Google’s Eric Schmidt: Proposed anti-piracy laws in UK could hurt free speech
Google CEO Eric Schmidt had some harsh words for the UK government’s plans to block access to illicit filesharing websites, the Guardian reports. Speaking at Google’s Big Tent conference in London, Schmidt compared this kind of website blocking to China’s censorship-heavy online policies.
“I would be very, very careful if I were a government about arbitrarily [implementing] simple solutions to complex problems,” he said, according to the Guardian. “So, ‘let’s whack off the DNS’. Okay, that seems like an appealing solution but it sets a very bad precedent because now another country will say ‘I don’t like free speech so I’ll whack off all those DNSs’ – that country would be China.”
He added, “I would be very, very careful about that stuff. If [the UK government] do it the wrong way it could have disastrous precedent setting in other areas.”
Earlier this year, the UK government revealed it planned to block certain filesharing websites known for spreading illegal content, such as copyright songs and movies. A voluntary code “would govern how and which filesharing sites are censored.”
Schmidt added Google would do everything in its power to challenge the UK proposals, although he didn’t elaborate how Google would fight back if the laws were passed.
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