves.

  • From a French point-de-vue (Score:3)

    by dudle ( 93939 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @11:45AM (#862204) Homepage

    Disclaimer : I am a French Jew and I live in the US for about 2 years now.

    There are several points one needs to think about when you read this whole Yahoo-French story. Let me try to explain them one by one. Some of the points I will discuss have been brought up by Lionel Jospin, French Prime Minister regarding this very story with Yahoo. I really want to emphasize the fact that I am not trying to put my opinion in place, I just want to explain how come the Frenchs can do that.

    First, France has been invaded by the Nazi's. When you get the enemy on your land, it leaves pain for a long long time. The Frenchs are still wounded by the war. Far worst than the US.

    Second, You guys see that story from an American Point of Vue (point de vue in French). The USA is the country of Freedom, Liberty, the right for everyone to be armed, etc... The US have a much stronger "I have the right to do and say whatever I want as long as I don't mess up with what my neighbor thinks or wants" than the French. You want an example? Look at the topic this story has been put into : censorship. For an American, this whole thing is considered as censorship, as someone trying to keep someone else from expressing his/her thoughts. In France, things are a little bit different. Taboos are not the same. Here, sex in the worplace is taboo (Lewinski affair.), in France Nazi stuff is taboo.

    Third : The French's in general, especially the french government have no clue what the Internet is about. The don't get the whole picture. They want to translate CD-ROM with cederom. Email -> mel. Does it make sense ? Of course ... since they don't get it. They see the Internet as something new, frightening, that is going to eliminate their culture and they don't really like it. 15% - 20% of the houses in France have access to the Internet. This can explain that.

    When they issue some ruling like this one, they are misinformed. They think that technicaly Yahoo can filter French people with 95% accuracy. Well, I am a Network Engineer, and I am wondering how they are going to do that with 95% accuracy. Who tells them that? Looooonnnnnggg story. For more info, look for keywords like polytechnique, Ecole Normale d'Administration (ENA), etc. The Elites in France are the one reponsible for that mess.

    I hope this will help you understand why and how they came to that point. Cultural differences are a value in this world (especially my accent with women :) ). It's just a matter of getting the information.

    If you read that and wonder what I think of all this, you came to the wrong place. I hate the Frenchs! (there was a song like that somewhere)

    Cheers!

  • how do national laws apply to the Internet?

    Maybe its best that they didn't. Its nearly impossible for a website about even normal things to follow all the laws out there. Are we to try to block all accsess to all those websites about fishing, nature, etc., because they make some wussy 30 sq. mi. country in Europe mad?

    Let the Internet be governed seperatly from the rest of the world. The only trubble is keeping control of that government away from greedy corperatists. They can have their say, of course, which is only fair. However, they should not control it the way the control the US government today.


    ------

  • Re:Hmmm ... (Score:3)

    by kalifa ( 143176 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @10:55AM (#862206)
    > In the French case the official line is to try
    > and obscure their collaboration in the Holocaust
    > by emphasising the (negligible) role of the
    > Resistance.

    I'm sorry, but this is just 100% wrong. The French are _obsessed_ with their past when it comes to the collaboration. Indeed, just after the war, they tried to obscure these memories, and, in this hysterical climate, they conducted huge trials where collaborators were hastly and severely condemned.

    Today, things have changed. Most of our philosophers, historians, intellectuals, and even lawyers, are looking back at this period, trying to explain, understand ans accurately determine how things worked. Even Papon, who was a minister in the Gaullist government in the 60's, has been judged and condemned 3 or 4 years ago, and is now in jail.

    The National Front has built itself on these trauma, this lost confidence, this complex of inferiority that the French seem to cultivate sometimes without any reason. However, its electoral score never went beyond 15%, and has strongly declined during the last years.

  • The French People (Score:3)

    by tealover ( 187148 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @08:12AM (#862207)
    I feel sorry for the French. They have tried valiantly to secure their way of life. Everything from trying to limit the inclusion of english words into their lexicon (email, for example) to controlling the ratio of english to french content on french web sites.

    The Internet is going to change that. And I wonder how the French will handle their loss of control. There early responses don't bode well.

