However, cost of colchicine according to the National Cancer Institute, current evidence suggests cell lasix online stores phone usage does not cause any type of cancer in order gel lowest dosage cheapest price humans. Other people with tinnitus experience the noises even in cialis buy loud environments, and some people find that their symptoms become purchase generic arcoxia side effects and alcohol worse in noisy surroundings. Rarely, endometriosis may affect the upper quinine no prescription urinary tract, which includes the ureters, known as ureteral endometriosis, cialis overnight and kidneys, known as renal endometriosis. In general, eating a discount flagyl balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables has advantages for discount zoloft overall health and acid reflux. LEARN MORE Best for reducing order no rx cialis daily stress Headspace uses mindfulness and meditation to help people purchase diflucan online build relationships, reduce stress, and promote restful sleep. Annual LDCT order viagra scans can increase the chances of survival for people who buying advair are at a high risk of developing lung cancer. While homeopathy.

Democracies are remarkably ready to adopt the censorship technologies of nations they claim to loathe. Our example du jour is the government of South Africa, which proposes to ban Internet pornography. All of it — not just bad stuff like child pornography.

And why not, say the social arbiters within the government? A deputy Home Minister says, “Cars are already provided with brakes and seatbelts… There is no reason why the internet should be provided without the necessary restrictive mechanisms built into it.”

There are a few problems with this idea, to say the least. First is that it won’t work. Any filter will fail to detect encrypted images — though of course you could outlaw encryption. Problem is, you probably want your banking transactions encrypted.

So any porn detector is going to have lots of false negatives.

But there are the false positives too. This is the old problem of figuring out what the government censors will consider pornographic. Perhaps South Africa has figured out how to define it, but I doubt it. Will anatomical atlases be banned? Breastfeeding guides? Sex manuals, for that matter? What about The Ecstasy of St Teresa? Somebody has to decide, and where there is legal liability for guessing wrong, a great deal of worthwhile material will be redacted. Self-censorship works rather well, actually.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 29th, 2010 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Censorship and free speech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.