US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/11/mish-fined-8000-euros-for-quoting_20.html

by jstalin • 13 years ago

267 221 13 years ago

globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

gnu8• 13 years ago

I hereby fine Société Générale 8,000 bitcoins for violating the American constitution (never mind jurisdiction since they don't care for it either), notice duly served by posting this comment in a public forum and witnessed by whoever happens to read this.

chadwickthebold• 13 years ago

Submitted to the Court of Public Opinion

TallGuyShort• 13 years ago

Hereby notarized by a third-party.

sp3322• 13 years ago

As the jury, I formally affirm this seems legit.

joshdance• 13 years ago

I second the motion and move that the penalty be assessed immediately.

ebbv• 13 years ago

Why stop there? I fine them all of France. I now own France and they need to get off my lawn.

witek5• 13 years ago

Subsequent letters will be in Swahili and SG will be required to respond in Swahili.

aktiur4• 13 years ago

Addenda will be in Malayalam though.

jffry• 13 years ago

Subsequent letters will be in Navajo, and the recipient will be required to respond in Navajo

protomyth• 13 years ago

You can practice your Navajo by watching Star Wars in Navajo. Darth Vader sounds particularly scary. http://www.npr.org/2013/06/20/193496493/translated-into-nava...

Tloewald6• 13 years ago

Yeah the United States never does anything outside its jurisdiction that anyone else finds annoying.

That said, the level of institutionalized corruption in France is pretty outrageous. If I recall correctly, the president of France receives a truck load of cash every year which can be used with zero accountability (and that's legal). Of course the French (and pretty much any democratic country) can look at our electoral system and laugh.

cobrausn4• 13 years ago

Yeah the United States never does anything outside its jurisdiction that anyone else finds annoying.

Except we aren't talking about the US right now, we are talking about one particularly boneheaded action by France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

astrobe_3• 13 years ago

You are probably referring to this: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonds_sp%C3%A9ciaux

quick translation: before 2001 the President and its ministers used to receive "secret funding" that they could use for whatever they wanted. The money came from Banque de France (public money, not money from a private bank).

This has been mostly suppressed in 2001 (the amounts are now public information), except for secret services funding (for obvious reasons).

So your example is a bit inaccurate and a bit outdated. That said, we certainly have our share of nepotism and collusion.

hoers• 13 years ago

The payment is to be aligned within the next python update at the following address: 1gxud5uquSr1aE9uknj2W6K2WLDwPHEQu

rdtsc• 13 years ago

That's cute. You need one thing -- someone to enforce that for you.

A court they would listen to, an army, your buddy Louie with a baseball bat, ready to break their CEO's knees.

Societe Generale is in a better standing than you here. Some courts in some countries (France) using their enforcement agencies will most likely do their bidding for them.

In other words I can fine everyone millions of dollars. Look I fined you and everyone here $1B. Guess what chance I have of collecting that?

Disregard other things, deep down that is what it boils down to.

HeXetic2• 13 years ago

I don't understand how this court system can be so silly as to fail to recognize that it has no jurisdiction over someone. Isn't the question of jurisdiction one of the first steps in any court case?

hobzy• 13 years ago

Erm, ask the US?

yread• 13 years ago

US doesn't need courts to deal out the punishments

alan_cx• 13 years ago

Yeah, was wondering that myself. Quite ironic that small fact being utterly missed in all this.

Also like the anti French language ignorance. The letter came in French and the recipient couldn't be arsed to spend a few mins on google translate, and some how we are supposed to have some sympathy. On top of that, he also says that he knew there was a legal thing happening, so subsequent letters in French should have got his attention.

And then he has the sheer cheek to talk about insane French law. Hello USA? The go to place for mad law?

This whole thing to me reeks of both ignorance and arrogance.

Not saying the scenario is great, but come on HN. Balance? Or are we still in Freedom Fries mode?

shrikant• 13 years ago

Courts in France have never bothered about jurisdiction when it comes to the Internet. See [1] and [2], for e.g.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!

[2] http://news.yahoo.com/french-court-google-must-drop-9-mosley...

aroch• 13 years ago

Ehh, Google has meaningful ties to France; ie. they do business there.

