The mayor of Los Angeles, an energetic fellow, has proposed that the city provide free high-speed wireless Internet connections to every Los Angeleno. Sounds great! I could dump my expensive cable modem connection ... assuming Mayor Villaraigosa would allow me to look at my own website.
Which is a big If. Colby Cosh recently pointed out that Saskatchewan's new municipal Wi-Fi networks ban citizens from visiting "sites associated with pornography or hate groups." One of the banes of my career is dealing with private censor companies that ban iSteve.com, such as the one that explained "The main goal of SiteCoach is to filter pornographic content and content glorifying violence, as well as right-wing and other so-called forbidden content that 'hits below the belt'." Who knows what Mayor Tony's taxpayer-paid service will allow? Free Speech and Free Wi-Fi are antonyms.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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13 comments:
The left will try to find a way to ban anything that undermines its hegemony. In the case of the internet, which has rendered worthless its control of the MSM, that way would appear to be using the public education model: tax people heavily for a "free" service provided by the government, so that the service can be stripped of any offensive material. Then tell people "Sure, you can have your 'free speech' version of the internet - but you have to pay on top of the taxes you're alrteady paying."
Since large numbers of people inevitably won't do that, sites which the government disapproves of will see a dramatic decline in traffic, hence advertising, hence they will disappear.
That assumes people buy into the "free" internet leftists want in order to bridge the so-called "digital divide."
I dont know about YOUR beloved site,but I googled "Latina Porn" and got 2.1 million items. :0
i think this is the adl's 'dream solution' to finally stopping all the 'hate' being fomented on the web. its funny how extreme right groups are mentioned (what exactly is extreme) but not extreme left. Why?
Well, if it's anything like the "free wifi" here in Portland, you won't be able to access it anyway.
Can iSteve.com be currently accessed from public libraries?
If the free stuff bans porn as well, I wouldn't expect it to replace much.
If the free stuff bans porn as well, I wouldn't expect it to replace much.
Well porn did drive the early growth of the internet, but as it is now I doubt that most people use it to access porn. And how would husbands explain the added cost of private internet service to their wives? That's one I'd like to see.
Can iSteve.com be currently accessed from public libraries?
Yes.
Anonymous, at 8/18/2007 11:28 AM
//its funny how extreme right groups are mentioned (what exactly is extreme) but not extreme left. Why?//
All extreme groups are called the extreme right.
National Socialists - Nazis - and Mussollini corperatists/facists represent the extreme left but have famously been called the extreme right. The left refer to guys like Stalin and Putin as the "extreme right." Slobodan Milošević? This socialist party leader represents extreme right.
All this makes sense to the left because without "extreme right" they could not distance themselves from the consequences of their own behaviour.
Most big censor services have an appeal process for sites that have been errorenously blocked. Have you tried contacting them to explain your side? If so, what was their response?
Even if they have sympathy, it probably would be too much of an embarrasement if a client or competitor raised the issue. With these types of customers (gov't, schools, work, parents and the like), better a false positive then false negative for blacklists.
- JAN
I suspect that selective bans of that kind would be ruled unconstitutional. I think the ACLU would help out here, despite being on the "left."
Not sure what kind of jack bill of rights Canada lives under, but under the real bill of rights, you want a government involvement , which makes it a constitutional issue, a private internet provider wouldn't face those obligations.
You and your readers 1st amendment rights will protect your content. The goverment hasn't been able to keep porn out of libraries, they won't be able to keep you off municipal wifi.
The goverment hasn't been able to keep porn out of libraries, they won't be able to keep you off municipal wifi.
Well up until now they haven't really tried. Most of the anti-porn efforts came before bloggers took down Dan Rather, and all of them came before the bloggers took down The Amnesty.
Now that left-wing nostrums are the established dogma, leftists may be reconsidering all of that free speech nonsense.
I think the ACLU would help out here, despite being on the "left."
Does anyone here remember the last time the ACLU took on an honest-to-God free speech case? They were AWOL on campus speech codes, for example, and that's been going on for two decades or more. It seems that today they're mostly fighting for gay marriage and illegal immigrants.
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