    I respect the French people and admire their culture. I seriously wonder, however, whether it has a future.

  • Whose nation is it anyway? (Score:3)

    by FatouDust ( 197743 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @08:19AM (#862208)
    It's an age-old debate. How do national laws apply to the internet? They don't. Will they be made to do so? Without a doubt.

    How can an entity comprised of information be governed by a system based on the physical? How can geographic governments rule what is not geographic? As far as information is concerned, and commerce to that extent, geography is essentially obsolete.

    Take a look at this old article from the US Treasury that touches on the subject of geography's irrelevance. [treas.gov] The relevant question is, how do we convey to stodgy legislators the essential freedom from barriers that earmarks communication today?

    ---
    "The Constitution...is not a suicide pact."

  • Get over it??? Take a "shower" and say that... (Score:3)

    by Benwick ( 203287 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @08:48AM (#862209) Journal
    But fascism by court decree...

    I wish Europe would get over this awful era. I've got some nifty items which bear swastikas, which were made at least 100 years before WWII. Would I have to accompany these with some french certificate before selling on Yahoo?

    I agree that the outright rejection of a symbol is a form of fascism, including the Confederate flag dispute in South Carolina... The pre-Nazi swastikas had a different connotation; the swastika (backwards from the Nazi one) is a Buddhist symbol, among other things. Certainly, measures against fascism that employ its very means (book burning, and other limits to free thought, etc.) are foolish and short-sighted; it would definitely be missing the forest for the trees, to use the cliche.

    But it is naive to say that Europe should "get over it" in reference (even by symbolic proxy) to the holocaust. Nobody should "get over it"; it should be a part of our collective human conscious for all eternity as a reminder of the barbarism that we are capable of. Particularly when we let others decide our thoughts and morals and ethics.

  • Here's one answer (Score:3)

    by Vassily Overveight ( 211619 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @08:14AM (#862210)
    It's a pretty interesting debate - how do national laws apply to the Internet?

    The New York Times [nytimes.com] (free registration required) is reporting here [nytimes.com] that a man has been convicted for operating an internet gambling business that took bets from Americans. I would never have predicted this outcome, since he estabished the business in Antigua (where it's legal) and was himself out of the country when the bets were taken. If he weren't an American citizen, I don't believe he could have been prosecuted. I find this ruling disturbing, since it implies that one can be prosecuted according to the laws of one's home country, even if one's activities are legal where they take place. I'm hoping this ruling is overturned, as it's completely wrong, IMO. Using this logic, some despotic regime would be within its rights to prosecute its citizens for criticizing it while in the U.S.

  • Hmmm ... (Score:4)

    by LizardKing ( 5245 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @09:59AM (#862211)
    My grandfather fought in the Russo-Finnish Winter War (1939-1940), and later volunteered to serve in the SS for roughly two years. After his contract was finished, he returned to Finland having fought extensively on the Eastern Front. He then reentered the Finnish armed forces, until he was demobilised in 1944.

    He volunteered for the SS because he wanted to a chance to fight the Russians, who he blamed for the loss of his home city Viipuri. I was in total awe of my grandfather as a child, although he never mentioned his wartime experiences. In fact the only time he ever alluded to it was when he expressed disgust at how the American film industry often portrays Axis soldiers.

    Now my grandfather is dead, all I have to remember him by is my memories. Whether it is "right or wrong" or not I wear an SS belt buckle in remembrance of him. This doesn't make me a Nazi - I vote Liberal, my flatmate is Jewish and my girlfriend is French.

    I don't know what I'm trying to say here - perhaps it's just that the victors in any war are able to write their own version of history. In the French case the official line is to try and obscure their collaboration in the Holocaust by emphasising the (negligible) role of the Resistance. I find this as offensive as German skinheads, so I can't help feeling that this court case smacks of hypocrisy. Perhaps the French should come to terms with their own past (and present in the case of their National Front) before trying to censure what their citizens can and can't do on the Internet.

    Chris
  • In the semi-pagan folklore that prevailed in Northern Europe until a few hundred years ago, the swastika was a symbol of the sun. It's unfortunate that it has become a symbol of hate for so many people.