    Google Paris

    8 Rue de Londres

    75009 Paris

nandhp• 13 years ago

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#France (Although I'm not sure any courts were involved in that)

Hermel• 13 years ago

Maybe the French are fed up with US judges doing this all the time and this is some kind of revenge?

rayiner4• 13 years ago

But U.S. judges don't do this all the time. Meanwhile, a number of European countries (notably the U.K.) are famous for dragging foreigners into defamation cases for conduct that happened entirely outside the country. The U.S. tends to invoke jurisdiction only when you do something quite targeted at the U.S.

lxa478• 13 years ago

There would be enough jurisdiction to arrest the guy if he happened to travel to France though. Maybe not enough to have any charges stick, but probably enough to make his life misérables.

Xylakant5• 13 years ago

What do you mean by "no jurisdiction over someone?" If a crime was committed in france they can ask for extradition. That would probably not result in anything in this case, but as long as it's a crime by french law committed in france the case may as well be valid. So all the court will check whether a punishable crime was committed in france.

They could collect the fine when the blogger enters france or maybe, depending on the case, the european union or an associated state.

salient3• 13 years ago

If a crime was committed in france they can ask for extradition.

But it wasn't "committed in France". This is getting ridiculous, not to mention extremely dangerous. A few more cases of these from the "democracies" of the world, and soon China will start demanding the same thing.

"You said something bad about China online? We're just going to fine you, or ask for your extradition and arrest."

darkarmani2• 13 years ago

it's a crime by french law committed in france

Did you miss the part where it was an American blogger? It wasn't committed in france.

cantankerous• 13 years ago

it's a crime by french law committed in france

Was this actually a crime or just a civil dispute?

declan5• 13 years ago

France has no jurisdiction. U.S. courts will not enforce this civil judgment. Our 1A precludes them from doing so. And the blogger in question said he's not going to France.

(BTW, a civil judgment is not "a crime by French law.")

cpa• 13 years ago

It's a bit more subtle. French judges consider that they have jurisdiction if one of the party is in France or (for internet-related things) if the intended public is french. See LICRA vs Yahoo! linked in another comment.

HeXetic2• 13 years ago

But the intended public wasn't French in this case? The guy is an English-language blogger.

wpietri4• 13 years ago

How very... American of them.

aktiur4• 13 years ago

It is a peculiarity of French administrative law. It's not a court that fined Mish, but an Autorité Administrative Indépendante (AAI or independent administrative authority, but I'm sure you did not need the translation) with the power to fine people (there are only a few).

Basically, if he appeals, it will very probably be overturned by a proper judge. Another AAI in charge of the regulation of the telecommunications sector got striken badly by a decision of our Constitutionnal court (no less) which suppressed its power to pronounce sanctions, judging the protection of the rights of defence was not effective. It's going to end the same way here I would say.

witek5• 13 years ago

Hilarious. It baffles me how this country continues to operate given the massive public spending/benefits, delightful reforms (e.g. proposed 80% tax rate for high-earners) and pretty xenophobic view on immigration. ALL of my (highly-skilled) French friends do not plan to return in the foreseeable future.

jstalin2• 13 years ago

Printed money is a helluva drug.

Symmetry2• 13 years ago

France is part of the Euro, and it's pretty much the Germans who decide when new Euros get printed. They haven't proven sympathetic to the idea of printing many recently.

mtrimpe• 13 years ago

ALL of my (highly-skilled) French friends do not plan to return in the foreseeable future.

You are aware that there might be a tiny hint of selection bias at play there... right? ;)

JoeAltmaier2• 13 years ago

Sure! All skilled folks that leave France, don't want to go back. That's the point.

simias2• 13 years ago

While the situation in TFA is spectacularly ridiculous and shameful for me as a french I don't think it warrants this kind of gratuitous french bashing. Unless of course you want to explain to us what the french taxation laws have to do with this particular court decision.

Also it's 75%, not 80%. That might not be very significant overall but it makes me doubt you really know what you're talking about.

rguillebert2• 13 years ago

And it's the marginal tax rate (beyond 1 million €).

witek5• 13 years ago

I guess my comment wasn't strictly limited to this court decision but I wouldn't consider it as French-bashing. I have nothing against your country and compatriots, and I have enjoyed many fun moments there. However, I and my two French flatmates are genuinely curious how France can continue on its current public-spending/entrepreneurship-throttling trajectory.

bru2• 13 years ago

I'm not surprised by such a comment, but finding it on HN saddens me.

xenophoby? Oh USA, building a wall to keep your neighbours out of your lawn, please tell me more!

