h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The law relating to the web sucks. It's a clumsy mishmash of national laws which are individually dumb, which when put together become hugely dumb. The question of who is a 'carrrier' and who is a 'publisher' is utterly confused.

This affects us here on h2g2, but it has effected many more people. Indeed, there are many who have a far greater claim to have been censored. An online gay magazine was removed because it's competitors asked their ISP for an assurance that the mag wouldn't publish any opinion detrimental for them - the ISP shut the site down rather than risk attracting the lawyers. And then there's the infamous Dr. Godfrey, and the victims of the Scientologist lawyers. There's some bad stuff going on.

So what to do? Talk to your local political representative. Talk to your party. Sign the Internet Declaration of Independance. When you vote, vote for the candidate who appears to understand the web - who has an email address which she actually replies to. Vote for parties which are happy to co-operate with other governments, and vote against those which are isolationist - because we'll need international agreement to sort this out.