[Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law

[Jimmy Wales]

How might this bill affect Wikipedia, if I go through with plans to
set up a French nonprofit?

http://www.computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/C1F6A082562EB682CC256E160006A48E?OpenDocument

The portion that concerns me is that "Internet access providers" (but
what is the definition of that in the bill?) will be obligated to
filter "illegal content", which has a much wider scope in France than
in the US, including "material excusing crimes against humanity".

Currently, if the French government were to find material on Wikipedia
not to their liking, they would have little recourse against either
me, the Wikimedia Foundation, or the French end users who wrote the
material.  I am in the U.S., the Wikimedia Foundation is in the U.S.,
and therefore I can freely ignore the judgments of French courts.

French end users are protected by this arrangement as well -- in order
for the French government to pursue an end user, they will need to
pierce the veil of anonymity given by Wikipedia usernames.  Of course,
I would completely ignore any court order from France to hand over
such information.

On the other hand, if we had a French mirror operating under the
auspices of a French nonprofit subsidiary, that subsidiary could be
legally liable in such matters, thus putting us all at risk.

Perhaps this is all merely of academic concern -- Wikipedia is
self-consciously uncontroversial to a large extent.  We don't advocate
anything, by design.  Likely the law would not be abused to the extent
that Wikipedia would become a target.  But I do know that French users
have often expressed concern that this article or that might be a
violation of French law.  I don't have an opinion about the realism of
such concerns.

And so that's why I ask.  As we move towards a European organization
and European subsidiary, what concerns should we have as to the proper
location of the organization?

--Jimbo