this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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cross-posted from: https://gehirneimer.de/m/[email protected]/t/57607

The French government is considering a law that would require web browsers – like Mozilla's Firefox – to block websites chosen by the government.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What happened to telling governments to go fuck themselves? I remember when it was on the governments to police their citizens and if software violated their laws it was on the government to stop citizens accessing it. Why can they just not comply?

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago

I mean obviously we can do both right? We can both fight stupid laws so they never get passed in the first place and then refuse to comply with them if they do.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

so in the download section of firefox website, there will be notice: "not recommended for use in france"

problem solved 🤣

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

for-profit places will do that. i hardly expect mozilla to abandon the people of an entire country. though i'm sure they'll make sure everyone knows what VPNs and Tor are if it comes to it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

i hardly expect mozilla to abandon the people of an entire country

that's not what i meant. i meant that the notice will be only thing that happens to formally comply with the law and everyone will be able to download the firefox "on their own responsibility"

like when eu banned the classic lightbulbs, there was a discussion in my country because some idiots felt that "the dictatorship of eu is upon them again"

now these lightbulbs are being sold with the notice "for industrial use only, unsuitable for use in personal homes". every normal person buys led-bulbs and few thousand idiots are happy thinking how they showed them! 😆

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Actally about those lightbulbs they are used if you are a machienist because most led lights tends to flicker which could cause stroboscope effect on fast moving parts and sometimes could present effect that something looks like is moving slower or in different direction that is really moving which could be dangerous. But there are also special machienist led bulbs but are more expensive than normal led bulbs. I am not a profesional machienist so sorry if i didnt describe it correctly but my point is that leds (if are not designed for machienist) are not safe in that particular usecase

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i am aware of that problem. but the point is that people abuse that fact to continue using it in their living room, where sensible thing would be to just switch to led

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah i agree those are stupid especially with todays electricity prices

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In some places I think they're sold as heaters now. I mean, traditional light bulbs are effective heaters so why not?

How else am I going to run my Easy-Bake Oven?!

[–] uid0gid0 3 points 1 year ago

In the US, appliance bulbs are exempt from the new law. Which by the way mandates a lumens per watt threshold, it doesn't explicitly ban incandescent bulbs. If someone could come up with an incandescent that meets the requirement they are free to sell as many as they can make.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

Add your name to our petition to help stop this part of the bill from becoming law.

Where can I find the text of the petition that they will be submitting to the French government? How do I know what I am signing if they don't actually display the petition text?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Browser based blocking seems very out of touch and anything short of GFW as in China won't be very effective at actually achieving any blocking. Also enforcement client side will be impossible to control.

So not only is the law bad, but it will only make life more difficult for legitimate persons and organizations building browsers.

[–] spader312 2 points 1 year ago

Wondering if mozzilla can get around this by enabling some start up arg to disable it lol

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly I am mildly curious about this, but I am feeling a little too drunk and lazy at this point in my day to look it up and the linked article was not helpful. Can someone eli5 what has the French government so salty? Thanks in advance, -Cas

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's about censorship and control of the internet. The French government is looking for another way to block things, beyond ISPs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I forgot to say this at the time, but thanks for the response. You helped me to understand the issue.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Idk does France government knows that they can block addresses on ISP level but anyway, I'm not France government.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Signed. As a French, absolutely not surprised

[–] TheOhNoNotAgain 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What about curl and wget? Telnet?

[–] mo_ztt 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)
  1. Like a lot of lawmakers they have no concept of how the internet works. They think it's like regulating cars (i.e. of course this handful of browser manufacturers will obey the law, so passing the law will control the behavior of the browsers).
  2. They may think that even a ham-fisted law that doesn't match reality will give them some ability to control what non-tech-savvy citizens are able to see, and there may be some validity to that (although much less than they'd probably hope).
  3. I don't think this is France's government right now, but certain governments can get a lot of mileage out of laws that are obviously impossible. In Russia, it's illegal to criticize the war, which is obviously impossible to enforce -- and yet, there are a bunch of people in prison, because they criticized the war and the government decided to single them out to be punished. It can be a ridiculous and impossible law; they're still in prison.
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

offtopic: on your 3. it's also illegal to "discredit the Russian armed forces", for which even "patriots" and Putinists get fined.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Ehh not comfortable giving my personal details to sign a petition.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

