[Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law

[Nikos-Optim]

You can consider a Scandinavian country such as
Sweden.

--Optim


--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> 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
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>
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