I want the government to be financially healthy but at the same time there are larger issues here like setting bad precedents and website blocking, at the provincial level especially," Mendelsohn says.
Derrick J Freeman, who had come from Keene, New Hampshire, to demonstrate outside the court, told the Guardian he thought it would set a dangerous precedent if a website can be prosecuted for what its users do.
Yahoo! is appealing against the French decision, because it sets a precedent that would require websites to filter their content to avoid breaking country-specific laws.
Sex worker and co-editor of 'Tits and Sass Caty Simonn wrote following the shutdowns that the closure of Backpage had set off an avalanche of other site closures, as websites saw the precedent and opted not to weather the risk of a similar outcome.
In fact there's already of course a precedent via the No 10 website.
Worse, the new amendment proposing ISP blocking of non-compliant sites sets a terrifying precedent for government blocking of legal websites, and would put the UK's internet on a par with Iraq, Saudi Arabia and China".
Glen O'Hara, at the History & Policy website, says there is no precedent in modern history for the spending cuts being proposed by the government.
Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, warned on Wednesday that government plans to block access to illicit filesharing websites could set a "disastrous precedent" for freedom of speech.
"It's a dangerous precedent to start taxing internet apps and websites using laws intended for utilities like water and electricity," said Netflix spokeswoman Anne Marie Squeo.
The audience response was such that TED immediately (and nearly without precedent) edited and posted the video to its free website.
