[HN Gopher] 'Extremely aggressive' internet censorship spreads i...
___________________________________________________________________
'Extremely aggressive' internet censorship spreads in the world's
democracies
Author : rbanffy
Score : 278 points
Date : 2020-11-18 20:41 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.umich.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.umich.edu)
| neximo64 wrote:
| Emmanuel Macron has been getting newspapers to pull down their
| articles in the past few weeks (the FT usually never removes
| articles but they did too). I bet barely anyone notices.
|
| Interesting that politico sent one straight to print today
| without an online article first.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I'd prefer the newspaper to highlight the "factual errors"
| rather than withdraw the article, but they do need to do one of
| those things to maintain their editorial integrity.
|
| > I bet barely anyone notices.
|
| It took a single search to find plenty of articles covering
| this.
|
| https://www.thelocal.fr/20201105/france-is-not-fighting-isla...
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Wasnt that an editorial decision? he did write an opinion about
| them but how did he get them to pull them down?
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I,ve watched this happen on reddit, with new moderators removing
| anything against the mainstream views on Corona. Then they
| complained about me to reddit and had me removed as mod of
| community I had started.
| lxeiqr wrote:
| >Poland blocked human rights sites I'm Polish and although some
| gambling sites are blocked here (hazard.mf.gov.pl), I haven't
| heard of a single case of a human rights site being censored.
| lxeiqr wrote:
| >Poland blocked human rights sites
|
| I'm Polish and although some gambling sites are blocked here
| (hazard.mf.gov.pl), I haven't heard of a single case of a human
| rights site being censored.
| rllearneratwork wrote:
| losing freedom of speech is much easier than re-gaining it.
| vinni2 wrote:
| > ISPs in Norway are imposing what the study calls "extremely
| aggressive" blocking across a broader range of content, including
| human rights websites like Human Rights Watch and online dating
| sites like Match.com.
|
| I have no trouble accessing hrw.org and match.com in Norway. I
| wonder is it specific to some ISPs? I also couldn't find any law
| that was passed to block certain pornogrpahic websites in
| Wikipedia [1] and I don't know where else to look.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Norway
| na85 wrote:
| >I don't know where else to look.
|
| Does Norway not publish its corpus of law online? Even in
| Canada where our government motto is "yesterday's technology
| today" we have websites where you can look up all legislation
| and read it.
| vinni2 wrote:
| It probably does but it's not easily searchable or finding
| this specific law with the information they provide in the
| article is very hard. Like the law jargon etc. it's the job
| of the article to cite the link.
| babas wrote:
| When I read that, I immediately dismissed the whole article.
| Both HRW and match.com are available on the 4/5 ISPs I have
| access to ATM. Home (Telenor), mobile (Telia), server host
| (domeneshop), my office (Telia, wired) and a customer network
| (Not sure about the downstream ISP). On the last one match.com
| is blocked by a firewall not the ISP.
|
| They should really check thier sources. My guess is that they
| tested on a network that has a filtering firewall.
|
| Now that that is said. Norway is not perfect. The biggest ISPs
| use a easy to bypass DNS blocklist by the judiciary. The list
| contains CP-sites, gambling, piracy, terrorism. This is bad
| enough. Why lie about match.com and hrw.org? Jeez.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Looking in the citations in the article itself, these are the
| references provided, neither of which seem entirely convincing
| to me:
|
| https://calvinayre.com/2018/05/10/business/norway-approves-g...
|
| https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/norwegian-politic...
| ggggtez wrote:
| I believe they are saying that it happened in 2018, not today.
|
| It's possible that it was a mistake, and corrected, but it
| should still concern you that it was done to begin with.
|
| Telecoms should not be the arbiters of what content you view.
| babas wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it never happened. This would have been big
| news here. The technology press went ape when
| thepriatebay.org was added. I have searched around and can
| not find any references to hrw or match being blocked by
| accident or not.
|
| Either the article writer is confusing Norway with another
| country or this is just "Journalistic flair" i.e. a lie.
| shripadk wrote:
| This is fine to analyze (and I am sure there are thousands of
| research papers on internet censorship) but what about big tech
| censorship? Will that ever be included in all these research
| papers? What about big tech violating their own policies vis-a-
| vis content moderation, shadow banning and banning accounts
| without a proper reason? I feel censorship is more layered that
| it doesn't make sense to only hold Governments responsible. Hold
| everyone accountable. Not just the Government.
|
| I find it funny that we crib about Government or ISP censorship
| while completely ignoring big tech censorship. When it comes to
| big tech, we give them a shield of "oh they are private companies
| and can do what they want". The nature of the organization has
| nothing to do with censorship (which is more a moral issue than a
| legal issue).
| walrus01 wrote:
| The Indian government is no friend of actual free speech or a
| free Internet:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India
|
| google "internet kill switch india" for numerous examples.
| thowawaymom wrote:
| Have you recently used Google to search for something slightly
| out of accepted-by-mainstream compared to search engines like
| Yandex? I'm not saying Russian propaganda is not real, but it's a
| helpful guide to compare and contrast the results specially
| relevant results that is being omitted by Google[0]. Of course
| this is mainly because we have hate speech societal norms, hate
| speech laws and such, but how do we know the countries on this
| map with low "Freedom Score" don't have their own reasons for
| removing content? Are we to judge their actions but our
| standards? If so why don't we just declare the world must obey
| our rule of law or else! Since there cannot in principle be any
| justifiable deviation from it. Unless we want to only give the
| _perception_ of tolerance for others' points of view, but not a
| real one.
|
| [0] I'm not going to provide an example, shouldn't be too hard to
| come up with a slightly controversial example yourself.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Cue conversation about overreach of Facebook and Twitter. Cue
| defense of freedom of speech in response to the incitement to
| violence argument. Cue downvotes of said defenses and upvotes of
| 'more should be done.'
|
| Cue hand wringing about how we elites can deal with the armies of
| the naive, the prone to conspiracy theories, viral false
| information needing correction.
|
| Cue dystopia.
| jml7c5 wrote:
| Read the article. This is about government censorship, not
| Twitter/Facebook independently removing things.
| ed_balls wrote:
| Can someone link to sources? Which sites Norway and Poland
| blocked?
