The Great Firewall of China is a censorship program.

This proposed US legislation puts the power of blocking under the authority of its court system and only in the domain of copyright law. The courts are historically very concerned with upholding 1st Amendment rights to a degree that often (but not always) surpasses analogous rights in many sister liberal democracies. Anything that remotely smells of censorship would come under intense scrutiny.

And in this case, since we are talking about copyright law, the only parties with standing to sue for a block are the IP owners in the first place. So, by definition, this legislation cannot be used for censorship.

This is a censorship program.

Every time a system that allows for internet content to be blocked is created, it's extended, misused and abused shortly thereafter.

"The tools already exist, why don't we use them to fight terrorists/pirates/cybercriminals/gays/undesirables too".

The slope isn't just slippery - it's made of Teflon and coated with baby oil.

YouTube's copyright strikes create a chilling effect. Google takes the easy way out in tuning their system to minimize false negatives at the cost of lots of false positives. This minimizes their liability under the DMCA and minimizes cost but allows lots of abuse by those claiming to hold copyright.

Copyright law is a censorship program. It may not have been the intent presented when it was made but more and more it is used to suppress the speech of those who can't afford the legal battle. This is amplified by enforcement around it taking a guilty until proven innocent style since platforms that host speech are held liable for not taking immediate action.

When you prevent distribution of information, that is censorship by definition. You can argue that censorship in this case is socially beneficial, but don't muddy the waters as to what it it is.

At the same time, laws like these require creation of infrastructure that is goal-agnostic. Once you have ISPs implement mandatory blocking of websites for copyright reasons, this system can, and eventually will, be used to block other things deemed undesirable for the plebs to access.

Given the current presidential administration especially, any Democrat participating in such a project should be tarred and feathered.

Yet it will be. Laws mean nothing to these people.

So how long before its used to block sites that say mean things about Trump?

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