Should government monitor the net in Poland?

At one press conference during the recent designer drug outburst, asked what he would do about smart-drug-mongers peddling their wares on the net. Tusk replied something to the effect: 'We will also see what can be done about that.'

Mine is not a question about technical feasibility or economic cost, but rather advisability. Yes, it can be done -- the Chinese are effectively expunging what they regard as poltically objectionable content.

Do you believ the net should enjoy privileged status and preferential treatment as the only medium not subject to libel laws or editorial control. If you write a letter to a newspaper, it must be signed with full name and address and the editor can edit out offensive content. TV and radio do the same and with live shows use a several-second delay mechanism to bleep out obscenities.

The net is so full of garbage, hate content, dangerous instructions (how to build a bomb at home, etc.), bad examples, lewd proposals, questionable role models, etc. precisely because it is anonymous. If people had to identify themselves and were subject to editorial oversight, the net would be a far less toxic and would be comparable to ther remaining media.

What do you think: privileged status for the net or equal treatment for all media?

You're thinking of "The net" as a medium. You need to be more specific. Do you think that a group of people talking together at a BBQ (this forum) should have minders?

At least in the US, libel and slander laws can be applied towards online content.

Regarding being full of garbage, so is a public library!

It sounds like you're for setting up a police state? That's not meant negatively, but it sounds like you'd like to have everything strictly controlled, like say during Socialism but with a different message. Is that about right?

Books in a library are signed by authors and publishers are identified. I'm sure this forum would be far more civilised -- less nonsense, trolling, mud-slinging and pure BS -- if participants had to identify themselves with their true name, address and e-mail. Some forums work that way.

Of course, the net is a medium. Anything functioning in public space, whether a magazine, billboard, neon or virtual reality, is, so it differs from a friendly chat in the privacy of one's own home.

I just wanted to know what other PF-ers think on the subejct.

In some cases, but there are plenty of instances of authors using pen names, anonymous sources, etc.


I have no fear of identifying myself publicly. I've met quite a few people off of here, and they all pretty much stick to their guns in person, which I fully respect. But on a side note, the only truly FREE SPEECH is anonymous speech. It's the great equalizer. You can then explore why I think the way I do.


This forum is private property. You're a member of a private club. We're in the privacy of our homes, having a chat.

Well, his previous posts certainly suggest this. It's also a common theme among Kaczynski voters to support a strong dictatorial state - not Communist, but rather something more similar to the so-called National Democracy. Many of them also have very similar views to Franco's Spain - strong, centralised State characterised by a strong belief in the dictatorship of the Church.

Reposting from another thread:

You better be good, you better watch out, you better not threaten, you better not shout...

The Polish Internal Security Agency (ABW) is coming to the forums.....

PiS wants political forums monitored and for administrators to inform on users who seem threatening.

tokfm.pl/Tokfm/1,103087,8540447,PiS__Groza_nam_w_internecie

New content: As for the question, the great thing about the net is how is levels the playing field and its harder for the elites (of whatever stripe) to carefully control what gets said in public. Poor, sad, old politicians like Tusk (and Kaczynski) can't stand it and don't know how to deal with it.

On the other hand, his comment 'we'll look into it' is just politico speak for "leave me alone". The whole designer drug kerfuffle was a pointless distraction as is the in vitro kerfuffle.

I think they'd happily see all opposition political forums closed down!


I get the impression many leaders can't deal with it - Tusk's utter mishandling of the previous internet control bill told you all you need to know. But look at the UK and elsewhere - endless bills created by people who don't appear to know the first thing about how it all works.

THEY are doing it anyway(monitoring Internet) with or without your consent,
it is illegal at this moment(this has never stop them before) but THEY will push it fro legislature and it will become legal. and maybe the licensing will become in force?? and THEY will put fees and charge fees for usage of internet?? naturally!!! to protect you from bad and evil things on internet!!(so pf may become undesirable and have "fillter")lol.

it is strange that, the same song is sung, at the same time , in so many democratic countries.
protect,protect the public is in danger!!:+(its not a rapsong)

all schools have internet filters on and still kids have fund a way to bypass it(easy)
i have fund it very boring , not being able to see and read alternative news! but children must be protected from evil webpage like prisonerplanet??? what would they turn to and become of.

ps.
i am retiring in 2 weeks
at what stage was i tire! so i have to re tire??

[Moved from]: Polish Government Monitoring Polish Internet?

Gazeta Wybrocza reported that monitoring of the Polish Internet will start in April to protect minorities. Is thsi a good idea, in your view?

Regulating internet usage sounds interesting, as long as the privacy is maintained and it is solely used for its designed purpose. And, of course there should not be any loopholes in the system, the system must be tested for all its boundaries and securities.

