law | Crommunist

0 Online anonymity – a free speech issue?

Can you force free speech on people? That is, is speech still ‘free’ when you have to speak? Certainly denying the rights of people to speak when they want to is wrong, but is it equally wrong to force someone to speak up? It’s a bizarre question, to be sure, but one that seems to be cropping up over and over.

I’ve spoken before about China’s tempestuous relationship with free speech; or maybe I should call it an abusive relationship, since it regularly treads on the speech rights of its citizens. However, there’s something happening right now in China that is making me sit up and take notice:

A leading Chinese internet regulator has vowed to reduce anonymity online, calling for rules to require people to use their real names when buying a mobile phone or going online, according to a human rights group.

The move would have two major implications. The first is that the days of internet trolling and flaming would be pretty much done. You’re going to be a lot less likely to call someone a ‘fagtard fuckstick’ if they can find out who you really are. The second is a bit more chilling though, since the government would also have access to your personal information. Given China’s record for cracking down on dissent of any kind, and the stated policy that “indicate a growing uneasiness toward the multitude of opinions found online.” I’m not so sure this information should be available, even given the problems China is having with its own regulation.

But that’s China’s problem, right? Over here in North America we don’t have to worry about that kind of stuff! Well, that’s not exactly the case:

The maker of the hugely popular World of Warcraft video game has reversed a previous plan that would have required users of its game forums to post under their real names.

I don’t play WoW, but I do have friends who do, and I am familiar with the kinds of abuse that happen on internet sites. I’m also acutely aware that many of the users are young people, for whom that kind of abuse can be truly scarring. In an effort to civilize the forums, Activision/Blizzard announced it would bring in measures to remove anonymity from its forums. The backlash was immediate, with users raising concerns (some legitimate) that publishing that information would make people targets of abuse. Many female gamers use the anonymity to avoid being sexually harassed, and the removal of that layer of protection would likely dissuade them from participation. Ditto for members of minority groups (with them ‘ethnic-sounding’ furriner names). Activision/Blizzard pulled the plug, but something tells me the issue hasn’t gone away. And it’s not just me who thinks so:

Two-thirds of 895 technology experts and stakeholders surveyed about the future of the internet believe the millennial generation, born mainly in the 1980s and 1990s, will make online sharing a lifelong habit, suggests a Pew Research Center and Elon University study released Friday.

One needn’t look much further than Facebook and Twitter (or even FourSquare, which makes even my millennial eyebrows raise in concern) to realize that privacy as it was known previously is on the way out. One also needn’t look much further than those sites to realize that there is huge potential for abuse, with employers firing or refusing to hire people based on their Facebook exploits. Canada’s privacy commissioner has been going round after round with Facebook to get better privacy measures installed. How long before those are a memory, and our whole lives are online? Let’s hope that we have at least a little while longer:

The owner of XY Magazine and its associated website – which catered for young homosexual boys – filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. XY’s creditors have applied for the firm’s one remaining valuable asset: its database of one million users.

This is the privacy nightmare. Not the loss of a job because you posted a drunk picture of you riding a pig, but you getting assaulted by a pig over information that you were told would be kept anonymous. There are many people who are privately gay and who are not prepared to come out in public. Being forced out would be traumatic enough, but to have that information up for sale to whoever wanted it would be disastrous.

So it seems the balance is, at least for now, that privacy does more good than harm. We don’t yet live in a society with sufficient privacy protections that would allow people to be themselves online. Why is this a problem for me? Because the same protections that gay kids and Chinese dissidents and female gamers get are extended to race bigots, Holocaust deniers, and religious zealots. If we have a code of rights to protect privacy, then it also covers the privacy of people whose opinions we don’t like. The goal of free speech is to have ideas out in the open, not cowering behind a shield of anonymity. Activision/Blizzard recognized that, but had to reverse its decision. This seems to be another downside to living in a free society – even assholes are granted freedom.