    I have heard (back in the dim mists of Boy Scouts or some other "astronomy as armchair entertainment" context) that the crooked shape that is called the swastika in northern europe is derived from the constellation of Ursa Major (alternately the "Big Dipper", or the "Plow").

    Four seasons, and if you trace it out against the sky at the same time of the evening during the different seasons, it lays out the shape. I'm probably getting some major details wrong, but the gist is right.

    In other News:

    France has recently outlawed people looking up and to the north during the period of sundown to sunup. "It is for their own good", said Pierre Le Pieu, played by Richard O'Brien, "We don't want a disturbed population - last time that happened, they ran around and chopped off the heads of the people in power".

    --
    Evan

  • Please don't confuse everything (Score:4)

    by David A. Madore ( 30444 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @03:05PM (#862213) Homepage

    There are three very different questions at stake here, and most posts I see seem to mix them all randomly.

    First, there is the question of how appropriate this French law is, that forbids the sale of Nazi items. Personally, I think it's a very stupid law. However, please mind when discussing this question that it is unrelated to the Internet, and also that we're talking French law. So the question should be discussed in that context. In fact, I don't think Slashdot is a very appropriate place to discuss that question (yet most posts I see which make any sense refer specifically to that question).

    Second, there is the question of the applicability of the law of a certain country to a web site that is not located in that country. Personally, I think it shouldn't apply. However, please note in discussing that question that the nature of the law (good or bad) should not be a factor. Nor should the name of the country. If we agree that the good laws of the United States should apply to non-US sites on the net, then the evil laws of Western Turumumbolia (some obscure country you've never heard of) should apply just the same.

    Third, there is the purely technical question of whether Yahoo! can, in fact, filter out (nearly all) French users from their site. And the answer, I think, is yes, it is technically possible. A friend of mine has downloaded the list of all IP blocks for France from the RIPE [ripe.net] database: there are a little over 20000, and it would be a fairly simple hashtable lookup to filter them. We're working on a proof of concept. (Even though I must repeat that I disapprove of the use of the filtering. But that is an entirely different question, in fact two entirely different questions as I've just explained.) This would not filter all French users, but with a reasonable approximation it would.

    Also, I do wish we had a little less gratuitous France-bashing and gallophobia around. Certainly we have a case of an absurd law, here, but every country has absurd laws, this is not news (I did not see much americanophobia surface every time the DMCA was mentioned, for example). More importantly, the France-bashing in question is utterly offtopic (relevant to none of the three questions I mentioned) and irrelevant (not to mention, a troll and flamebait to some extent).

  • "Nazi-related" (Score:5)

    by cje ( 33931 ) on Friday August 11, 2000 @09:10AM (#862214) Homepage
    One of the problems with enforcing a law like this is determining when to stop enforcing it. Case in point: What constitutes a "Nazi-related" item? There are some obvious examples that everybody would probably agree on .. for example, an authentic Swastika flag used by the Third Reich would doubtless be classified as Nazi-related.

    However, what about something like Hitler's book Mein Kampf? Is it Nazi-related? Inasmuch as the book is about his youth and his early days in the Nazi party, the answer would probably be "yes." But does it fall under the same general category as general Nazi memorabilia such as flags, silverware, etc.? The book arguably has some value to society because it serves as a window into the soul of one of the sickest, vilest human beings ever to walk the planet. You can't effectively battle what you don't understand, and so you might make the case that the book's intimate portrait of Hitler's mindset and thought processes are more important than its objectionable content.

    What about Raiders of the Lost Ark? Is it Nazi-related?

    The problem here is no different than it is any other time a government or group attempts to censor or "protect" its citizens/constituents from material that it deems harmful, offensive, or dangerous. "Harmful, offensive, and dangerous" are not black-and-white litmus tests that can be applied equally in all situations. When a government or group takes it upon itself to decide what people can see/say/read/etc., they are engaging in the intellectual equivalent of book-burning. Ironically, the Nazis were very much into book-burning.

Slashdot Top Deals

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Close