The government is supposed to be on the side of laws, isn’t it? Copyright is a law too. If they don’t defend that law in the new kind of social space that the internet represents, where will the laxity end? What other laws will be let slide on the grounds that they might impede the rights of Internet users to do what the heck they feel like? What about your right to privacy? You care a lot about that one, don’t you? What makes it so desperately important for the government to defend your rights there, but not defend others’ rights to be paid for their intellectual property?

Copyright industries want the net regulated, and they’re willing to spend huge sums to make it happen: SOPA is a battle, but the lobbyists are waging a war.

You don’t fight that by turning sites black. You fight it by supporting the EFF, and the ACLU, and the ORG, and by lobbying your elected representatives, and you fight it it in the ballot box. In the last general election just 55% of 25-34 year olds voted, while turnout for the 18-24 age group was a pathetic 44%.

We need to do better, because the best way to fight bad laws is to stop clowns from getting into power in the first place.

According to somebody on Twitter, that’s akin to telling women of the 1960s to shut up and know their place. I’m a bit baffled by that.

The BPI chief executive, Geoff Taylor, said The Pirate Bay was “no more than a huge scam” defrauding the global creative sector.

“We would not tolerate Counterfeits R Us on the high street – if we want economic growth, we cannot accept illegal rip-off sites on the internet either,” he said.

You know this bit already, but it’s worth reiterating: The Pirate Bay doesn’t host anyone else’s content – the torrents it provides are essentially maps that tell your computer where to get content – and not all torrents point to illegally copied content. Oh, and The Pirate Bay isn’t based in the UK, let alone on BT’s servers.

Counterfeits R Us? I lost my favourite headphones – a pricey pair of Sennheisers – the other day and had a look on eBay for replacements. There were dozens of listings, of which the overwhelming majority appeared to be for counterfeit copies. Should ISPs block eBay too?

I understand why the BPI and its pals are annoyed, but “the global creative sector” can go after The Pirate Bay in the courts. That may be difficult, expensive and ultimately pointless, but that’s the global creative sector’s problem, not ours.

The BT ruling is worrying because it turns ISPs into censors, and of course copyright infringement isn’t the only kind of content people would like to block.

We’ve had calls to ban sites that espouse extreme political views, sites that promote anorexia, sites that discuss ways to commit suicide. If BT can block Usenet archives, why can’t it block everything that anybody thinks is unpleasant or undesirable – like WikiLeaks, or anti-Scientology sites, or anything that isn’t appropriate for under-fives?

икони

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t like the way the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act prevents Facebook from giving accounts to under-13s. But it’s not because he wants to make money from advertisers desperate to target the elusive and big-spending pre-teen market. No sirree.

It’s because getting the wee ones on Facebook will make them clever, or something. “In the future, software and technology will enable people to learn a lot from their fellow students,” Zuckerberg says.

Remember the adage “If you can’t see what the site is selling, the product is you”? That’s Facebook – so when Zuck says he wants kids on Facebook, I have a mental image of children being fed into mincers and made into sausages. I know I’m not Facebook’s biggest fan – I’d love to write a column called Fuck Zuck where I make appalling and libellous comments about whatever annoying thing the Facebook founder’s done that month – but when a company whose business is selling your life to advertisers says it wants your kids, my Sinister Detector tends to go off the scale.

According to Reuters, Zuckerberg is now “contradicting some media reports”: ”some time in the future, I think it makes sense to explore that, but we’re not working on it right now.” What he isn’t doing is changing his position. The comment that kicked off the “coming for your kids” stories was: “That will be a fight we  take on at some point.”

He isn’t saying Facebook doesn’t want your children. He’s saying Facebook doesn’t want them just yet.

Me, over at Techradar:

There’s some awful stuff out there, and I don’t think kids should see it any more than I think The Human Centipede should be shown on cBeebies.

I think I’m pretty consistent on this. I don’t think seven-year-olds should play Call of Duty: Black Ops, and I don’t think Frankie Boyle is the best choice of entertainer for your four-year-old’s birthday party.

