And what happens when they refuse to pay the fine, or consider that those fines are an acceptable cost for doing business in France? If the goal is protecting the french public, blocking the site as soon as it is made illegal is the only option
Comment on France orders internet providers to block access to Polymarket prediction site
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 day ago
This is the wrong way to do things. The government should not be dictating what its citizens are allowed to access on the Internet. It seems like so many countries go after ISPs and DNS providers to solve their problems for them, and I think it’s mostly just laziness.
What France should be doing is making it illegal for Polymarket to operate in their country, and fining them for violations.
Ethalis@jlai.lu 1 day ago
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 day ago
Control is never relinquished voluntarily, it only expands. If the government has the power to block access to one site they will do it with more, for increasingly less justifiable reasons, until they eventually don’t bother justifying it at all.
Government censorship is not permissible in a free society, period.
timochka@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Government censorship is not permissible in a free society, period.
Why?
I man that as a genuine, serious question. Why?
I understand that Americans are raised with this as some kind of article of faith, but have you ever actually sat down and come up with a rational justification for that point of view?
There are many societies that are on all objective levels more free than tbe US, which are not absolutist on free-speech, so why do you believe that?
Ghoelian@piefed.social 15 hours ago
Because censorship eventually gets abused for oppression. It’s just too slippery a slope. For an extreme example of this, you should read 1984.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 13 hours ago
Well, let me ask you a related question: do you think it is acceptable to ban books? Why or why not?
snooggums@piefed.world 1 day ago
Blocking sites that are doing something not legal to do in the country is how you do things. This isn’t blocking information or anything worthwhile, just a shitty betting site that isn’t allowed to do business in France.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 day ago
The government should neither know nor care what its citizens access on the internet, any more than they should have control over what books its citizens read.
Censorship is censorship regardless of what is being censored.
foodandart@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I think it’s the nature of the site, in that anyone really determined can create a result they’ve bet upon.
Like someone dying or an industrial “accident” happening. It’s about the potential for abuse, insider trading or any host of seemingly random events that may not be so random.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 23 hours ago
I have no objection to sites like Polymarket being made illegal. That is not the argument.
I don’t approve of people using Polymarket, but I would fight for their right to access the website without censorship.
The government can declare a business like Polymarket to be illegal, that’s fine. Take action against Polymarket directly. The government dictating which sites a citizen can or cannot access is not fine.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
No, that’s not, or at least shouldn’t be and used to not be, “how you do things”. Blocking websites because they aren’t complying with national laws used to be the domain of authoritarian countries like the PRC or Thailand or Russia. Now it’s “how you do things” in so called liberal democracies? Has that really become so normalized?