| natoliniak wrote:
| it is unclear from the article what sites were censored in
| Poland and by whom (and i couldn't figure it out in the sourced
| paper). However, if in fact the Polish govt has censored any
| human rights websites, I feel like that should be bigger news
| there. AFAIK Poland only blocks access to certain gambling
| sites, which are publicly listed here:
| https://hazard.mf.gov.pl/
| mlillie wrote:
| > Ensafi's team found that censorship is increasing in 103 of the
| countries studied, including unexpected places like Norway,
| Japan, Italy, India, Israel and Poland. These countries, the team
| notes, are rated some of the world's freest by Freedom House, a
| nonprofit that advocates for democracy and human rights.
|
| Freedom House is a non-profit that is almost entirely funded by
| the US government. The only ones who would find it "unexpected"
| that US allies rank high on the "freedom index" but practically
| have problems with freedom of speech would probably buy a bridge
| in Brooklyn.
| john_moscow wrote:
| >While the United States saw a small uptick in blocking, mostly
| driven by individual companies or internet service providers
| filtering content, the study did not uncover widespread
| censorship.
|
| Am I the only one that finds this hypocritical? So, a handful of
| individual companies controlling what most of the people in the
| U.S. will see online is no problem. These companies being funded
| by a small group of SV investors and not serving the interest of
| its users (since users don't pay for Google, Facebook or Twitter)
| is OK. These companies having a very strong incentive to help a
| certain political party, due to its lenience in antitrust and
| bailout matters is OK. These companies filtering ideas and
| conversations that could reduce the popularity of that party,
| where the country is already very divided, is also OK.
|
| But India blocking a site relevant to a small fraction of its
| population is major threat to the Democracy.
|
| Well, maybe that's because had the authors published any other
| outcome, they would never find another job in Academia anymore,
| due to pressure from numerous activists. But the problem is
| Poland, of course.
| justicezyx wrote:
| This is more of a direct response to Internet as a political
| weapon, which matured in the weaponized social media in Arab
| Spring [1] as the regime-changing tool used by Hilary Clinton,
| who eventually becomes the victim in the 2016 presidential
| election.
|
| Thanks to its long-standing "controlled by CCP in order to do
| business" practices, China enjoys a very strong position to be
| less vulnerable to potential external Internet propaganda.
|
| CCP learned this, and start to use various online forum to spread
| its own world view and alternative reporting on various Chinese
| domestic and international affairs. So far it looks like it
| actually helps to supply diverse views on issues like eliminating
| poverty, development strategy for poor country, etc. I still not
| see much hard evidences of proactive propaganda campaign from CCP
| towards foreign nations.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2018/10/09/655824435/the-
| weaponization-o...
| codemac wrote:
| A measure of this community will be how successfully we can
| manage a conversation about this topic.
|
| My bet - we will fail.
|
| I'm completely lost on how we should approach this for various
| social media like fb or twitter where the platform is ubiquitous.
| marktangotango wrote:
| I find I don't think of hackernews as a community anymore,
| haven't in a long time. To me what I read here is 50-75% of
| intentional argumentation and spreading of what's essentially
| FUD by people who are drawn here by the sites popularity, and
| who are just a likely to be on a payroll or otherwise promoting
| an agenda.
|
| It's the small percentage of genuine people with reasonable,
| coherent things to say that keep me coming back. It's a trope,
| but the quality of discourse has declined markedly in recent
| years (imo).
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Social media should be regulated and forced to federate to
| combat their monopoly, for one. People spend years and years
| building up followings on these platforms, and since users
| themselves are the creators of the content that Facebook and
| Twitter are selling, they should have more legal protections of
| their rights. Like the 20th century labor movements, there
| needs to be a 21st century user/consumer movement. Users should
| have certain rights protected by law, including the right to
| transfer to a compatible and competing service (just as users
| have the right to retain their cell phone number when
| transferring carriers) and the right to consume content from
| compatible services in their social media feed.
|
| As for filtering content, users should have the power there,
| too, just as they do their spam filter in their email account.
| They should have the ability to set their own parameters and
| leave it at that. Unless its blatantly illegal content, it
| should be protected, period, or the platforms should be
| classified as publishers and be subject to all the same legal
| liabilities that publishers are.
| Karunamon wrote:
| An internet user's bill of rights would be a good first step
| here. Define the requirements up front and then let the
| companies adapt to them. I really, _really_ don 't want the
| government dictating technical specs to the broader
| community.
|
| Look to the requirement for phone number portability as an
| example. The providers weeped and gnashed their teeth, and
| then got together and implemented a working system.
| blockmarker wrote:
| Interesting article. It doesn't look at corporate/social media
| censorship, but government and ISP censorship is still dangerous.
|
| I found quite surprising that Japan censored The Washington Post
| and the Wall Street Journal for G20. What would be the reason for
| that? It's not like they would provoke disturbances.
|
| Also, ISP censorship on Norway. Corporate overreach, or
| unofficial cooperation between them and government? They really
| need some Net Neutrality.
| DoctorNick wrote:
| >I found quite surprising that Japan censored The Washington
| Post and the Wall Street Journal for G20. What would be the
| reason for that? It's not like they would provoke disturbances.
|
| No, but they would have covered the protests against it.
| callinOutLiars wrote:
| > Interesting article. It doesn't look at corporate/social
| media censorship, but government and ISP censorship is still
| dangerous.
|
| Is a company having policies about what users can store on the
| company owned servers actually censorship?
|
| I find it weird that you used "still dangerous" to describe
| government/ISP censorship. To me that is the most dangerous
| form a censorship.
| markdown wrote:
| Just two days ago, The Solomon Islands government decided to ban
| Facebook, joining Nauru, China, Hong Kong and Iran.
|
| A good thing, but for all the wrong reasons (shutting down
| criticism of govt by anon accounts).
|
| https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/430811/solo...
| varispeed wrote:
| The problem is that we didn't teach people about manipulation
| techniques because that was governments' favourite tool to
| control the masses. Now that anybody can reach anyone with any
| information, bad actors use these techniques to control people to
| their advantage. Governments' are now in an awkward position -
| ramp up education in these areas and forever give up a tool that
| worked for ages, or censor the information in hope that bad
| actors will not influence the public. It seems like governments
| still want to manipulate people, so censorship in their mind is
| the only way out of this. Unfortunately it is like having an
| aching tooth and taking pain killers hoping it will pass instead
| of going to dentist. My only hope that in the end this will make
| politics more honest and people will learn how they are being
| exploited. I don't accept that someone should have a power over
| what I can or cannot read and preventing me from forming my own
| opinions.
| square_square wrote:
| The reasoning course should start at first grade
| gameswithgo wrote:
| I don't think you can effectively inoculate the average person
| against this stuff with education. But I hope I am wrong. Is
| there any evidence it is possible?