Our economy? Of course American governement-sponsored 'liberalism' is a beacon for the free world, and dissidents are morons. Please have a look at this recent article by Paul Krugman: The Plot Against France[0].

Your high-skilled French friends? I have the luck to be put in that population. What I see around me is that we travel and work world-wide, until we start a family most of the time.

0: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/opinion/krugman-the-plot-a...

judk2• 13 years ago

Europe has an ocean to keep most of its poorer would-be neighbors away. You can't wave away geography. The US is comparable to Europe, not one country in Europe.

witek5• 13 years ago

I don't live in the US, I'm much closer - in London (apparently, the sixth largest French city). I'm not arguing the fact that it can be a lovely country for a French citizen and that you may want to retire there, given the generous benefits you'd be receiving.

However, I know from a few of my friends, who were settling in France for personal reasons, how painful the immigration process can be, especially if you're not white/caucasian.

doe883• 13 years ago

That baffles me how some people are so much bitter toward France they take any occasion to take a cheap shot.

xenophobic view on immigration.

Given this ranking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-bo... I don't think we have any advice to receive from anybody on the question of immigration. Granted there are some problems ampiflified by the economic crisis but given the rates of immigration we had to absorb in the previous decades I would say the situation is not that bad.

bmelton2• 13 years ago

Why does one have to be in a free-bordered country to critique another nation's immigration policies?

As an American, I disagree with American immigration policies, and also disagree with France's. Is my opinion discounted because I'm an American?

DenisM• 13 years ago

my (highly-skilled) French friends do not plan to return in the foreseeable future

Selection bias alert! You're more likely to meet people who swore to never return than those don't mind returning.

epsylon4• 13 years ago

Not to mention the fact that software engineering salaries are notoriously low in France compared to the US. Thus most people who have emigrated have strong financial incentives to stay there. (Well, at least until they have cancer and crappy insurance or they have to send their kids to college)

themodelplumber2• 13 years ago

This coverage is going to get him more than 8KE worth of blog visitors. Particularly the "hey, this little blogger was sharp enough to uncover some real weird stuff on the part of SG" angle. Blog readers eat that up.

RyJones• 13 years ago

While Mish isn't as well known as Drudge, he isn't a little blogger. Just because he doesn't write about growth hacking his angular startup into YC doesn't mean he has no reach.

wpietri4• 13 years ago

I suggest you add "growth hacking my angular startup into YC" into your HN bio. That's beautiful.

themodelplumber2• 13 years ago

By "little blogger" I don't mean to compare him to other bloggers. I meant that he's little in comparison to French banks.

csmuk2• 13 years ago

UK banks are just as bad. A company I worked for previously gave a bank's investment products a high risk rating because of poor investments/compliance and they sent all sorts of nasty shit out.

Every bank has a "send people nasty shit" department by the looks.

The answer is as always: "fuck off".

tombrossman• 13 years ago

I think the better answer is to not reply at all or ever acknowledge receipt of said 'nasty shit'. Make every step a challenge for the opponent, it's a war of attrition. And never get mad at the lawyer, s/he usually bills by the hour and they are delighted to send out useless letters all day long. Informing the bank that this is a waste of time is bad for job security.

csmuk2• 13 years ago

Bit hard when they are recorded deliveries.

Telling banks and other financial institutions to fuck off was just an operating cost for the company in question. It was in the budget.

That's how I learned how the finance system worked in the UK. Assholes lobbing grenades at each other whilst the rest of the companies just get on with it.

Joeri• 13 years ago

It's perfectly fine to get mad at the lawyer for abusing their skill doing such people-hostile work. They can choose a more honorable line of lawyering.

coldcode• 13 years ago

Nasty Shit Sender would be an interesting job title.

jackmaney4• 13 years ago

Roto-Rooter?

camus22• 13 years ago

Not surprising, there is no free speech in France.

Especially when it comes to crooked banks or politicians. France is a strange country that likes to give lessons about democracy to the rest of the world, but when you look at things closer, France is closer to a monarchy than a democracy.

Everything is so centralised that information usually comes from an single source of truth, that journalist dont even bother questioning since they are all married with politicians (literally).

kenkam• 13 years ago

I would very much be interested in the source describing this media-politics marriage dynamic that you mention.

> Not surprising, there is no free speech in France.