□ I’m okay with Mozilla handling my info as explained in this Privacy Notice.

the privacy notice doesn't relate to the poll, is as fuzzy as it can be and doesn't even come close to mentioning there is mandatory e-mail field (not talking about explaining how it is handled). i am afraid that checkbox is not going to be checked from me.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

there is a section in the privacy policy explanations specifically dedicated to campaigns and petitions. i'm confused why it would need to mention any specifics like that they ask for an email address when their definition of personal information is defined as information they ask you for. it says they'll only use it for things you give them permission to use it for. is the privacy policy great to read? no. is it a little confusing being broken up into parts to make it "easy" to read? a little bit. the point is, they're not going to use the email address for anything else. and honestly, who doesn't have email aliases if you're protecting your email address so much that even Mozilla is a red flag? how did you even sign up for lemm.ee when it has almost regulations for your information ("we only share it with third parties that help us and that we like their privacy policy")? Mozilla does the same.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it says they’ll only use it for things you give them permission to use it for

no, it doesn't. it only makes very vague claim that can really mean anything.

how did you even sign up for lemm.ee when it has almost regulations for your information (“we only share it with third parties that help us and that we like their privacy policy”)? Mozilla does the same.

i expect better job from company of the size of mozilla, than i expect from lemm.ee, as i somehow expect them having few more layers ;)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You clearly didn't read past where you highlighted because they make the same claim that lemmee does right after that. And Mozilla has a reputation. What's lemmee have? Because it's unknown, you trust it more? Are you serious? I'm not trusting some rando with my email address simply because I shouldn't expect much from them. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If anything, you should trust an unknown variable less. Who knows how easily lemm.ee can be hacked. It's protected by third party organizations that they trust with your information.

Mozilla has a track record. Lemm.ee has nothing.

You "care" about privacy but don't know anything about it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You clearly didn’t read past where you highlighted

i clearly didn't, do you know why?

because they make the same claim that lemmee does right after that. And

because they don't make ANY claim after that.

that highlighted part is end of section "product & policy campaigns". what follows is information about cookies, 3rd party analytics and purchases on mozilla websites.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/websites/

look, i understand your longing to deliver some sick burn, fanboy, but before you start lecturing other to learn to read, you should really master that craft yourself.

I’m not trusting some rando with my email address simply because I shouldn’t expect much from them.

well i shouldn't expect the need for blind trust from mozilla.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

For processing or providing products and services to you, but only if those entities receiving your information are contractually obligated to handle the data in ways that are approved by Mozilla.

This is their policy on sharing with third parties. I suggest reading everything. Like I said, the same qualifications you trusted a random person with no reputation and no track record and not even a commitment to privacy that Mozilla has. You literally trusted a stranger simply due to convenience. You like to pretend you care about privacy, but you understand nothing about it.

I'm guessing you didn't actually read the privacy policy. I refer you back to the slight confusion about breaking up easy parts to read. I guess that did confuse you and you stopped reading.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ironic, how Mozilla themselves wanted to 'amplify factual voices'.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Brave shill/chrome shill or both?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

where is the petition to bring weave back and remove pocket?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree about pocket, but... I thought Weave was just renamed/rebranded to Sync.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

well weave was 1 effin thing you needed to install and can selfhost. 10 years later nobody hosts it self. because moz made it like shit. again. you'll need a ton of installations for fxa and syncing and where to store bookmarks. just crap. the worst are the people at moz because their decisions render the word open and community a joke. remember the way they forced all plugin devs to follow their new implementation? well, that is exactly the behavior these moz morons complain about themselves when chrome adds drm or whatever shit alphabet comes up with.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, you're not wrong. I just can't bring myself to use a chromium based browser unless I have no other choice. So here I am on Librewolf...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

hehehe, ok.