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's like a more complicated version of teaching people to
| recognize phishing attacks, I think a belief that the median
| human isn't capable of learning about their weaknesses
| seriously underestimates humans.
|
| You just need to frame it correctly.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| > I don't think you can effectively inoculate the average
| person against this stuff with education.
|
| A lot of school curriculums ostensibly teach critical
| thinking skills because this is seen as important, but don't
| tend to do this in practice.
|
| Classes tend to focus on how to jump the hoops of getting
| good grades (without accepting any critical analysis of the
| grading system).
|
| Are you then teaching children to be critical, or to conform
| to what they are told?
| base698 wrote:
| I don't think you can educate an above average person either.
| Unless you've done in depth study of the techniques, and most
| educated people haven't either. In addition, some of the
| techniques work even if you know them.
| quasse wrote:
| Finland has specific curriculum in schools teaching kids how
| to critically evaluate information they find online:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/28/fact-from-
| fict... They study historical propaganda campaigns, how to
| lie with statistics, and critical thinking.
|
| I can say that having been through a similar curriculum in
| high school (implemented on the initiative of a very
| thoughtful literature teacher) it has been one of my most
| valuable mental tools I possess throughout my adult life.
| Being able to understand and identify logical fallacies has
| helped me critically evaluate the information I consume many
| times over.
|
| Of course, any program like this has the problem that it
| needs to be implemented by a trusted source, or it will be
| attacked as "indoctrination" (whether or not that is the
| truth). I can see that as a major challenge in the US where
| 50%+ of the population is convinced that the government is
| out to get them at any one time.
| busterarm wrote:
| It's worse than that.
|
| We're seeing the teaming up of governments and giant
| corporations to control the narrative and tell people what's
| true and what isn't. It's the literal definition of fascism.
|
| And you see it being championed by people as defending against
| "the greatest threat to our democracy".
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| The president of the United States has been using these
| platforms to lie to the entire world unashamedly. For the
| most part not even the skillful half truths, statistics and
| selective quoting that politicians are known for, just
| complete fabrications and nutjob conspiracies.
|
| The corporations had the choice to continue to be complicit,
| silence him completely or provide some balance from other
| sources. It seems to me that they choice a cautious and
| sensible approach.
| the-dude wrote:
| You are talking about Bush the 2nd right?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I don't know if you've been under a rock for more than a
| decade, but, no, Bush the Younger is not President of the
| United States. (Sure, some of the bad acts under his
| administration prefigured bad acts under this one.)
| the-dude wrote:
| Attic. It is a past tense sentence, just sayin'.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It is a past tense sentence, just sayin'.
|
| "The president of the United States has been using [...]"
| is present perfect continuous tense, not past tense.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Alas, Facebook was founded 4 years too late for even the
| younger Bush.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| He is, perhaps, talking about what should have happened
| during Bush 2.
| mistermann wrote:
| >> We're seeing the teaming up of governments and giant
| corporations to control the narrative and tell people
| what's true and what isn't.
|
| I think there may be some legitimate truth to this
| statement that you are not seeing.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I do agree with that to some degree. In fact I do find
| some of the pan rattling about how social networks "must
| combat disinformation" about the potential Covid vaccines
| troubling.
|
| However, maybe I'm just unlucky, but I have a number of
| family members who are predisposed to believing anything
| they see on the internet. I can see the need for social
| distancing when it comes to viral content too.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > We're seeing the teaming up of governments and giant
| corporations to control the narrative and tell people what's
| true and what isn't. It's the literal definition of fascism.
|
| Well, its arguably corporatism, which exists in lots of non-
| fascist systems as well as being a part of fascism, and
| propagandizing the population, which also is done by lots of
| non-fascists systems, but unless its coupled with
| totalitarianism and militant, xenophobic nationalism I don't
| think going "fascism" is literally accurate of the current
| state, though its definitely a risk (since the
| propagandization + corporatism easily enables at least
| totalitarianism, and is also quite leverageable for the
| rest.)
| lilactown wrote:
| That's not the literal definition of fascism but it's also
| Not Good(tm).
| teraku wrote:
| Yes, it's feudalism
| jml7c5 wrote:
| How?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Yes, it's feudalism
|
| Its really, really not feudalism, which is highly _de_
| -centralized.
| busterarm wrote:
| If you think that's the case, you don't know your history.
| It's exactly the tactic of Mussolini.
|
| Edit: And when he did it, most of the western world/press
| fawned on him and praised him as a genius until he went and
| allied himself with Hitler.
| ketzo wrote:
| I mean, since this is an argument about semantics
|
| > a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as
| that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race
| above the individual and that stands for a centralized
| autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader
|
| is the _definition_ of fascism. This is a tool often
| deployed by fascists.
| busterarm wrote:
| And saying that something is "the (very) definition of"
| something is a colloquialism drawing comparison that
| dates back at least to James Madison and the Federalist
| Papers.
|
| No. 47, if you'd like to read it.
| eloff wrote:
| That's still not how you use the word "literally".
|
| It is a technique used by fascist regimes, communist
| regimes, dictatorships (basically totalitarian regimes of
| all stripes.)
|
| It is a separate concept from fascism.
|
| _EDIT_ downvoters seem to have weak English skills...
