****ing censorship? Harmful Digital Communications Bill

The Harmful Digital Censorship Bill just became law. Who has time to write up and put out a press release pointing out how dangerous it is to pass an Act which makes "harmful" speech a criminal offence, punishable by jail time!?!

I think that there is an appropriate classical vocals track by Mozart called "Lech mich im Arsch." Which I will be linking in response to the act.

I just had a thought. All online advertising is "harmful digital communication":
* It's presence distracts people from the information they're actually looking for
* It presents exaggerated (if not entirely false) claims for the product or service being marketed
* It confuses producers, who find themselves responding to what the marketers demands, rather than what the market demands
* It's a form of propaganda intended to manipulate people into making decisions which are not in their best interests
* it's often wrapped up in software designed to track people, collect information about them without their permission etc

When the Harmful Digital Censorship Bill comes into effect, one form of protest could be a mass campaign of flooding their complaints systems with complaints about online advertising.

The EFF published a detailed critique of the government's new Censorship Act:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/07/nz-digital-communications-act-considered-very-harmful

Targeting advertisements sounds attractive. But if successful would only prove that the law would be useful at least in some ways :-0

What I would find more interesting would be to try to prove that you can silence unwanted speech indeed. Certainly there is a lot of politicians' talk that doesn't comply with the defined principles.

Let's image you could take down an interview of the NZ Herald with the Minister of Denial Tim Grosser where he once again said that in 2100 water levels will be risen by 28 cm and we will deal with that then.
Surely does such a statement of denial do harm to all the people who choose to believe this non-sense and stick happily with their bad habits as most of us do. This then harms the life expectation of our youngest.
So if that interview happens to be published online, it should be taken down, shouldn't it?

Would that be a nice campaign?
"Didn't like it? And Online? - TAKE IT DOWN!"

Standing on the street, asking people if they can recall something that they have recently read online and didn't like. If so, advise them right at the street on a laptop how to send a take-down notice. nothing to loose, no costs or consequences to worry about - but a chance of vengeance to gain, just for the fun of it.

DDOS 2.0

We need to make it clear though, in either case, that we are doing it in jest, and that our point is that the state must not have the power to censor unpopular or even inaccurate speech. Unpopular speech needs the right to "freedom of speech" more than the popular, and the way to deal with inaccurate speech is to use your own right to free speech to reply, not to censor things we may think are "wrong". The Censorship Act is dangerous, and must be repealed, see the EFF link for how it could be used by bullies instead of against them.

For me the most harmful aspect of this act is that it establish different legal situations for online and afk communication. Something that is legal outside of the computer becomes criminalised once put into digital form.

This is playing with the unease that some people feel in regards with all things computer - and trying turning it into fear. Cyber, cyber. Populism.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wairarapa-times-age/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503411&objectid=11495157

We have finally had some discussion, but too late in the media.