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Comment by praptak | Hacker News Reader

> you can't reasonably support an "open internet" in all instances. There have to be some exceptions.

Why? I am fine with the internet not blocking anything at all, even though I accept limits on free speech.

To drag the "speech" analogy further, I can shout whatever I want and I'm ok with the fact that in some cases this can bring consequences.

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So if a company starts infringing trademarks, polluting search engines en masse, tricking people into buying their rubbish, phishing their details, getting credit card details etc, you'd be fine with that?

What about people who DDoS attack you? Is that fine? No need to have any recourse there?

How about those that hack DNS to dupe people into visiting their site etc

Those are all "Open Internet", but they're also not very nice.

I don't think it's as clear cut as some make it.

I don't know if SOPA gets it right or wrong, or if the current laws are sufficient, but I'm glad we have some of those laws in place to make the internet a slightly nicer place.

> No need to have any recourse there?

I'm not sure why you'd say that, when the parent says

> and I'm ok with the fact that in some cases this can bring consequences.

Bad stuff happens on the Internet. People need a way to stop that bad stuff happening. SOPA is not that way.

"So if a company starts infringing trademarks, polluting search engines en masse, tricking people into buying their rubbish"

eBay? also, already illegal based on trademarks, copyright, etc etc.

"What about people who DDoS attack you? Is that fine? No need to have any recourse there?" "How about those that hack DNS to dupe people into visiting their site etc"

already illegal

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from my understanding, SOPA is more about removing due process than making bad things illegal

Those things are already illegal and SOPA doesn't address them anyway. I think the important point is that the internet should not be restricted in an attempt to preempt any criminal activity (because it won't work). Instead, the internet should be left alone, and those who choose to do illegal things on the internet should be prosecuted.

So, how SOPA makes anything better? You cannot blacklist a botnet, right? You cannot blacklist a scummer, as he would just setup another domain, right? Who you can very well blacklist is a small guy with his blog giving a honest opinion about reality, right?

Hold on. In this post of yours (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3382000), you said:

> I'm against SOPA as much as the next guy

Here, you're saying you don't know whether to support the warrentless censorship of websites you disagree with. Why are you saying two different things?

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