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Regardless of whether or not that was a tactic of
| Mussolini, that is most definitely _not_ the definition
| of fascism.
| busterarm wrote:
| You can wait to wake up to a totalitarian government
| biting you on the nose, but some of us remember that
| Mussolini was a journalist and rose to power in the
| media.
| jimvdv wrote:
| "Literally fascism" is a little overused. I'm not saying
| governments and corporations teaming up is a good thing, but
| let's not use fascism here, that will only make it harder to
| recognise actual fascism.
|
| If corporations and a heavily authoritarian government team
| up to crack down on anyone who they believe is the slightest
| treat to the success of some imagined single-minded Volk,
| then yes we can talk about fascism.
|
| Until that time I think you can at best put down an argument
| for why you believe this censorship situation will be a
| slippery slope that ends in fascism.
| newacct583 wrote:
| > We're seeing the teaming up of governments and giant
| corporations to control the narrative and tell people what's
| true and what isn't.
|
| That seems like a claim that needs some examples. By itself
| it's hard to take seriously. Which governments and which
| corporations are driving which narrative, exactly?
| tptacek wrote:
| It has never in the history of western civilization been
| easier for people to inject random claims into the public
| discourse. Neither Mike Wallace at 60 Minutes nor Otis
| Chandler at the LA Times would have given an inch of space
| for QAnon or antivax, but the "giant corporations" you allude
| to today do so happily, and at a scale no newspaper publisher
| would have imagined 50 years ago.
| busterarm wrote:
| No, before you had to be rich enough to buy the newspaper
| to print crazy bullshit, but that certainly happened (and
| still happens) too.
| oblio wrote:
| That's still a filter effect. Now, crazy bullshit is
| being peddled at 100x the rates from before. It's not
| sustainable.
| busterarm wrote:
| You know that Mike Wallace interviewed an Imperial Wizard
| of the KKK on his show in 1957, right?
| eloff wrote:
| It's worse than that, the algorithms these companies use
| sometimes purposefully promote these random claims because
| they lead to more user engagement.
|
| For example teenage girls searching for weight loss on
| YouTube were more engaged when shown videos on eating
| disorders like anorexia. YouTube addressed that by tweaking
| the algorithm, but there's an endless number of edge cases
| like that and fixing it by tweaking the algorithm is like
| playing an never ending game of whack-a-mole. It's
| fundamentally unwinnable - the problem is optimizing for
| engagement itself.
|
| As many people here may have noticed at some point, the
| same thing happened with flat Earthers and other conspiracy
| theories. In fact for a while it was common knowledge that
| you could start on any YouTube video and keep watching from
| the recommendations, and with an hour or so that would
| eventually lead to crazytown - videos just showing bigfoot
| and aliens and flat earth stuff.
| n0nc3 wrote:
| Conversely, it has never been easier to inject true claims
| that are inconvenient for gatekeepers. What tilts the
| balance of equities in favor of censorship for you?
| busterarm wrote:
| It's coming from people that don't share his politics.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >The problem is that we didn't teach people about manipulation
| techniques
|
| I don't know where you're from, but it's part of the Victorian
| (possibly Australian) curriculum for all year 12 students. And
| we still ended up with Rupert Murdoch.
| naringas wrote:
| just because it's in the curriculum doesn't mean it will be
| taught well.
| jml7c5 wrote:
| Ah, but that was intentional! We didn't want people to
| understand statistics, because that was governments'
| favourite tool to control the masses.
|
| ;-)
| CodeMage wrote:
| You hit the nail on the head there. And it's not just K-12
| math, either. I don't know about Australia, but I can see
| what it's like here in the US.
|
| I moved here 7 years ago, and my son has gone through a
| public elementary school and is currently in the last year
| of a public middle school. If it was just one year or just
| one teacher or even just one school (or one district), I
| could write it off to bad luck. Unfortunately, it's pretty
| clear that the whole system is abysmal.
| paxys wrote:
| Maybe it is part of the curriculum _because_ you ended up
| with Murdoch.
| d23 wrote:
| Did you or the responders read the article? This reads like an
| assumption that the article is about tech companies in the
| United States and their effects to combat election
| misinformation. It's not.
|
| The part about the United States says this:
|
| > While the United States saw a small uptick in blocking,
| mostly driven by individual companies or internet service
| providers filtering content, the study did not uncover
| widespread censorship.
|
| And you say:
|
| > Now that anybody can reach anyone with any information, bad
| actors use these techniques to control people to their
| advantage. Governments' are now in an awkward position - ramp
| up education in these areas and forever give up a tool that
| worked for ages, or censor the information in hope that bad
| actors will not influence the public.
|
| The first major heading in the article is this:
|
| > Poland blocked human rights sites; India same-sex dating
| sites
|
| Not exactly the same thing as individual companies trying to
| combat misinformation. Even if those things could be twisted as
| good faith efforts, how would this help make politics more
| honest?
|
| Having a conversation about the United States is fine, I
| suppose, but I'd much rather understand how actual governments
| are censoring things around the world. It's at least what the
| article is mostly about. If nothing else, it'd be nice for
| discussions here to actually have some relation to the article
| rather than being something people quickly upvote and jump in
| to espouse whatever preconceived opinion they had.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| You've failed to make the case that the government is not a
| "bad actor". They've used all sorts of manufactured consensus
| techniques to get us into unjust wars or to give up our
| liberties (i.e. mass surveillance, lockdowns, etc) for over-
| blown threats. We aren't going to get education from the
| government. Open debate and discussion are really the only cure
| for propaganda.
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| Not disagreeing with most of what you're saying here, just
| wondering if you mean manufactured consent, like the Herman
| and Chomsky book, not consensus.
| tobr wrote:
| Can I ask for some kind of documentation or reference for the
| causal relationship you are asserting here? Specifically a
| documented example of a democratic government that has
| deliberately restricted education on manipulation techniques
| because it might make their own use of it less effective.
| throwsofaraway wrote:
| Have you recently used Google to search for something slightly
| out of accepted-by-mainstream compared to search engines like
| Yandex? I'm not saying Russian propaganda is not real, but it's a
| helpful guide to compare and contrast the results specially
| relevant results that is being omitted by Google[0]. Of course
| this is mainly because we have hate speech societal norms, hate
| speech laws and such, but how do we know the countries on this
| map with low "Freedom Score" don't have their own reasons for
| removing content? Are we to judge their actions but our
| standards? If so why don't we just declare the world must obey
| our rule of law or else! Since there cannot in principle be any
| justifiable deviation from it. Unless we want to only give the
| _perception_ of tolerance for others' points of view, but not a
| real one.
|
| [0] I'm not going to provide an example, shouldn't be too hard to
| come up with a slightly controversial example yourself.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| Why won't you provide an example?
| martin1975 wrote:
| I've noticed the discrepancies too. Even Bing and DuckDuckGo
| (vs Google) will return drastically different results,
| particularly that aren't in line with 'mainstream' thinking.
|
| I know Google did not start out like this - 'don't be evil' -
| but this is how they ended up... Curating truth. It's really
| sad.
|
| I don't believe in unlimited free speech, but the bar should be
| set as low as what is permitted by the 1A, at least in the
| United States which grants maximum freedom under the law.
