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In a well-intentioned yet dangerous move to fight online fraud, France is on the verge of forcing browsers to create a dystopian technical capability. Article 6 (para II and III) of the SREN Bill would force browser providers to create the means to mandatorily block websites present on a government provided list.
I don't agree that it's "well-intentioned" at all but the article goes on to point out the potential for abuse by copyright holders.
cross-posted from: https://radiation.party/post/64123
[ comments | sourced from HackerNews ]
The laws already require you to not infringe copyright. This is a new front in the same old war.
Yes definitely, but currently the onus is on the user to not infringe. The French proposal is putting at least some of the onus on the developer of the browser which is a new front, I agree.
I feel like we would be less forgiving of this happening in other mediums.
Imagine this: car manufacturers are required by law to prevent their vehicles from driving to locations where crime might happen.
Every lesson we had to learn about legislating the use of stuff, we are having to re-learn in each country for cases on a computer or on the internet. This is so stupid and clichè I suspect it's the bugbear of some plutocrat lobbying the French government, rather than someone brainstorming ideas without a staffer there to tell them the public would just ignore the law and get more computer literate.