EU "Clean IT" Project Considers Terrorist Content Database 101
schliz writes "Internet users could contribute to an official blacklist of suspected terrorist content under a budding 'Clean IT' project, backed by the European Commission. Participating governments are putting together 13 proposals in a text that commits web hosts, search engines and ISPs to helping to weed out content that incites acts of terror. From the article: 'Among those 13 courses of action is a proposal for a system that will allow users to "flag" content they believe to be illegal when surfing the web. These alarms would be sent for review to the service provider and in turn, a government agency.'"
Beheadings videos are illegal? (Score:4, Interesting)
From TFA:
“So why not try and create a database where internet companies can check it to see if it's known illegal material? There are many known YouTube videos, for example, with content like be-headings. You don’t need to watch them to know if they are illegal or not.”
So what is the answer? Is a beheading video illegal? Why? What is the law that makes a beheading video illegal? What happens if it's legal in one country, but not in another? Does this magic content filter know where a user is watching content? Is it illegal if it's in a depiction of a beheading from a movie? How about if I stage a fake beheading of my own in my back yard, but I claim it's real, is that illegal? Likewise, what if I post a beheading and claim it's fake.... but it's so well done, no one knows if it's fake or not. Is that illegal?
(I'm ignoring the obvious questions like, what happens if my movie promo with a fake beheading gets flagged as illegal (even if it's not), and now suddenly it's banned from the internet and I can no longer show my promo)
Re:Ha! Broken even before that. (Score:4, Interesting)
You are assuming this project is done with the aim of making it work as honestly as possible.
If it's only a shell for a censorship program, giving it the pretense of being driven by people, it's perfectly workable.
In other words, the system will radomly filter and accept legitimate censorship requests from joe the public, instead it will always censor the sites that are against powerful interests when said interests express that desire.