| root_axis wrote:
| I tried "us election fraud" on both sites in private mode. The
| results are certainly very different but I don't see any
| indication of google omitting anything. You're already using a
| throwaway so you might as well provide some specifics.
| throwsofaraway wrote:
| You know throwaway accounts can get banned and their comments
| "dead" too, right?
|
| Try the founder of Vice, let's say you want to listen to his
| Podcast by just searching for his name, good luck doing that
| on Google, on Yandex it's the 5th result down.
| beepboopbeep wrote:
| Abandon this thread, all ye who enter.
| sebmellen wrote:
| There is a great tool called OONI (the Open Observatory of
| Network Interference) that you can use to test your own network
| and see if commonly censored sites are censored for you.
|
| See https://ooni.org/ and https://ooni.org/install/.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Comforting to note that this software is F/OSS. Thank you.
| elevenoh wrote:
| How about the online discourse manipulation (arguable another
| form of censoring ideas)? It's a cat & mouse game that can't be
| won.
| tboyd47 wrote:
| It is not surprising that this would happen in a democratic
| state. Democracy is not necessarily friendly to individual rights
| and freedoms. If the majority of citizens want to take your
| freedom away, you have no recourse in a democratic society. What
| we recognize as freedoms and human rights are more appropriately
| associated with limited government, separation of powers, and
| republics.
|
| We often associate democracies with republics to the point of
| making them equivalent, but the two ideas are not related to each
| other. They both have very complicated and separated histories
| that happened to coincide in one very influential country (the
| U.S.A.).
| itsthetruth wrote:
| [!] This claim about internet censorship has been disputed by
| independent fact checkers. Learn more.
| jml7c5 wrote:
| Link to study:
| https://censoredplanet.org/assets/censoredplanet.pdf
| rcurry wrote:
| Social media is starting to remind me of this scene from the old
| HBO series on Chernobyl:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1cG3PlcSiLA
| bootcampwhere wrote:
| Social media like Reddit has stumbled upon the perfect way to
| censor unprofitable or anti-state content.
|
| Superficially give moderation to users, then continually ban
| users when other users complain about them.
|
| In this way with just a few dozen accounts anyone can control the
| narrative in their niche while Reddit claims they have no
| control.
|
| Recently an independent chinese reporter has been banned from
| reddit using this technique.(0)
|
| (0)
| https://www.google.com/search?q=the+china+theu+dont+want+yoi...
| jml7c5 wrote:
| Did you mean to post that link? It doesn't give any information
| on a reporter being banned from reddit.
| nprz wrote:
| Remember how the usefulness of the internet and social media was
| championed by media during the Arab Spring movement? Now it's
| suddenly a threat to our democracy.
|
| https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/16/21570072/obama-interne...
| ketzo wrote:
| I mean, in that article, he makes a pretty coherent point:
|
| > Obama: If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what's
| true from what's false, then by definition the marketplace of
| ideas doesn't work. And by definition our democracy doesn't
| work. We are entering into an epistemological crisis.
|
| I don't think that's out of place in a conversation about
| today's internet/media landscape.
| l33tbro wrote:
| Maybe I'm naive, but I'm done with trying to create startups that
| integrate within current online ecosystem. Startup culture
| bullshits on so much about "pain points" to solve in the world,
| but surely one of our biggest societal pain points now is the
| Orwellian panopticon being assembled before us.
|
| Online culture desperately needs rewilding, and I'm at the point
| now where I believe it is my moral obligation to only work on
| projects that work toward decentralizing the internet.
| bendbro wrote:
| It is extremely dangerous to our democracy to have unlimited free
| speech.
|
| 1. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences.
|
| 2. Corporations aren't the government, so the first amendment
| doesn't apply.
|
| 3. Haven't your heard of "fire in a movie theater"?
|
| 4. Hate speech IS violence.
|
| 5. Reading disinformation from un-check-marked, non-fact-checked
| sources is anti scientific. Since all scientists have check
| marks, we should only listen to check marks.
|
| 6. Do you really want to be disturbed by Plumpdfth tweets from
| his prison cell?
|
| Before you respond in anger, first consider that:
|
| 1. You are a bigot
|
| 2. It isn't my job to educate you
|
| 3. Venmo me for my labor
| thursday0987 wrote:
| > Hate speech IS violence.
|
| speech is not violence, no matter how many times this lie is
| repeated.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| This year I've heard that both speech and silence is
| violence...so you can't win either way with some people.
| ogre_magi wrote:
| Unless you say exactly what they want ;)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Which might work, until "what they want" moves. (They
| also get you in trouble for things you said in the
| past...)
| bootcampwhere wrote:
| But, what if it hurts my feelings :(
|
| /s
| cbozeman wrote:
| I love how you're being downvoted for what is obviously and
| objectively true.
|
| I'd wager that there's a not insignificant group of Americans
| that actually think hate speech is illegal (hint: it isn't).
| lolbrels wrote:
| Pfff - our laws are trampled all the time and don't exist
| for the Elites. Legality will soon become like objectivity
| or fact and just be lost completely to whatever they
| dictate is truth.
| magicMonkeyPaw wrote:
| he's being downvoted because he didn't get the obvious
| sarcasm.
| impostergc wrote:
| Almost had me.
| colechristensen wrote:
| dang I would like to see posts like this effect bans, there's
| simply no value here and little chance of redemption for
| someone who writes something like this
| bendbro wrote:
| > bans
|
| Ironic given the context
|
| > redemption
|
| I'm actually in the confession booth right now, so consider
| my sins redeemed!
|
| In seriousness, what do you find so horrible about this post?
| I thought it was fun.
| zug_zug wrote:
| Did you read the article?
|
| >> Censored Planet, however, uncovered that ISPs in Norway are
| imposing what the study calls "extremely aggressive" blocking
| across a broader range of content, including human rights
| websites like Human Rights Watch and online dating sites like
| Match.com.
|
| Downvoting off-topic.
| lolbrels wrote:
| I want to say good joke, but since we are on YC I'm more
| inclined towards you actually thinking this.
| [deleted]
| ericd wrote:
| Might want to include a /s or smiley something, Poe's law and
| all.
| cbozeman wrote:
| Posts like these are dangerous because there's simply not
| enough people that realize you're being facetious.
| mistermann wrote:
| I think plenty of people realized, and that's why it's
| [flagged].
| walrus01 wrote:
| "dripping with sarcasm" in audible speech works fine, in
| text, not so much
| Cerealkiller050 wrote:
| This post is gonna be a good litmus test to see how many people
| read this comment to the end before they start attacking their
| keyboards
| nullc wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| I'd be fine just getting the minute back of my life that I
| spent reading it. I don't think that reading off a list of
| contemptuous claims and insults is in any way productive,
| even when they are intended as satire. Are we not divided
| enough?
