On 23/01/2009, at 1:02 PM, Noah Slater wrote:
I can imagine that there are some sites which we would not want to
link to, even
under your proposal. I do not have any concrete examples.
I wouldn't want to link to gambling sites, or weapons sites, or
misogynistic sites. But if it were up to me I would allow everything
not illegal, without exception, subject to technical requirements
being met.
Even your suggestion
of disallowing anything illegal is an ethical position. There is
nothing
intrinsic about common law that makes it an ethical baseline.
Of course the law has nothing to do with ethics - it's a combination
of prejudice, history, power and utilitarianism. I agree that
following the law can be, however, an ethical decision, although not
the basis on which I suggest we do so.
Making the decision to disallow links to illegal content, or
disallowing a
particular link for whatever reason we decide, is an ethical
judgement. As a
community it is our right to do this. There is nothing objectivist
about this as
long as we frame it within a relative position.
I suggest that we follow the law as a pragmatic issue only. In so far
as virtually every decision has an ethical dimension, this is still
not objective, but I don't think there is anything better.
Now, if the law of the hosting country allowed child porn for some
bizarre reason, then I'd have to expose my inner Kantian, and would be
making a different argument. And in fact there is a real issue here -
France and Germany (at least) have laws against trading in
(discussing?) Nazi artifacts - both ebay and google have run into
that. Should we not allow that? And if we respect the laws of France
and Germany, then what about the laws of China or Burma or Thailand or
Saudi Arabia.
So there's no escaping some degree of ethical decision making. But
practically speaking, obeying the laws of the country in which you
host (or in which you could be prosecuted), seems a no-brainer, and
IMO can sidestep further disagreement.
Antony Blakey
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CTO, Linkuistics Pty Ltd
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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever
that it is not utterly absurd.
-- Bertrand Russell