4 When religion clashes with secular values

My views on religion are not well-liked by believers. Those of you who read the comments attached to my posts may have seen a back-and-forth I had with a Baltimore-based columnist named Rene over my invocation of Russel’s teapot. I like Rene – he’s a funny guy who shares my views on people who stubbornly refuse to accept reason or evidence when it comes to vaccinating their children. However, when I applied the same reason and evidence (or lack thereof) to belief in a deity, I found myself in a fight with him.

Rene, and many of my friends who are believers, are paradoxically the best and worst kind of religious people. Best, because their religious beliefs are personal, and generally serve the purpose of helping them deal with ultimate questions of reality, or as a moral guide. Worst, because while they might deplore the things done in the name of religion, they always seem to make excuses as to why it’s okay to believe some religious things but others are clearly wrong. Worst of all, these are generally the kinds of people who don’t speak up when members of their faith do something deplorable with religious justification on their lips. “Those people aren’t real Christians/Muslims/Hindus/Sikhs/Rastafari/etc.” they say “that’s not what I believe, so there’s no need for me to say anything.” Of course this is simply trivial goal-post shifting – they believe all the same things you do, plus a bunch of stuff you don’t. If you call yourself a Christian, then it’s up to you to speak out against people who use Christianity to commit atrocities.

So today I thought I’d present a few conundrums, and ask those readers who are believers to try and explain them away.

Ultra-Conservative Jews jailed for segregation

Imagine you are an Israeli Jew, who believes that the Torah is the revealed word of God. You use scriptural guidance to make all of your decisions, particularly those that pertain to raising your children. However, a different group of Israeli Jews allow their children to watch TV and use the internet. They are full of sinful ideas, and you want to protect your children from their malevolent influence. The government says that you’re not allowed to segregate your children into their own schools. Which argument is the “correct” one – that you should be allowed to raise your children as you see fit, or that it’s in the best interest of your children not to be insulated from the outside world and remain walled off from any questioning of their parents’ religious beliefs?

Christians and Muslims ally in homophobia in Kenya

Isn’t it nice to see different faiths coming together and agreeing on what’s really important in life – penises. Amazing the power that one organ can have to bring people together (but if it brings them together in the wrong way, that’s a sin). Both the Christian Bible and the Qu’ran are very clear that homosexuality is wrong (although the Bible is far more homophobic, explicitly counseling that homosexuals be killed). What are you to do as a believer when gay people are flocking to your country, fleeing persecution by your brethren? What is the reason why you can ignore some of what the Bible says (a woman should be killed if she fails to cry out while being raped), but not the other parts (homosexuals should be killed, just because)?

Religious Hate Speech in Kenya

I seem to be picking on Kenya today… What do you do when you’re at church and your imam or priest says that a new government initiative to amend the constitution is expressly in contravention of your religious beliefs? What if the government wants to pass a law that says abortion is legal, or that doesn’t recognize the validity your religious courts, instead wanting to have one set of laws that apply to all people regardless of faith? What if they say that allying with the constitution will cause a religious war? Do you side with the creation of a secular standard of law and order, or do you follow your religious teachings?

Measles standoff continues in Malawi

I saved this one for you, Rene. What would you do if you were a good, God-fearing Christian who believed that God will heal the righteous, and will punish those who doubt his powers by attempting to intervene unnaturally (Matthew 9:22 – “But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.”)? Someone from the government comes and tells you that the sickness in your children, which is (like all sickness) caused by sin (John 5:14) can be prevented by the evil machinations of mankind? Do you have a responsibility to save your child’s life or their soul?

The answer from non-fundamentalist believers is that it’s okay to ignore some things in the Bible that are clearly wrong, or subject to misinterpretation. What separates misinterpretation from just regular interpretation? How do we know what’s the correct view of Biblical passages? Are we holding them to some standard of good and evil that are external to the Bible? What commandments should we follow, and which ones should we ignore? How do we know?

