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Comment by vondur | Hacker News Reader

Pretty soon it will be available everywhere. How many sites will they block?

Probably everywhere necessary. The snuff video has been adjudged obscene, the way the NZ law works it was always obscene, the censor just confirms it. In practice if you access something like this and once you realise what you're seeing you stop watching then the government isn't going to come after you, but if you share it, keep a copy etc etc you have broken the law enough that you're likely in trouble.

Because it's illegal to have a copy or to publish it the ISPs are likely liable for having transient copies in their routers (these laws were written for film), the ISPs chose to do this initially purely as a public service but now I suspect that they are likely legally liable if they don't make a good faith effort to block these sites (remember ISPs can IP block and DNS block, they can't edit an SSL query on the fly, so everything at that IP will be blocked, if you're hosting your web site along with a snuff film archive I don't have a lot of sympathy for you).

A couple of people have already been in court for sharing it, one is an actual nazi, the other alt-right who may also be an accomplice.

Several people have also lost their jobs for sharing it at work or just plain accessing it at work (this is an action by the companies, not the govt).

There's no real reason why anyone needs to watch this snuff video, except maybe the police themselves as evidence.

Don't be naive, it's not being blocked because it's "obscene" or "snuff". There are plenty of sites with _far_ worse than this video on them that aren't blocked.

No, that's exactly why it's being blocked, just because there's worse stuff out there doesn't suddenly make this evil stuff acceptable

It's being blocked for political reasons. Just like when the US went to war against Iraq, one argument was "Saddam is a dictator that kills his own people". But there are worse dictators before and after Saddam.

You are using the same manipulative cherry-picked argument to justify censorship. Censorship is a weapon used by dictators, not free leaders.

It's being blocked by private companies, because they think it's the right thing to do in context, and I suspect largely for business reasons, they don't want to be convicted for passing around the snuff video.

Censorship is part of our law, it's right and proper for the NZ censor to declare the snuff video as obscene, that's his job according to law. We're a democracy, if we decide we don't need a censor we'll legislate him away.

In the meantime I'm curious why you are so in favour of this video, are you a supporter of the terrorist and his goals?

Here's the _government_ of NZ arresting people for _not_ censoring the video, with a worse punishment than murder and rape: (fyi, all censoring has to be done via private companies, unless NZ has all government run internet and tv?)

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/new-zealand-men-...

I absolutely loath the video, it's revolting. But as I mentioned ealier, worse stuff has been online and still is.

I think the problem is that many people don't want to really know what was on the video and be appalled by it without truly knowing.

Do you know what was on it? It was sick and terrible. But, since I have seen the whole thing (I made myself) I can compare it with other videos.

The last few years of ISIS videos of drownings, murders, pushing people off of roofs, mass shootings, etc... (only part of a few I saw, and what I saw was so terrible I turned it off)

A _slew_ of videos that are 10 times more graphic, sick and violent have been shown on CNN, Fox News and elsewhere.

So, if you believe this one video is worse than others, I would like to know which part is more horrific than people being burned alive in a cage? Yet, I didn't hear one single peep about censoring those videos, or anyone being arrested or jailed for sharing ISIS terrorist propaganda.

Yes the video is illegal, those people were arrested because they broke the law.

I'm sorry for you that you watched it all the way through, that sounds like a sick compulsion, please get help

What were people so afraid of that if you saw this video you deserved to go to jail in some countries? Is it that bad?

The ISIS videos of people being executed were magnitudes more gruesome than this, and they were on CNN/FOX news.

Do you think everyone who watches the evening news has a sick compulsion as well?

New Zealand has decided, democratically, that we want to have a censor who does this sort of work. What would you consider to be a reasonable criteria for the censor to block a video?

Every culture has it's own definitions. The problem is that the world's cultures are mixing online, and the lowest tolerable level will win out. So, it doesn't matter what I think, it's what every combined culture, religion, government , etc... will choose.

And they will choose anything and everything that threatens their power. The actual contents don't matter.

Soon drugs will be everywhere so why stop these two drug dealers? how many drug dealers will they arrest?

We're kind of figuring out that doesn't work either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs#Efficacy_of_the_U...

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I think the grandparent was referencing this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

IDK that this constitutes the streisand effect. I don't feel like most people are going to be actively seeking this out now that it's being banned. Part of what fuels the streisand effect is that the thing being covered up was relatively unknown prior to the cover-up. People know the details of this event. They know, generally, what's on the video.

The fact that it becomes harder to get isn't going to make Joe-Everyman curious about what the big deal is. He gets that the big deal is that it's a video of actual humans being actually murdered, and he probably has feelings about that.

Selling drugs should be legal though, so I'm not sure what you're saying.

AtlasLion is saying the fact the government "can't" or "shouldn't" ban drugs hasn't stopped them putting a lot of effort and resources into trying to.

Replace “drug dealers” with “armed robbers” and you’ll avoid thn inevitable moralizing and nitpicking.

It's on a torrent with a magnet link, it's basically unblockable.

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