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| This is probably the first based HN post, ever? And of course
| it is flagged to death.
| siltpotato wrote:
| Remember what it said?
| grezql wrote:
| Where does the line between blocking illegal content vs
| censorship go?
|
| In the western world we would probably allow ISPs to block sites
| that promote traditions that we do not see as normal. For
| example; in some east asian countries they eat dogs during
| festival. Websites selling dog meat shipping to western countries
| would be blocked in my country.
|
| Why can't India censor websites than promote values they dont
| agree with? Or Russia?
|
| Every country and people are unique and they have different
| values. We shouldnt try to assimilate those.
| djbebs wrote:
| There is no line, thats censorship as well and should be
| rejected.
| cambalache wrote:
| Let the laws and courts determine that. Not Mark Zuckerberg or
| Jack Dorsey.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Social media outlets are publishers, I have no problem with
| them editorializing. I wouldn't have a problem with a book
| store not carrying a book or a newspaper not publishing a
| crank opinion piece, why should I have a problem with twitter
| banning someone (or whatever else)?
| cambalache wrote:
| Because then you will have to shut your mouth when Google
| delists you, youtube deplatforms you and
| Amex/Visa/MasterCard refuse to do business with you just
| because something, perfectly legal, that you said. Maybe it
| is OK for you, for me it is bone chilling scary.
| Shivetya wrote:
| However some are upset at what one nation's laws and courts
| block as compared to another. The Zuckerberg's and Dorsey's
| of the world however are intimidated into doing such
| censorship on the behalf of politicians who cannot do it
| themselves.
|
| They accomplish this simply by attacking the organizations on
| another front. Never underestimate the coercive nature of
| politicians whose own countries forbid censorship they can
| get another to do for them.
|
| The simple fact is, our western values are not the world's
| values.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Let the laws and courts determine that. Not Mark Zuckerberg
| or Jack Dorsey.
|
| So, we should rely on state censorship _in preference to_ the
| free marketplace of ideas competing for private support to
| relay them?
| cambalache wrote:
| Yes, do you want the free market to decide who should or
| should not be killed?
| stale2002 wrote:
| "state censorship" at least in The USA, is pretty limited.
|
| So yes, I would prefer the existing system, where state
| censorship is extremely limited, to a situation where
| instead censorship is much more broad and effects more
| people.
|
| If the speech is legal, then it should be allowed on major
| communication platforms.
|
| There is even existing laws for this, that we could expand
| to cover new forms of media.
|
| Those existing laws are called common carrier laws, and
| they currently apply to the phone network, and they could
| be changed to include many of the major new platforms.
|
| Common carrier laws are pretty uncontroversial. I would
| hope that you do not think as they apply to the phone
| system, that they are some huge example of unfairness.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| By wanting to use legal measures to force publishers to carry
| certain speech, you're not only drastically limiting the
| organizations' own free speech rights, but very quickly
| opening up a short path to punishing those who refuse to
| carry certain messages. Another word for that is (literally)
| propaganda.
|
| This whole movement of people begging the government to
| prevent companies from curating their content, under the
| guise of fucking free speech of all things, is so deep into
| doublespeak territory that it just leaves me in awe.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Do you think it is some huge infringement that phone
| companies are required to follow common carrier laws?
|
| Common carrier laws are pretty uncontroversial. Those
| existing laws could be updated to include communication
| networks that are more relevant in the modern day.
| cambalache wrote:
| I am sure forbidding Jack Dorsey to kill one of his minions
| also drastically limits his free will, but _c'est la vie_.
| grezql wrote:
| Im totally against Social medias. And believe they have
| caused mental health damage to large section of the
| population. but lets talk about general censorship vs freedom
| without Social medias in the equation.
| cambalache wrote:
| There are 2 approaches.
|
| You could argue that freedom of speech is a sacrosant
| right, like the right to live, that no law(not even the
| constitution) can overrule. You will lost that battle, with
| reason, because things like child pornography or slander
| must not be protected.
|
| So the second approach is to say, ok, some things are
| better censored, let the laws to clearly define that. If
| something must be appended or removed, do it through the
| appropriate channel, sponsor a bill, vote it, make it law,
| create the precedent.Rinse and repeat. A tedious game, but
| a needed one.
|
| What you cannot do is to let the techno-barons to decide
| themselves what should or shouldnt be said, when they are
| managing platforms that are quasi-monopolistic.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| > let the laws clearly define that.
|
| If there is one thing about laws is that they're messy
| and complex, a reflection of the world we live in. Our
| culture and values constantly evolve, and the laws are
| normally following those so something legal or illegal at
| this moment might not be in the future.
| cambalache wrote:
| And that's why there is a full branch of government
| dedicated to that work, a branch that at least in theory
| is at the service of the nation. Totally opposite to the
| XXI century digital Rockefellers.
| ballenf wrote:
| Another way to evaluate would be what would have been allowed
| in private organization or published in a book or pamphlet?
|
| If the answer is "you can't do anything on the internet that
| you couldn't do before" then that changes the headline.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Would a site selling dog meat be blocked? Or would sales to
| your country be barred (as they'd, presumably, be illegal)?
| lettergram wrote:
| Of my past 10 posts on HN 6 have been flagged and removed by
| users. Of those, many made it to the front page with 10+ votes.
|
| I contacted Dang and he was clear it was users censoring it,
| further that some users were also "vouching" for my posts. It's
| to the point, people don't want to know.
|
| I feel I'm fairly even handed in my discussion. Here's a couple
| of my posts (who knows if I'll get flagged):
|
| - Public Safety Announcement: The 2020 Election is Not Over
| (https://austingwalters.com/public-safety-announcement-the-20...)
|
| - Firearms by the Numbers (https://austingwalters.com/firearms-
| by-the-numbers/)
|
| - Update: The Dead Vote In Michigan - Voter Database Being
| Modified (https://austingwalters.com/update-the-dead-vote-in-
| michigan/)
|
| NOTE: I make no real claims in there, simply state the counter
| argument to the main media narrative. I have a blog post itself
| there.