I don't see this as a free speech thing. I could argue there's no free speech in X. This kind of thing happens everywhere. People with money has power.

Jacqued• 13 years ago

I don't think there is a serious, in-depth analysis of the situation anywhere, but here is an article [1] that reminds these facs : - the President's partner is a journalist - 2 of the main ministers (Education and Work) are married to journalists - Another mediatised one (Productive recovery) is living with another journalist

As for former cases, we had : - the minister for foreign affairs who was married to a political journalist on public television (Bernard Kouchner and Christine Ockrent) - a Minister for Industry and later Finances who was married to a journalist (DSK, later infamously evicted from the IMF, and Anne Sinclair) - a Minister for Finances who was married to an evening news presenter (Jean-Louis Borloo and Beatrice Schonberg)

These are the most notorious cases that I can recall, but there are plenty of others. It's almost always a male political leader and a female journalist.

[1] http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2012/06/08/le-m...

astrobe_3• 13 years ago

He is referring to the fact that some well-known journalists are married or live with some well-known people from politics world. For instance, Anne Sinclair, the wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was presenting a very popular talk-show about politics in the 80/90ties. I know of a few current examples I don't remember of precisely.

bnegreve• 13 years ago

Not surprising, there is no free speech in France.

There is, with some restrictions like in most countries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#Fr...

mcguire2• 13 years ago

Just like everywhere else: you are free to do whatever you want, provided you are willing to accept the consequences.

In this case, the consequences of publicly disagreeing with the Société Générale's accounting practices are €8000.

Or, perhaps,

"The AFM has no jurisdiction over me, so they won't collect. As a US citizen living in the US, I am not subject to the absurdities of French laws, or French witch hunts. All they get from me is a vow to never go to France."

Which is kind of a pity. France is beautiful, and the food is delicious. [I'm tempted to add, "It is truly unfortunate that the country is infested with the French", but ain't nobody got no sense of humor, either.]

bausson6• 13 years ago

France is a strange country that likes to give lessons about democracy to the rest of the world

Coming from an american (I guess), i find this hilarious.

France is closer to a monarchy than a democracy. I can get the comparison, current constitution was made to give important powers to the president (heavily influenced by Charles de Gaulle, which wasn't the best idea).

American democracy funding looks very much like bi-partisan plutocracy, when looked from outside, so not really a model. (And honestly, why stop with the work half-done? Be honest and bring it to one party. Or is it even harder to give democracy lesson afterward?

err4nt• 13 years ago

I was trained in school by French teachers and they spoke of France as though it was the cradle of civilization. Not just democracy came from there, but culture itself!

jlgreco7• 13 years ago

Camus2 seems to be French. You would not be at risk of making embarrassing mistakes like this if you made an effort to find actual arguments, instead of attempting to criticize the person you are imagining the commenter to be.

ozh• 13 years ago

That comment is just as insightful if your replace "France" with any other random country.

baby2• 13 years ago

Not surprising, there is no free speech in France.

Entirely false, except if you mean ABSOLUTE free speech. In this case I would argue no country has one. I guess you come from the US? See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_excep...

Especially when it comes to crooked banks or politicians.

Weren't we talking about the 1% recently where you live?

France is closer to a monarchy than a democracy.

I like those empty statements.

Furthermore, who is upvoting your comment? It's just plain bashing with no real arguments.

antimagic• 13 years ago

You know what, I'm willing to bet that camus2 is either French, or at least French-speaking (sorry camus2, your English is awesome, way better than my French, and I have been living in France for 10 years, but still, you make mistakes sometimes...). Which makes your comment rather ridiculous, seeing as it is one big ad-hominem based on nationality...

Dylan168075• 13 years ago

Furthermore, who is upvoting your comment? It's just plain bashing with no real arguments.

Bravo. That's the most beautifully hypocritical internet comment I've seen in quite a while.

tsotha• 13 years ago

If there were really ABSOLUTE free speech in France, how is it the French blogger in the story was fined ten thousand euros?

Wouter33• 13 years ago

Especially when it comes to crooked banks or politicians. France is a strange country that likes to give lessons about democracy to the rest of the world, but when you look at things closer, France is closer to a monarchy than a democracy.

Because a monarchy is something like a dictatorship? Absolute monarchies _could_ have similarities with a dictatorship but these almost do not exist anymore. Please dive into some background information about, for example, a constitutional monarchy like we have in the Netherlands [1]. No way this resembles non-democracy.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarchy

mpclark3• 13 years ago

This is sort of true. I ran a publication there for a few years and there are a lot of lines you cannot cross, lines that don't exist in the UK or the US.

