How would you even go about enforcing this? Anyone with even basic skills can write a very simple web browser that just makes http requests and displays the output
Displaying raw HTML? Sure a fair number of people can pull that off. Actually rendering HTML+CSS with all their many features and a performant JS engine is many orders of magnitude more complex though, which is why there are basically only three browser engines (two if you count Chromium as a WebKit fork)
Of course, but the original commentor’s claim was that writing a web browser is trivial, not that compiling an existing web browser with some minimal changes is trivial.
This has much broader consequences than just France. Imagine if France succeeded in passing this, and browsers had to implement capabilities for government mandated blocklists.
You can be sure governments across the globe would be rushing through similar legislation as fast as they can.
They already are. We are fighting for our freedoms within the confines that our rulers have set out. It is impossible to win such battle so I don’t care.
Hello, A few months ago, the French government proposed a new law, putting the free internet in peril. But the global Mozilla community showed its power and stepped up to stop it. In a moment, we’ll share good news on our fight against this dangerous censorship, as well as next steps you can take to help. But first, here’s some context about what’s happening.
Part of the SREN bill (Projet de loi visant à sécuriser et réguler I’espace numérique’) as proposed originally would have given the government the power to censor what you can and cannot see online.
Immediately, the Mozilla community and our allies fought back. More than 80,000 supporters signed our petition and thousands of you donated to power this campaign.
And we have good news: a revised version was adopted in the French National Assembly, removing the browser-level blocking that was part of the original draft.
The amended bill is a huge improvement. And we can proudly say: This success can be credited to the Mozilla community and our allies fighting back, and the tireless advocacy work we have done for the last months.
While the National Assembly listened to the voices of the Mozilla community (Mozilla’s work was even mentioned several times during the debate!), there are several more formal steps in the legislative process.
Next up is discussion in a commission mixte paritaire (CMP): the text will be negotiated by a mix of lawmakers from the government, the National Assembly, and the Senate, in order to find a compromise.
And even if this text survives the CMP, it still won’t be quite over. The technical details will be laid out in an implementing decree.
##We need to make sure this version makes it through this next stage unchanged.
We must keep up the pressure now to make sure no lawmakers bargain and sneak browser-level blocking back into the bill - it would have disastrous implications for browsers like Firefox, not just in France, by handing over censorship tools to less democratic countries.
What you can do now: Thank you for being part of this fight. If you can afford it, please consider making a donation today to bring this campaign over the finish line. We’re at a crucial point and your contribution could tip the scale by allowing us to:
continue to connect lawmakers with tech and policy experts to show what browser-level blocking would mean for the future of the internet; and
prepare for a potential last minute public advertising campaign in order to mobilise more people and apply pressure on decision-makers in the Senate and government in key moments.
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