Seems that, the investment is made to build this system, to get some positive service.

It's a terrible idea. Threats are already illegal. How about just enforcing the laws on the books and treating each other as equal as long as it doesn't effect you? The problem is that "hate speech" laws ultimately lead to someone using the big brush and covering any sort of criticism with that term. I can already see this leading to prosecutions based on criticism of the Catholic Church for instance. Bad, bad, bad idea.

And any 'monitoring' system is full of holes anyway. Even in the most repressive contries where so much of the internet is blocked, people get round it easily. Pissing in the wind.

I could be reading this wrong but isn't that what this monitoring thing will be doing?
Finding hate speech and enforcing the law?

The article is a bit light on meat. My view is that if you have to actually seek out hate speech, it isn't hurting anyone. Improving the system of humans reporting would be a much better use of resources instead of a spider that indexes sites containing certain keywords.

Thankfully freedom of speech laws are strong in the jurisdiction that this site is based...

Every self-respecting troll has a prepaid sim card to gain gsm internet access :)

Hercules will do his dirty labor? May the Augean stables be clean fast at last. They should also remove typos, different errors and make necessary corrections.

Hallo,
Just my two Russian copecks... Here, they DID try monitoring the 'Net as a part of "Protect the kids" program, and one of my sources of income dried out in no time: I used to translate for a team of physicians, dealing, among everything, in fields where the texts could frequently contain e.g. the words "children" and "sex" in the same sentence. As a result, strictly _medical_ sites got blocked as kiddie prn!

Dead serious...
That government governs the best which governs the least.

would you care if they wern't?

Wonder if theyll enforce this the same way as speeding fines, ie if you say it wasnt you they cant do anything.(so ive been told anyway)

You have written GW and posted link from wp?


If Polish news portals were really intrested in high discussion standards they could easly solved the problem much ealier without any high-tech artificial intelligence programmes.

In some portals whenever I push the buttom "report", a window with registration/login pops up. Why the hell I can't report any comment when not being a registered user? The great Polish news portals obviously don't moderate comments at all unless they are reported by some user. If they really watnted to make it better they would moderate every comment before publishing as I see it happens on many foreign sites.

They turn a blind eye on worthless sarcastic comments which only clutter the forums... actually that news means that Polish portals will need to get rid of 90% of their forums. It would be easier to erase it all and start everything again from the scratch...

Sarcastic comments worthless! not if they teach ignorant haters about themselves, thus eliminating the need for us to pay for prisons, just cos someone doesnt like someone else. UP WITH SARCASM.

what if they teach normal people about ignorant haters?

It seems you are working for the government. More control of our lives? No, thank you.


The US will follow. Or they already did.

Do people not teach children to walk on the other side of the road when they see a drunk, cant just lock him up forever!

The news says that they will delete hateful comments not put authors into jails. And it's about sensitive people who read it and feel to be victims of attack.

Right. Today they will remove 'hateful comments'; tomorrow they will remove comments supporting political Party X or presidential candidate Y. And the day after tomorrow they will remove comments exposing negative effects of Drug_Z (after a lobbyist of the Drug_Z company paid enough money to the 'censorship organization').

Corruption and manipulation possibilities of 'monitoring' are ENDLESS.

And then chemical castration and another step - "Prozium" for everyone. For our own safety.

Merged: Authoritarian Tusk encourages massive numbers of phone taps

POLAND is Europe's leader in cell phone surveillance. In 2011, Polish authorities made 1,856,888 requests for information from billing records—who called who when, for how long, etc. That was nearly half a million more than in 2010.

In Poland nine different bodies, from the police to tax inspectors, are allowed to access cell-phone information, and usually on simple presentation of a written request. Normal EU member states regulate this kind of surveillance far more strictly.

Emails are subject to blanket screening by the security services for key words - meaning that the fight against crime and terrorism results in widespread electronic snooping of innocent citizens. The people charged with maintaining a correct balance are the officers concerned. The positive side to this is that phone taps helped recover the "Arbeit macht frei" sign. But someone should be on the side of the citizen.

Poland should be worried. Remember: this is a country where the Communist secret police ran the underground press, where the leading intellectual newspaper has been shackled and may close after government shenanigans. Would the US body politic allow someone to buy the Washington Post for the purposes of closing it down for political reasons?

Anybody interested in freedom of speech should be concerned by the increasingly authoritarian behaviour of Tusk and his coterie.

That would be the same "leading intellectual newspaper" which published a pack of lies about the Smolensk crash?

Liar liar knickers on fire!

Yes the same one which had to retract the story the next day and fire the "journalist" who wrote it.