One I particularly remember (though I can't quote it exactly) is that you can (could?) be hauled into court for criticising heads of state, domestic or foreign.

mcguire2• 13 years ago

Note that the UK has its own oddities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCA_v._Singh.

astrobe_3• 13 years ago

Probably a misunderstanding. French press criticize the President 24/7. You can't insult the president or any other official in public, or any other French citizen.

Just like in most other European countries, France lets you say what you want, as long as you don't spread lies or hatred.

doe883• 13 years ago

This is preposterous, do you think french people live in a cave? Last time I checked, twitter, google, facebook,... were available even in France, check it by yourself I think you'll find real french people expressing real thoughts. And nobody here trust any journalists or any politicians anymore, so I don't know on what your informations are based but it doesn't reflect what I see here.

camus22• 13 years ago

for the record , i'm french, born in Angers, have spent time in USA and Canada. I love my country. Yet, having spent time abroad , helped me have a better understanding of my culture and its shortcomings. Sorry for the typos.

Mithaldu5• 13 years ago

That guy managed to instantly go from slightly above zero respect to negative, when i copy-pasted stuff and noticed that his site saw fit to add spam onto that in the buffer.

thekevan4• 13 years ago

So you copied his content and were mad that he included text which noted you copied his content?

arbitrage• 13 years ago

It appears that that is indeed what Mithaldu said. Well done, A+ for reading comprehension.

rvkennedy• 13 years ago

Ctrl+C means copy the text, with optional formatting. It doesn't mean "run a script", and this little trick implies two things: first, that the author is going to assume that anyone who copies text is trying to steal the content without attribution; secondly, that having been corrected in your naughty ways, you'll blithely accept the link he's pasted in there.

It's a web faux-pas, the equivalent of having your whole site in Flash, or trying to disable right-click for fear that someone might steal your precious, precious content.

PhasmaFelis3• 13 years ago

Designing your website to hijack basic system functions is bullshit, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to copy text from an article (quoting it for discussion on a Hacker News thread is the first one that comes to mind).

Unfortunately, cramming spam into copied text seems to be getting more popular, and rudeness aside it's a potential security risk (i.e. if an unsuspecting help-seeker copy-pastes a command line and it turns into a completely different command line in the buffer). Is there a plugin yet to disable copy-buffer spam specifically, or would I need to disable JavaScript completely?

Mithaldu5• 13 years ago

To be fair: I am less concerned about the adding of text, but the fact that it also adds a newline.

I copied it with the intent of putting quotes around it and adding the link to the end of it. However as is, i had to copy it into an editor and mangle it there, before posting it in chat.

marcosdumay3• 13 years ago

Well, it's not from a script in his page, because it does not work with me. It must be from a 3rd party script, but there are so many of them that I'm simply not curious enough to discover wich.

Anyway, that blog is hosted on a 3rd party service, owned by an ad company. It's not that easy to blame him for what the service does. (Does Mish even know that blogger inserts ads there?)

Mithaldu5• 13 years ago

It is from a script in his page:

http://i.po.st/share/script/post-widget.js

I've also never seen that on another blogspot blog, so while they might've added more stuff, i don't think it's that.

nraynaud2• 13 years ago

Note that this stupidity from a French independent administration didn't end up in droning a whole family and in the end everybody is good for a laugh and life carries on. This case has absolutely no chance of passing any legal test.

salient3• 13 years ago

These stupid short-sighted governments are going to ruin the Internet for the rest of us through their greed for money (like in this case) and power (NSA mass surveillance).

logfromblammo2• 13 years ago

Some might argue that they already have ruined the Internet. National firewalls, massive endemic surveillance, and political-industrial shenanigans involving the telecoms controlling the backbones are a significant threat, and not trivial to route around. When powerful parties begin aggressively policing the content on the network instead of just controlling the infrastructure, that is just the evidence that we have already lost.

Viable efforts to decentralize, universally encrypt traffic, and support true identities alongside pseudonyms and anonymous users started too late to avoid stepping backwards on service quality while moving forward on network freedoms.

epsylon4• 13 years ago

The comments here are atrocious. I expected more from HN than senseless French-bashing and 'Murica flag-waving.

