An Update on LIRA

For those who are following the story of Minister Walid Daouk’s proposed Lebanese Internet Regulation Act (LIRA), there’s an update that will make things a bit clearer.

The smart people of Ontornet, whom I and many others decided are the best people to speak in our name, have been following up on this and have just conducted an interview with the Minister in charge.

The interview proved to me that, as I suspected, Minister Daouk is not fully in grasp of the web and internet culture. He assures us that the law is optional, but he really seems to believe that some sort of accreditation by the Lebanese government of a website is desirable and would make websites more “credible”. He also believes that website owners would be interested in registering because people can then claim copy-right protection from the Lebanese legal system.

I wonder what will happen if I added a little stamp on my header that read: “This website is accredited by the Lebanese Government”. I’m pretty sure I’d lose at least half of my readers.