The problem, I think, is that attempting to filter out porn isn’t going to work. Any attempt to create a national firewall is both doomed and dangerous.

And of course, there’s the biggest problem of all, the hole in the digital dyke nobody can plug.

Other parents.

As a parent, I’m well aware that it’s my responsibility to keep my kids away from filth. The problem is that I can’t ensure that you keep your kids away from it.

I can’t help thinking that the first couple of commenters are missing my point.

If you can be arrested for saying something unpleasant, if obvious attempts at comic hyperbole can get you prosecuted, then Charlie Brooker, Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr had better get out of the country fast.

Also, it’s weird tech – including plans for luxury hotels that’ll let you stay for free if you’ll have sex in front of their webcams.

Could such a scheme work here? We asked the manager of our local Travelpit, who told us that while free rooms probably wouldn’t happen she’d throw in breakfast if we [censored] her [censored] and [censored] [censored] [censored]. We’re pretty sure that isn’t national policy.

The original said Travelodge, which I think is funnier. Oh well.

Rather than, say, reining in Google or telling Facebook to get a grip – something the European Commission thinks the UK doesn’t do properly, which is why we’re being taken to court by the Commission for failing to comply with EU privacy rules – the government wants our ISPs to start censoring.

I can’t stress this enough: we’re not talking about illegal information here. We’re talking about information that allegedly breaches somebody’s privacy, or that “is inaccurate”. Bye, Facebook! See ya, Wikipedia!

It seems that Apple can’t do anything right nowadays. It has been accused of censorship and bullying, and implicated in subcontractor suicides and heavyhanded policing. Despite creating the most impressive, most popular products in its entire history in the form of the iPad and the iPhone 4, Apple is seen by many as a company that’s losing the plot.

And then, a piece about Apple’s telecoms rival, Google. Android is very good, but are Google’s partners messing it up? Here’s a clue: yes. Yes, they are.

When Google announced its Nexus One phone, it threw away the rulebook. Instead of selling phones with contracts attached, it would sell them directly to us.

Instead of letting manufacturers decide what features to include, Google would control the experience.

Instead of letting networks stuff the phones with proprietary software, Google would keep it clean.

Unfortunately it seems that the manufacturers and networks promptly found the rulebook and beat Google around the head with it, because the Nexus One is no more and Google’s partners are doing their very best to do what they’ve always done – that is, make mobile phones as confusing and as closed as possible.

It’s a simple enough plan: make every single link on Google point to a Facebook page. Where’s the best place to buy a T-31 Modulator? Ask Facebook. What’s the best time of year to go turtle punching? Ask Facebook. How can I tell if I have a horrible bum disease? Ask Facebook. Have we always been at war with Eurasia? Ask Facebook.

Friend Finder has been around for a while, and what it does is simple: it uses your email account to email your contacts and tell them to join Facebook. I think that’s a step too far, and so do the German authorities, who may fine Facebook for breaking the country’s strict marketing regulations.

It’s no secret that when you use Facebook you’re its product, not its customer – its customers are the marketers who want to precision-target you – and yet I still have an account. If Facebook is so evil – and I think it is – why keep using it? Instead of keeping the “keep me signed in” button unticked and keeping your personal data to a minimum, why not just commit Facebook suicide?

The answer’s simple enough. It’s where my friends are. I’d much prefer it if they used email and Twitter, but they don’t, so I have a choice: put up with Facebook, or lose touch with people I don’t want to lose touch with.

A post on Metafilter - in a discussion about blocking Facebook Connect - last night expressed it perfectly. Over to you, Manjusri:

It’s like everyone I knew in highschool, and all my former coworkers and extended family decided to get together for a party. But for some reason they decided to hold it at residence of the biggest dick in highschool. Apparently they don’t see this guy as a dick, or his dickishness doesn’t rub them the wrong way. In any case I can either skip the party on principle or show up and politely warn friends about the host and enjoy the opportunity to reconnect with people. Just because I accept that this is where everyone is doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.