Mozilla's petition against in-browser censorship law

Technology@lemmy.world – 648 points – 1 years ago

foundation.mozilla.org

The French government is considering a law that would require web browsers – like Mozilla's Firefox – to block websites chosen by the government.

Damn what is happening in France

A couple of idiots are failing to learn from history, heads are preparing to roll. Just a guess. "Cracking down" on the French has never really worked.

if they had the CRS and teargas back then, France would still be a kingdom.

don't worry, no heads will roll

The government is tired of people rightfully complaining and so is trying to build a cage around their citizenry to make them compliant. The rich of France are wanting it to be more like America so they can literally suck every penny out of the citizenry

what a shame for France that the richest man in the world is a Frenchman now

How are they going to stop people from downloading the source and modifying it and building versions of the browser that do not comply with that bullshit? Are they going to block French citizens from accessing the Firefox open source project entirely?

Laws are usually made by people far detached from what they are ruling on. In short: They have no idea. Although majority of the planet uses chromium based browsers and once this is implemented in chromium its kinda decided.

Except at it's core chromium is open source, and I can't see the FOSS community embracing the idea. The French also wouldn't be able to fully limit access to unrestricted browsers.

It's an all round dumb idea. Much easier and more effective to tell ISPs to do the blocking.

Sure, Chromium is open source, but let's not pretend that the community has any say over Chromium's direction. Google is making the decisions, we're just allowed to watch

I don't think you understand what open source means.

I think I do. The source is open, but that doesn't mean that the community decides what happens with Chromium. The comment I was replying to said that the FOSS community would not embrace Google's decision. I say that Google does not care about you. What are you gonna do about it, short of forking Chromium and going your own way, or maybe patching out their changes? Most people will stay on the unmodified Chromium

If I maintain a piece of software and everyone decides they'd rather use my version than develop their own, does that mean I control it, or does it just mean everyone is happy enough with my work that they'd rather use mine than do it themselves?

I say that Google does not care about you.

I don't see how that's relevant.

What are you gonna do about it, short of forking Chromium and going your own way, or maybe patching out their changes?

I dunno, maybe use of the many other Chromium-based browsers from groups that are already maintaining their own forks? Or use another browser entirely? I do both, actually.

what I don't get is, they already do this through ISPs. Unless people use tor, they can't see a site that's blocked by their ISP.

so, why 🤷

And the chromium open source project while they are at it...

I think at that point it ceases to be Firefox. I guess the government could go after whoever is distributing the modified browser.

Ok, if you want some info here is a little summary :

Banning people condamned for bullying/hate speech from every social media they used for it
Blocking websites (mostly porn) without judge's approval, both physically and by forcing navigators/DNS to block it
More ID checking to "protect minor"

And if you want details :

The current proposition of law is a melting pot of many Internet security subjects :

preventing children to access porn
punishing websites that host pedo porn harder
punishing deepfake and ai generated montage (and montages in general)
preventing hate speech and violent speech in all social media, including chat applications
regulating the market of cloud storage providers
regulating gambling and real-money video games
preventing phishing

They have different actions at their disposal :

Fines for website admins who do not comply
Forcing websites to check people's identity to prevent minor accessing harming content
Forcing websites to ban some accounts suspected of illegal activity
Forcing websites to try and block a suspected person (not the user) from using/creating any accounts on their website (for max. 6 months to 1 year)
Forcing navigators, DNS providers and Internet compagnies to block any access to a specific domain for max 3 months, if this domain does not comply in (short) time to the administration instructions
Forcing websites to mention the name and adress of any person or company that host their content
Forcing apps markets to remove an app that does not comply to the administration instructions
It would be mandatory for vpn ads to always display a message that says something like "Pirating contents harms artistic creation" (does not have a lot to do with the rest, but it find it interesting anyway)
It would be mandatory for any content sharing website to stock datas enabling the identification of anyone who participated in the content creation
Easier police raid in places where content is hosted (no judge approval needed, they just get notified of the raid)

Now, i did not hear from this subject a lot, mostly for the pornography part since we probably soon will have to show ID cards to watch porn. I remember that everytime there are more or less violent protests, government says it originates from social media and that they have to control social media to prevent violences. Most politicians i heard on this seem to not fully understand what is at stake, which is kinda usual.

What happened to parental responsibility?

I'm trying to reframe this in a way that will help me and others better understand; are the measures being proposed in this bill analogous to forcing auto manufacturers to build a car that won't let you drive down certain streets?

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