|
| I'm SERIOUSLY concerned about the fact both sides of the
| political spectrum have no idea what the other is claiming. I'm
| desperately trying to get my social circle to understand.
| monoclechris wrote:
| Luckily we have Biden in office in the USA and he is going to
| bring back free speech to the internet.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I have to wondered how we "fix" our current internet situation.
|
| On the one hand, censorship appears to be appealing to stop the
| tide of misinformation. Anti-vaxx garbage is a prime example of
| something that should be censored into oblivion. It is actively
| harmful to the public.
|
| But, on the other hand, who pulls the levers of censorship is
| equally terrifying. I don't want a world where a dissenting
| opinion is censored because it doesn't fall in line with whoevers
| ideology. For example, Chinese censorship of the Tiananmen square
| incident.
|
| How on earth can we fix this? Social media has created a world of
| bubbles. Some of which are FILLED TO THE BRIM with
| misinformation. Penetrating those bubbles is nearly impossible.
| They've always sort of existed, yet somehow it feels like they
| are more extreme now-a-days.
|
| Just musing. I really don't have a solution to this but am
| certainly interest to hear any proposals.
|
| Perhaps the solution is really as simple as better public
| education?
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| You can't have both censorship of things you don't like (anti-
| vaxx things) and no censorship of things you do like.
|
| Religion could be classified as mis-information but that helps
| a lot of people.
|
| Who is the final arbitrator of what is determined as
| misinformation?
|
| If one religion took control that one religion could classify
| another religion as mis-information and censor them.
|
| If one political actor took control they could qualify another
| political groups information as censorship.
|
| SOME censorship doesn't work. It's either all information
| available and you trust people to be smart or you have a
| censored internet.
| CJefferson wrote:
| That sounds like saying we cant have laws which forbid things
| I don't like, and no laws against things I do like.
|
| We have final arbitrators of truth, they are laws, judges and
| juries. It isn't a perfect system, and it might not scale,
| but I see no need to abandon the idea some things are
| fundamentally incorrect, and get rid of those things.
| sthnblllII wrote:
| The US has fallen a great way from the spirit of the first
| amendment when laws, judges and juries are not just a
| necessary component of a well ordered society, but are the
| "final arbiters of truth" on political questions.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Do you know how many laws are on the books? No one else
| does either. https://www.quora.com/How-many-federal-laws-
| are-there-in-the...
|
| Then there's all the law enforcement agencies, the FBI,
| CIA, TSA, DoD, NSA, and more.
|
| Then there's the side effect of laws, how many problems are
| we dealing with presently from supposedly good gov't laws
| from years or decades ago? A whole lot.
|
| Social engineering via laws is never the best or final
| solution.
| cogman10 wrote:
| The problem is that the scales are completely unbalanced when
| it comes to information vs misinformation.
|
| There is political and financial incentives at play to spread
| misinformation. It isn't as simple as "the best ideas win" as
| most social media platforms make it REALLY easy to manipulate
| the narrative.
|
| For example, if some politician will negatively impact my
| business, I can hire a BUNCH of people to go out and write
| nasty comments about that politician. I can create fake media
| pages to support whatever narrative I want against that
| candidate. I can do all of this for relatively little money.
| We see this phenomenon come up time and time again when it
| comes to review websites. Most people "in the know" don't
| trust amazon reviews because they know companies astroturf
| them like crazy.
|
| Climate change is a place where this also happens a LOT. Man
| made climate change is an undisputed fact in the scientific
| world, yet roughly half of Americans either don't believe in
| it or are unsure about it. Why? Because there's big
| incentives behind the fossil fuel industry to spread FUD and
| misinformation about climate change. On the flip side,
| there's just not the money or resources available to climate
| scientists to correct that narrative.
|
| I can buy that "some censorship doesn't work" however, it
| appears that a free for all is equally broken.
| AntiImperialist wrote:
| As great as free press and democracies are, they also come with
| huge weaknesses. Those make it easy for foreign propaganda to
| influence the public and hence run the countries from outside.
|
| Thanks to The Great Firewall and the CCP rule, China is mostly
| immune to foreign propaganda. At the same time, China is using a
| lot of effort to affect countries with democracy and free speech,
| like India and the U.S.
|
| China is obviously not alone in using propaganda to influence the
| politics of other countries. All big countries and corporations
| use it in their countries of interest all the time... in fact,
| they have been doing it for much longer. Everything from bribes
| to politicians to "human rights organizations", "foreign aid
| organizations" to social causes in universities... everything is
| used to undermine national interests and put pawns for outside
| powers in governments.
|
| Citizens of many democratic nations have been feeling this for a
| very long time... which explains nationalist sentiments rising in
| many countries... but that's another story.
|
| China is in a unique position in that it limits or prohibits
| foreign press, foreign media, foreign internet services, foreign
| aid organizations, human rights organizations... i.e. anything
| and everything that it can to stop foreign influence... but it
| uses a lot of those against its rivals.
|
| The only defense against it is following China's footsteps. India
| has recently banned several Chinese apps and websites. It has
| also kicked out Amnesty International. Other countries will have
| to do the same if they want to protect their national interests.
| jsnk wrote:
| > Those make it easy for foreign propaganda to influence the
| public and hence run the countries from outside.
|
| Foreign propaganda is a problem. But it's tiny compared to
| propaganda by domestic actors. There's huge amount of disinfo,
| gas lighting, demoralizing perpetuated by mainstream media, big
| tech, and intelligentsia.
|
| If you are concerned about propaganda, you have to mention the
| elephant in the room. Or else, you yourself are propagating and
| amplifying the dangers of foreign propaganda and minimizing the
| huge blame mainstream media, big tech, and intelligentsia
| should get.
| AntiImperialist wrote:
| >But it's tiny compared to propaganda by domestic actors.
|
| All foreign propaganda is peddled by domestic actors.
| Otherwise, it wouldn't be effective.
| peacefulhat wrote:
| > Other countries will have to do the same if they want to
| protect their national interests.
|
| 2030: EU bans Google
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| > The only defense against it it following China's footsteps.
|
| Is that the point you were trying to make?
| yeetman21 wrote:
| The US runs propaganda on its citizens and the citizens of
| other countries as well. China's propaganda arm prays every
| night to be as competent as the US' one day since most people
| dont even recognize it as propaganda while even Chinese
| citizens can tell their propaganda from a mile away.