A few informations for context:

- Two bloggers were fined, one French, and the American one for quoting the French.

- The fine emanated from the Commission des Sanctions (sanction committee) of the AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers), the French stock market regulator.

- It's supposed to be independent, but they are notoriously in bed with banks, with most members of the commission being former higher executives of major banks. Therefore, it's no surprise that they will do this kind of stunts in order to protect their interests.

- It's been talked about in several (right-wing) publications like Atlantico or Les Échos, where journalists have pointed out that this is one more action that proves the absence of credibility of the AMF.

axlez• 13 years ago

I think most reasonnable people in France, both left and right wing, find it ridiculous. That being said, being french, the level of defiance and incomprehension the people in charge in France show for the internet is beyond ridiculous, and border on dangerous.

mercurial2• 13 years ago

By and large, there is a feeling that French politicians are disconnected from both modern realities and their electorate. I think it is, in most instance, correct. Their lack of understanding of technology (the famous "OpenOffice firewall incident", for instance) is partly a result of the lack of renewal of the French political class. Like many people from older generations who grew up without it, they don't necessarily have the ability or the interest in engaging with modern technology.

This certainly does nothing to help with the record level of discontentment the government is experiencing.

epsylon4• 13 years ago

That being said, being french, the level of defiance and incomprehension the people in charge in France show for the internet is beyond ridiculous, and border on dangerous.

Yes, but as the news show regularly, there's nothing specifically French towards lawmakers increasing will to control what is said and done on the internet. (The UK and the US come to mind, but there are plenty of other examples elsewhere)

I'm French myself and I am frankly appalled by our government's (and the previous ones), but let's be honest, the grass isn't much greener elsewhere. (Except perhaps in Scandinavian / northern countries?)

marknutter• 13 years ago

Funny, I expected more from HN than people using the term "Murica". Also, before complaining about the quality of comments one should give the system time to correct itself as people vote on them. Otherwise you may end up with a highly visible comment that refers to outdated information..

baby2• 13 years ago

So he should wait until the point where posting a comment would just result in it being buried?

Maybe a better solution would have been to reply to those "bad" comments instead of creating one, but it's kind of rare to see so many free bashing in HN that you don't really want them to stay on top for too long.

epsylon4• 13 years ago

Well, I apologize for having gotten a bit carried away; of course not all comments in this thread are worthless.

That being said, I stand by my opinion that reddit-style pun threads [1] or random and unrelated politically biased ramblings [2][3] really shouldn't belong to HN discussions.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6775262

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6775363

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6775474

mercurial2• 13 years ago

The comments here are atrocious. I expected more from HN than senseless French-bashing and 'Murica flag-waving.

You could be excused for thinking you landed on r/worldnews when reading this thread.

ds9• 13 years ago

There are some dumb comments on here, but I expected it would bring a few comments from France and I found those interesting.

jackmaney4• 13 years ago

For your arrogant comment, I hereby fine you 100 bit coins and a copy of every game on Steam that I don't currently own. Any responses to this comment must be made in German and include an mp3 file of the responder reading aloud the written German in the most stereotypically shrill German accent possible.

talmand• 13 years ago

Come on, that's so languagist. You should at least allow for something universal like Egyptian, Demotic, or Greek. That way the rest of us have a chance of translating it.

dcposch• 13 years ago

I expected more from HN than senseless French-bashing and 'Murica flag-waving.

Criticizing France in this case has nothing to do with nationalism. It's about basic rights.

I'm disheartened by how many countries disrespect their citizens' innate freedoms--even first-world countries that are supposedly democratic and.

Prosecuting and fining someone publishing an opinion is wrong. Trying to fine a blogger 8000 Euros for merely quoting another blogger is ridiculous (and wrong). Why doesn't France have an equivalent of the First Amendment?

This story reminds me of another a few weeks ago, about UK police forcing people to give up their encryption passwords on penalty of jail time. That's an unreasonable search; and even if the subject is guilty, forced self-incrimination is wrong. Why doesn't the UK have equivalents of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments?

I'm not suggesting that the US is better at respecting people's rights. Better laws don't help if the government chooses to ignore the law.

