France wants your browser to censor the web, and Mozilla is petitioning against it

foundation.mozilla.org Sign our petition to stop France from forcing browsers like Mozilla's Firefox to censor websites

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

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3389331

More context: https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2023/06/26/france-browser-website-blocking/

31 comments

So what about things like cURL, wget, Invoke-Webrequest, straight up nc calls. Where does the line exist?
- It's not about making it impossible to reach certain sites. It's about making it harder for normies. Take a guess if your neighbor knows about wget.
  
  No, it's not. It's just not. The important question is how the law is written. Wild guess: they won't target "browsers". They'll target "means to display remote content" or some shit to not have people rename browsers to surfers to evade that law. And depending on how generic they'll make it sound, it'll be a pain for not only every piece of software but maybe also stuff like digital binoculars or phone sex companies or whatever.
As Mozilla points out, there are numerous safe browsing systems to which you can opt in — opting in being the key here — and there's nothing preventing any entity, the French government included, from creating their own software, browser extension, or DNS service for anti-fraud purposes. They don't need legislation for that, but they do need laws to force software providers to implement a non-optional, government-operated blacklist of "no-no" sites they deem unacceptable for any reason they see fit; it will absolutely not be limited to fraud alone.

France's proposal is so stupefyingly contrived, it's so obvious this is the true intention.
- What's even more evil is that we already have dns filtering for isp. Somehow, by making this new law they are acknowledging the old one was stupidly ineffective.
When did France's government get taken over by US Republicans?
- Macron's been quite the fuckstick of late
  
  When Le Pen gets elected in 4 years we'll talk about the good old times with Macron.
- Hey bub, this isn't right. Not a big fan of the red team in the US either, but shit on them where they deserve it.
  ISPs to snoop for drugs with bipartisan support.
  
  We're all closer to being homeless than billionaires.
Well, they've heard people can use a VPN to bypass the current blocking (which is done by the ISP, usually through the DNS server) so they are looking for alternatives. It's only natural.

As far as I know, all governments block websites. What would be more interesting is comparing which one sensors the most.

edit: to be clear, what I mean is: the method used by governments to censor the web is not as important as what is being censored. And I wish there was a simple way to monitor what is censored by each state.
- I'm guessing China? Not sure North Korea counts
  
  Oh, I wouldn't even count China, NK and Russia. They block so many websites they are in their own category.
- (Nearly) all governments limit car speeds on public roads, with external enforcement (fines, road design, etc.).
  
  Yet AFAIK no government enforces the national speed limit through a speed limiter on cars.
  
  Exact same goal, maybe even result, but I'm uncomfortable with the semantics.
  
  Speed-limited cars are coming: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/volvos-speed-limiter-positive-feedback/
Signed!
Edge got a shitstorm for in-browser self ads on the chrome page, now in-browser censoring? The internet bows down to EU, sure, but one nosy country? If at all the official download links for France would be laced, but not anywhere else i.e. its gonna be yet another joykiller for normies, like.. even the thought of maintainers pushing another release specificially for a country is laughable. That's my assessment anyways. Signed
Why do they need to petition it? Mozilla is an American corporation, if they just ignore it, can France do anything punitive to them?
- They could have the ISPs block Mozilla web presence I suppose.
  
  I'm in favor (as a french). This would give one more reason for people to be angry. And they need to be.
  
  ISPs in France, sure. They would have to convince ISPs elsewhere in the world to do it, and it wouldn't be a popular move if ISPs start letting foreign governments censor stuff. Would the ISPs decide the bad press is worth making the French government happy, is the question.
France can fuck off then

31 comments