RE: [soac-mapo] when is a domain name "incitement" that can be prohibited?

[Milton L Mueller <mueller@xxxxxxx>]

Right on target, Carleton. The absurdities of attempts to regulate expression 
are legion.

From: owner-soac-mapo@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-soac-mapo@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
Carlton Samuels
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2011 1:28 PM
To: Stéphane Van Gelder
Cc: Robin Gross; soac-mapo
Subject: Re: [soac-mapo] when is a domain name "incitement" that can be 
prohibited?

On 2011/1/17 Stéphane Van Gelder 
<stephane.vangelder@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:stephane.vangelder@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

"The real crime here, as far as France is concerned anyway, being insulting the 
nation and not insulting the person in question."

Hmmm, this is very interesting, this insulting a nation bit.  This is a correct 
interpretation.....this is the law of France, not outlaw states like say, 
um....North Korea...or Iran...or Cuba?  A whole nation?  How does one do that, 
you suppose?   Maybe say stuff like 'the Eiffel Tower is an old piece of 
iron....and not that tall anyways!'?  Or, recall the 'french fries' thing on 
Capitol Hill back in the day?  Would that qualify as an insult to 
France.......maybe, a 'casus belli' if somebody 'important enough' from 
somewhere 'unimportant' were to utter them?  Would this make a good case for 
across the board int'l acceptance..which is the central idea for a policy 
vis-a-vis MAPO?

...just thinking aloud......about that inerrancy mindset.....depending, of 
course, on who you are and where you're from!!

Helluva thing, power.....or the perception of it....


==============================


2011/1/17 Stéphane Van Gelder 
<stephane.vangelder@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:stephane.vangelder@xxxxxxxxx>>
Thanks Robin, very interesting and does seem of particular relevance to this 
group's work.

I believe France has the same legal context as the US, i.e. it's only if you 
threaten to kill the President that you are breaking the law. That may however 
extend to any senior member of government, I am not sure. The real crime here, 
as far as France is concerned anyway, being insulting the nation and not 
insulting the person in question.

In any case, when threats of this kind are made against someone who is not a 
member of government, even though it is not against the law, it may go against 
our idea of morality. Public threats against anyone's life are offensive to me, 
but that is a matter of personal ethics.

So I would not like a threatening gTLD to be allowed through ICANN's 
application process unchecked. If that was a possibility, I would hope that 
some kind of mechanism be in place to allow me to challenge that application.

Stéphane

Le 15 janv. 2011 à 19:45, Robin Gross a écrit :


Interesting real world development of relevance to the discussion on the legal 
standard of incitement / instigation to commit violence.

The words "kill x" alone is not incitement under US law that can be prohibited 
(unless x is Obama).

Robin

.........
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/14/death-threat-domain-names_n_809174.html

Death Threat Domain Names: Registrar Says Killjulianassange.com Will Not Be 
Removed<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/14/death-threat-domain-names_n_809174.html>

The Huffington Post  Lila Shapiro Posted: 01/14/11 03:23 PM


BoingBoing<http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/14/death-threat-domain.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+boingboing/iBag+(Boing+Boing)>
 has a quick post up today claiming that "Registering death threats as domain 
names is the hot new thing in psychopathic anti-Wikileaks action!"

According to vivantleakers.org<http://www.artificialeyes.tv/node/852> -- a new 
site created to track "cyber-bullying domain names of wikileaks associates" -- 
multiple death-threat domain names have been registered going after Wikileaks 
director Julian Assange. Killjulianassange.com<http://Killjulianassange.com/> 
and julianassangemustdie.com<http://julianassangemustdie.com/> are recently 
registered examples, although they have no content on them at this time.

Go Daddy, the site which registered both 
killjulianassange.com<http://killjulianassange.com/> and 
julianassangemustdie.com<http://julianassangemustdie.com/> said there is 
nothing that can be done about either site while they are contentless. Go Daddy 
registers a domain name every .8 seconds -- any domain name can be registered 
and there is no human intervention.

"Unless and until there is content associated with 
killjulianassange.com<http://killjulianassange.com/> there is no way for us to 
know what that means," said Christine Jones, Go Daddy's General Counsel. 
"There's no way to judge whether there's going to be something done with that 
domain name or if it is going to be violating any rule."

In the past week, Go Daddy has received numerous calls regarding the death 
threat domain names, but the company has no intention of taking action at this 
time. The one exception to this, Jones said, would be a domain name death 
threat for the President, "if the secret service contacted us, we would almost 
certainly take action on those domain names."

Assange is no stranger to death threats of the old fashioned kind either. In an 
online chat with the Guardian Assange 
wrote<http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE6B21O820101204> that anyone making 
threats against his life should be charged with incitement to murder: "The 
threats against our lives are a matter of public record, however, we are taking 
the appropriate precautions to the degree that we are able when dealing with a 
superpower."

Domain name attacks have become increasingly popular in a wide range of 
scenarios.

To prepare for an allegedly forthcoming WikiLeak which will supposedly reveal 
troves of highly sensitive information, Bank of America reportedly bought up 
scores of domain 
names<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/bank-of-america-domain-names_n_800315.html>
 that are critical of the bank and CEO Brian Moynihan.





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