The Bill of Rights was revolutionary in the 18th century. The fact that many of those basic rights are still routinely violated in 2013---even in places like the US, the UK, and France---makes me sad. We have democracies. Why can't we do better?

salient3• 13 years ago

Can I just say how much I hate that Google automatically turns blogspot.com into the TLD of your own country? Who the hell wants that?

iSnow3• 13 years ago

Google does (or did?, I only use the browser search field) that to the search page URL as well.

marcosdumay3• 13 years ago

And that's maddening. If I want to search some english terms, the easiest way to get meaningfull results it by tunneling my query through some computer at the US.

Google just assumes that everybody can only speach one language, and is only intersted in one country, even when explicitly told otherwise.

iSnow3• 13 years ago

The AFM has no jurisdiction over me, so they won't collect. As a US citizen living in the US, I am not subject to the absurdities of French laws, or French witch hunts.

Just you wait till the transatlantic free-trade association is in place...

sebkomianos2• 13 years ago

I would be more happy to read something like "Human blogger fined 8,000 euros by the french justice department for criticizing a bank".

Now it sounds like the people of France decided to fine just an American blogger.

renang• 13 years ago

Looks like a bad choice of re-title. But I don't think it was intended to highlight the fact the blogger was American.

Human blogger fined 8,000 euros by the french justice department for criticizing a bank

You missed the point where they were fining a non-French blogger that was giving straight facts and practicing his free speech.

bausson6• 13 years ago

Well, those are both bad title, since french justice has nothing to do with it.

"Human blogger fined 8,000 euros by the french assholes for criticizing a bank" is the closest to reality.

"Human blogger fined 8,000 euros by the french independent authority for criticizing a bank" is close enough to reality and politically correct.

sebkomianos2• 13 years ago

Non-French doesn't mean American.

I mean, do you believe the case would be different if the blogger was, say, Italian?

grecy• 13 years ago

The hypocrisy of the comments here is hilarious.

This is exactly the same as the MPAA shutting down websites and fining people all over the world. All the people here crying "they have no jurisdiction!" are really just getting a taste what their own government has been doing to people all around the world for decades.

Never mind 'Murica going around the world enforcing their laws and ideals with their armed forces.

wpietri4• 13 years ago

How many MPAA backers do you think you'll find here?

scarmig• 13 years ago

Hacker News is certainly a hotbed of pro-MPAA activism.

gknoy• 13 years ago

As others point out: Many here (even those of us who live in the US!) feel that it is equally a load of hogwash for the US to try go after others around the world. There's no hypocrisy to call "bullshit!" on both groups of cases.

schrodinger• 13 years ago

I don't agree with the MPAA fines either, but I wouldn't say that copyright infringement is the same as free speech....

xacaxulu• 13 years ago

At least Commission des Sanctions didn't send drones to bomb the guys with hellfire missiles. I'd say the US doesn't have much moral authority on extranational law enforcement, fiscal or otherwise.

PythonicAlpha• 13 years ago

I don't see so much difference in France, the US or other countries:

Money has not become king in our society, no! It has become God and the money-people are the priests of our religion! We are not so much better as the middle ages where.

agilord2• 13 years ago

I think Tim O'Reilly or Jeff Jarvis or Clay Shirky (unfortunately I don't have the bookmark anymore) already addressed this:

The case is a prime example that what you write is not only the jurisdiction where you write it, but also the jurisdiction where people read it. (And the jurisdiction where it stored and where it is going through as network traffic.)

tbrownaw• 13 years ago

what you write is not only the jurisdiction

I think you a word there.

It's fairly absurd to say anyone who posts anything online should follow the laws of all places where whatever they posted could be read.

agilord2• 13 years ago

If you publish something, it can be read everywhere. There should be no surprise that people will judge your words based on their customs, on their laws, on their terms, and they will act within their jurisdiction.

But that goes both ways: if a "Nigerian prince" scams you, you will not stop just because you were originally out of his jurisdiction.

declan5• 13 years ago

This judgment is unenforceable in the United States as a matter of public policy (thanks to our First Amendment). So it's merely an attempt by Société Générale to muzzle critics.

If Mish were a multinational company with operations in France, it would be different. But he's not. So he can gleefully ignore it, as he is, correctly, doing.

differentView• 13 years ago

Even better, he is publicizing it.

Xylakant5• 13 years ago

So he can gleefully ignore it, as he is, correctly, doing.

