{"id":1071,"date":"2014-07-24T00:46:03","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T00:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2021-08-05T07:20:57","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T14:20:57","slug":"first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/","title":{"rendered":"First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don&#8217;t Talk About Censorship Club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>So it\u2019s happened again. Every time law enforcement anywhere gets the ability to censor websites, it always gets applied overbroadly, way beyond the original prescribed scope, and each and every time somebody exposes that, the same law enforcement uses their censorship powers to cover up the neglect in their own transgressions.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Censorship is a very controversial topic in many legislatures. The copyright industry has <a href=\"http:\/\/falkvinge.net\/2012\/05\/23\/cynicism-redefined-why-the-copyright-lobby-loves-child-porn\/\">long pushed<\/a> for websites containing child abuse images to be censored from the net at the ISP level, with the ulterior motive that such a censorship regime could later be expanded to also encompass sites that the copyright industry doesn\u2019t like in general. (Yes, really.)<\/p>\n<p>Child abuse imagery is one of the few things that do cause censorship of the net to actually happen, which can be observed in country after country. And every time such censorship has been instituted, the list of censored sites has itself been declared secret (as, it is argued, it would otherwise be a directory of illegal material). Then, inevitably, it leaks, and turns out to have barely no illegal material at all on it (low single-digit percent), but tons and tons and tons of fully legal material that has been illegally censored for years without oversight or transparency.<\/p>\n<p>The next step from law enforcement is as predictable as the motion of a grandfather clock: add the exposure of their own neglect and crimes against freedom of speech to the censorship list, effectively censoring freedom of the press that exposes abuse of power. This has happened in many countries:<\/p>\n<p>In Finland, when Internet activist Matti Nikki <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lapsiporno.info\">exposed<\/a> the censorship list as being basically just a violation of rights, with the vast majority censoring ordinary legal material, the exposure site was itself added to the censorship list to prevent transparency into the abuse of power. The Finnish Supreme Court recently <a href=\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/finnish-court-censors-website-that-criticizes-censorship-130826\/\">confirmed<\/a> that this was an appropriate move; that censorship of abuse of censorship is okay, as long as \u2013 wait for it \u2013 the motive is to protect children.<\/p>\n<p>In Sweden, a similar list \u2013 when leaked \u2013 was publicly ridiculed after it was discovered to censor, among other things, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.koreabonsai.com\/\">Korean Bonsai Growers Association<\/a>. (No, there really is nothing but small pretty trees there.) Again, law enforcement tried to have the list \u2013 and their neglective abuse of power \u2013 censored. (The list is still secret.)<\/p>\n<p>And now, in Germany, the same thing again. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/2014\/07\/22\/german-government-tries-to-censor-publication-its-list-censored-websites\/\">Techdirt writes<\/a> how the German government tries to censor publication of its list of censored websites, and it\u2019s the same story again.<\/p>\n<p>Censorship is really never the answer. Maybe it worked in the past. But if it ever did, it doesn\u2019t anymore. One thing that\u2019s been constant throughout history, though, is that people have used and abused their own powers to maintain their own power, and in particular, cover up their own mistakes.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why it\u2019s a horrible idea to give anybody \u2013 <em>anybody<\/em> \u2013 the power to censor the Internet, which in this day and age means the free press, the right to assembly, <em>and<\/em> free speech. What you\u2019ll get is a first rule of Censorship Club, which says you don\u2019t talk about Censorship Club.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, VPNs and similar technologies can circumvent censorship easily where its reason isn\u2019t justified or justifiable, such as when law enforcement tries to cover up their own abuse of power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So it\u2019s happened again. Every time law enforcement anywhere gets the ability to censor websites, it always gets applied overbroadly, way beyond the original prescribed scope, and each and every time somebody exposes that, the same law enforcement uses their censorship powers to cover up the neglect in their own transgressions. Censorship is a very &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don&#8217;t Talk About Censorship Club&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":true,"_modified_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1945,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censorship","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.9 (Yoast SEO v26.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don&#039;t Talk About Censorship Club<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So it&#039;s happened again. Every time law enforcement anywhere gets the ability to censor websites, it always gets applied overbroadly, way beyond the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don&#039;t Talk About Censorship Club\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So it&#039;s happened again. Every time law enforcement anywhere gets the ability to censor websites, it always gets applied overbroadly, way beyond the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PIA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-07-24T00:46:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-08-05T14:20:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ogimage.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rick Falkvinge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@buyvpnservice\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rick Falkvinge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rick Falkvinge\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4\"},\"headline\":\"First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don&#8217;t Talk About Censorship Club\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-07-24T00:46:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-05T14:20:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/\"},\"wordCount\":571,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Censorship\",\"General Privacy News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/\",\"name\":\"First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don't Talk About Censorship Club\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-07-24T00:46:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-05T14:20:57+00:00\",\"description\":\"So it's happened again. Every time law enforcement anywhere gets the ability to censor websites, it always gets applied overbroadly, way beyond the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don&#8217;t Talk About Censorship Club\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"PIA\",\"description\":\"Online privacy news from around the world.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Private Internet Access\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":1200,\"caption\":\"Private Internet Access\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/buyvpnservice\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/piavpn\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UClyJZ47Rizb1xnwuKXDI0_w\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4\",\"name\":\"Rick Falkvinge\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Rick Falkvinge\"},\"description\":\"Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. Additionally, he has a tech entrepreneur background and loves good whisky and fast motorcycles.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/falkvinge.net\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/author\/rick\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don't Talk About Censorship Club","description":"So it's happened again. Every time law enforcement anywhere gets the ability to censor websites, it always gets applied overbroadly, way beyond the","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don't Talk About Censorship Club","og_description":"So it's happened again. Every time law enforcement anywhere gets the ability to censor websites, it always gets applied overbroadly, way beyond the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/","og_site_name":"PIA","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/","article_published_time":"2014-07-24T00:46:03+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-08-05T14:20:57+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":630,"url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ogimage.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Rick Falkvinge","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge","twitter_site":"@buyvpnservice","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rick Falkvinge","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/"},"author":{"name":"Rick Falkvinge","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4"},"headline":"First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don&#8217;t Talk About Censorship Club","datePublished":"2014-07-24T00:46:03+00:00","dateModified":"2021-08-05T14:20:57+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/"},"wordCount":571,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Censorship","General Privacy News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/","name":"First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don't Talk About Censorship Club","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-07-24T00:46:03+00:00","dateModified":"2021-08-05T14:20:57+00:00","description":"So it's happened again. Every time law enforcement anywhere gets the ability to censor websites, it always gets applied overbroadly, way beyond the","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/first-rule-of-censorship-club-is-you-dont-talk-about-censorship-club\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"First Rule Of Censorship Club Is You Don&#8217;t Talk About Censorship Club"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/","name":"PIA","description":"Online privacy news from around the world.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Private Internet Access","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png","width":1200,"height":1200,"caption":"Private Internet Access"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/","https:\/\/x.com\/buyvpnservice","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/piavpn\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UClyJZ47Rizb1xnwuKXDI0_w"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4","name":"Rick Falkvinge","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Rick Falkvinge"},"description":"Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. Additionally, he has a tech entrepreneur background and loves good whisky and fast motorcycles.","sameAs":["https:\/\/falkvinge.net\/","https:\/\/x.com\/http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge"],"url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/author\/rick\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29544,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions\/29544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}