In a well-intentioned yet dangerous move to fight online fraud, France is on the verge of forcing browsers to create a dystopian technical capability.

Article 6 (para II and III) of the SREN Bill would force browser providers to create the means to mandatorily block websites present on a government provided list. Such a move will overturn decades of established content moderation norms and provide a playbook for authoritarian governments that will easily negate the existence of censorship circumvention tools.

Links:
France’s browser-based website blocking proposal will set a disastrous precedent for the open internet

France’s Proposed Web Blocking Law: A Threat to Internet Freedom, Warns Mozilla Foundation