Ignoring it would mean "never base your action on that decision". However, now he can't travel to France or any of the french territories (Martinique etc.). That's not what I'd call ignoring. It's a shitty situation: Fined for invalid reasons in a trial where you never had a chance to fight.

declan5• 13 years ago

Yes, other countries have silly laws. I'm sure if you set up a blog complaining about the king of Swaziland, for instance, and his predilection for selecting an additional wife, willing or not, every year from the selection of bare-breasted virgin teenage girls paraded before him[1], you might not want to visit that particular corner of Africa.

But the reach of Swazi or French laws is limited unless you visit Swazi or French soil. And in the case of the French libel law in question here, I'm not clear it would even preclude a visit to Paris. Do you have any citation for the proposition that a visitor would be arrested for what would be a civil tort?

BTW, if he fought it in France, he would lose. See yesterday's "due process" discussion. If it's a bad law, due process helps you not one whit.

[1] True: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/aug/30/aids.andrewmeld...

lasermike026• 13 years ago

So much for Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality.

cinquemb2• 13 years ago

This might be pretty meta, but from looking at some of these comments makes me wonder how in the age of the internet, which give us a de facto global commons onto exchange ideas/information/currency and securely for those who take the steps to do so, some people still have an an affinity for whichever line drawn around them the sand in which one had no say in personally. Can we form something better through the aforementioned means? And what will it take for more people to start looking outside the box for solutions? More increased hardships of whimsical imposition?

tokenizer2• 13 years ago

If I understand you correctly, I think it has to do with the fact that their narratives don't align with the information. And that's only if the sources are credible (to them), the bias isn't obvious/against the readers bias, and the facts are presented clearly to them (presentation).

So the major barrier to what you & I enjoy as the internet for people to adopt in my opinion, are the communication barriers we all face everyday. You and I most likely are somewhat uncommon because more people are more apt to do their socializing in real life.

That said, we are seeing global communication at it's best. For instance, I'm an anarchist. But more specifically, and libertarian-socialist. One of my many hobbies is to argue with other political theory enthusiasts. More specifically, other Anarchists.

For such a small group of people, it would make more sense to band together in common ideology to become stronger (like the internet), but humans have a way with creating division where there ought not to be none IMO.

Would love you opinion on if removing this division in ourselves is possible, or if you don't believe that's universally true.

cinquemb2• 13 years ago

I think I would have to agree with your opinion about banding together in common ideology, but I'm not sure about the stronger part (what that means to me).

What I mean by that is that I haven't (nor do I think I will ever fully) decide(d) if that becoming stronger is to exert that influence over other ways of thinking/being or to become stronger so that me as the individual can live and move about the earth as freely as I choose understanding the danger that I may present upon myself and that upon other human beings trying to do the same or something else. So I guess whether the division in ourselves can be removed or not, It will ultimately come down to the individual or small group of people to make it so either way. And that's where I am now: working on something with a friend (maybe people more in the future) that will help explore what that means to me.

vernie• 13 years ago

I hereby fine Société Générale for overuse of acute accents.

ffrryuu• 13 years ago

Freedom is dead.

eliteraspberrie• 13 years ago

The AFM has no jurisdiction over me, so they won't collect. As a US citizen living in the US, I am not subject to the absurdities of French laws, or French witch hunts. All they get from me is a vow to never go to France.

This was likely the desired outcome: a chilling effect. However, there is no need to be intimidated, Mr. Shedlock can still travel freely to France without worry. There are no debtors prisons, no credit rating agencies, and assets are difficult to seize outside of a criminal conviction for violent crimes. At worst, he will receive more letters in French.

bwb• 13 years ago

lol, fuck the french :)

I say that in complete jest, but that is hilarious.

lifeisstillgood• 13 years ago

"Hey France! you can't possibly borrow more than 27 times your house's value, that's crazy. Look at the US, they only borrow 17 times their houses value - that's prudent fiscal behaviour."

yeah I feel so much happier

pjc50• 13 years ago

Compare American "product defamation" law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws and the UK "Trafigura" lawsuit.

amercade• 13 years ago

Please stop playing their game. The 1%, or maybe the 0.01%, wants the rest of us to fight stupidly over which country is better. "My laws are better", "your banks are crap" etc

This is a world wide class warfare we are living. Don't play the countries confrontation games. Don't be their pawn.

We the people should be together against the powerful ones and demand our rights everywhere, not just in our country.

We need to globalize justice, not just the economy.

US blogger fined 8,000 Euros by France for criticizing Société Générale

Related Stories