It’s all well and good to say “well everyone can make their own choice“, but that’s not what’s happening here. People are using their religious beliefs to justify making choices for other people. When your beliefs and my beliefs come into conflict, we have a way to resolve them that has nothing to do with faith in anything.

So I put the question to you, believers: what would you do if the government of the country you live in tried to pass a law that conflicted with your faith? What if, for whatever reason, you were forced to make a decision between your religious beliefs and a well-reasoned law that was for the good of society at large? Saying “it would never happen” is not a permissible answer to the question – it happens all the time. Laws are passed in my country and in yours that are in conflict with the Bible every day. If you were put in a corner and you had to make a decision, what would you do?

If the answer is that you would side with your faith, then you are no different (philosophically) than fundamentalists, it’s just a coincidence that your personal beliefs aren’t as strict as theirs.

If the answer is that you would side with a reasonable law, then your belief in logic and evidence is stronger than your belief in religious edicts, and I invite you to take the final step across the line and accept the fact that you don’t need religion to be a good person.

If you don’t know what you would do, or if you refuse to engage in a line of thought which causes your beliefs to come under scrutiny, then maybe you should re-examine how strong your faith is.

2 I break character for a moment

May 11, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · conservativism · law · politics

This is not a political or law blog. There are enough of those out there, and I don’t consider myself informed enough to give a meaningful opinion on the law. However, this story made me upset:

The federal government is moving once again to scotch the Criminal Code’s so-called faint hope clause, which allows killers to seek parole up to 10 years earlier than normal if they can satisfy a jury that they’ve reformed.

“Tough on Crime” is a catch-phrase we hear often in political debate. Conservatives are supposedly tough on crime, while “hug-a-thug” (doesn’t the right wing come up with such clever names?) Liberals are weak-willed and think that the criminals should have more rights than the victims.

I am not pro-crime. However, I want to see my government pass legal legislation designed to actually reduce crime, not simply increase punishment for those who don’t have good lawyers. Actions like this one by the federal government do not serve to lower crime, they are merely optics designed to dupe people who only pay attention to sound-bytes into thinking that their lives are somehow being made “safer” by keeping people in prison longer.

Never mind the fact that people get bounced out of prison due to over-crowding, or the fact that people with longer stretches in prison are more likely to re-offend than those who are granted pardons based on genuine reform. No, let’s take away the motivation that convicted people might have had to demonstrate some improvement. Let’s make sure that the people in prison stay bitter, resentful and come out far more dangerous than when they went in. That should fix everything. And don’t worry about the cost, it’s only 7-10 billion dollars over 5 years, also known as twice the annual national aid budget.

This is what gets me so upset about Conservativism, and politics in general. Policies get made that aren’t designed to make anyone’s life actually better; it’s done to get votes from the people who are probably least qualified to hold an opinion. Leadership isn’t about following the uninformed will of the masses; it’s about showing people why your policies will make their lives better. All this is to say nothing of Harper’s recent bill that refuses to allow foreign aid dollars to fund abortion. He says he doesn’t want to “divide Canadians” by bringing up the abortion debate. It’s pretty clear that he’s perfectly happy to divide Canadians, since there has been no debate except among the right wing. All of sudden though, there’s a debate! Presto! Gee Whiz! I wonder how that happened…

Recently, Ontario premiere Dalton McGuinty announced a bold new approach to sexual education, designed to teach kids the facts about sex and sexuality early in their schooling. As soon as I heard about it, I sent him a letter telling him that although he was sure to get a lot of flack from people for “teaching kids to have sex” and “usurping the role of the parents”, that this was a courageous and admirable step to make changes that work. Of course, the very next day he pulled a complete about face and announced that the program was going back on the shelf. If you believe in something, fight for it. Don’t let people’s meanest and least-informed instincts deter you from the right cause by using fear tactics. There are some things that are more important than getting re-elected.

Anyway, I will get back to my usual topics of discussion. I just felt like talking about this for a second.