| scottlocklin wrote:
| Anyone who actually use the excuse of "foreign interference"
| for totalitarian censorship basically basically doesn't believe
| in the concept of democracy.
|
| "Foreign interference" has been going on from day 0 in the
| United States. It very obviously got us into WW-1 (the British
| -a largely untold but very obvious info ops campaign), it got
| us into the middle east (nothing the US does there happens but
| for foreign interference from Saudis, Emirates and Israelis,
| who overtly bribe our think tanks and politicians), and it
| fairly obviously got us our "free trade" policies which gutted
| the US manufacturing capabilities to the point we can't make
| enough surgical masks in the US to protect our people (thanks,
| China).
|
| None of the above happened because of dipshits saying things on
| twitter or facebook or sharing Russia Today articles. None of
| the above will go away if the CIA, the political center and the
| tech oligarchs censor the internet.
|
| It's a naked power grab, and anyone who supports it because of
| "muh democracy" is a collaborator with tyranny.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > to the point we can't make enough surgical masks in the US
| to protect our people
|
| Fake News. The U.S. used to have a huge stockpile of surgical
| and N95 masks as part of their pandemic preparedness plans.
| The stockpile was gradually depleted and not replenished
| adequately. It was pure complacency on the part of
| government; please let's not blame trade openness for this.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Seeing free speech as an impediment to nationalist competition
| is rich. Nationalist competition appears to corrode every civil
| liberty and thing that makes life worth living that we have.
| What if we had international cooperation instead of a death
| match? I guess certain business people would not make as much
| money.
| jml7c5 wrote:
| >What if we had international cooperation instead of a death
| match? I guess certain business people would not make as much
| money.
|
| Cooperation is hard because of the prisoner's dilemma etc.
| You don't need "certain business people" to malevolently
| prevent international cooperation.
| andrekandre wrote:
| > What if we had international cooperation instead of a death
| match?
|
| competition is at the heart of our economies at a deep level,
| both within and without... i suspect this wont change until
| internally our economies are more cooperative than
| competitive (im not holding my breath)
| AntiImperialist wrote:
| >Nationalist competition
|
| What do you mean by nationalist competition? Nations
| competing against each other?
|
| >What if we had international cooperation instead of a death
| match?
|
| Cooperation for what? Different people value different
| things. Different cultures even more so. You cannot have
| cooperation unless everyone is on the same side of every
| issue in the same degree.
|
| If we had that level of agreement, we would not survive, not
| for long anyway. Let me explain:
|
| Almost all of politics (or religious sects for that matter)
| is about how we use the resources we have. If there are
| multiple ways of using the resources, there has to be people
| who disagree and want different ways of using the resource.
| That slows us down, which helps us understand the
| cost/benefits of different ways of doing things. That also
| keeps options open... so if we find problems with the
| prevalent way, we won't have to start over. Other groups will
| already have understood the alternative ways and made some
| progress that others can join... once they sacrifice the
| leader who led them the "wrong way", of course.
|
| Nations are just another level of doing this thing on a
| global scale. Nations should do things differently, so that
| the world as a whole is more robust.
|
| >I guess certain business people would not make as much
| money.
|
| Ironically, it's certain business interests which have tried
| to make the world homogenous. That helps them scale their
| business in the most efficient way. They value efficiency
| more than robustness. George Soros, founder of the Open
| Society Foundations, is an example of a person who
| religiously believes in removing all inefficiencies due to
| nation states... and has been using his billions of dollars
| for that cause. I think that is dangerous. It's not different
| from finding "superior people", inbreeding them and killing
| everyone else for being inferior. That wouldn't make them
| superior. That would make them fragile. It's the same for
| nations.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Politicians look at Xi Jinping, the guy that has complete control
| over China for life, and say: "man, I want to have as much power
| as that guy".
| disown wrote:
| Right on cue, a propagandist tries to turn this into a china-
| relate issue. What's with you people? Almost every other thread
| that has nothing to do with china, you people show up?
| varispeed wrote:
| Then there is always someone to point out this is not about
| China... come on.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| About a sixth of the global population lives in China, so any
| discussion of global trends that doesn't touch on China is
| probably incomplete.
| hnracer wrote:
| It's an article about government censorship and China is one
| of the most strict censorship and surveillance states on the
| planet. Bringing it up is on point and relevant to the topic.
| itsthetruth wrote:
| You misspelled Jack Dorsey
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Is this extremely aggressive relative to other forms of
| communication or extremely aggressive relative to the previous,
| near total laissez-faire communication regulation that
| encompassed the bulk of the internet traditionally?
| ballenf wrote:
| Ben Thompson of Stratechery has some insightful analysis of the
| internet and free speech, in my opinion:
|
| https://stratechery.com/2019/the-internet-and-the-third-esta...
| paxys wrote:
| Fits well with the current wave of authoritarianism/nationalism
| that has taken root all over the world. A free and open internet
| represents everything that a government that wishes complete
| control over its people would be afraid of.
| mistermann wrote:
| > Fits well with the current wave of
| authoritarianism/nationalism that has taken root all over the
| world.
|
| Autoritarianism often goes hand in hand with nationalism, but
| not always. In recent history, it is the non-nationalists who
| seem to be most pro-censorship, does it not?
|
| Unfortunately, due to the extremely dynamic and high velocity
| nature of current times, this article wasn't able to get into
| the new flavor of micro-censorship - hopefully they address
| that in the future.
| lainga wrote:
| Indeed, in 1848 authoritarianism and nationalism were the two
| major opponents on the European political stage.
| slg wrote:
| A free and open internet also allows propaganda and hate to
| flourish which are two bedrocks of most authoritarian and
| nationalist regimes. It isn't as simple as ending censorship
| will allow everyone to be free.
| paxys wrote:
| > A free and open internet also allows propaganda and hate to
| flourish
|
| I disagree. Sure there will always be some amount of
| misinformation on the internet, but a fully state-controlled
| media and internet (see - China) is far, far more effective
| at spreading propaganda and controlling the narrative.
| slg wrote:
| This isn't a binary choice between a fully state controlled
| internet and a fully free and open internet. There is a
| spectrum. I believe the ideal internet rests much closer to
| the free and open side than the censored side, but existing
| at the extreme of free and open would be far from ideal.
| Just look at all the most popular places on the web that
| champion their lack of censorship or moderation. Most of
| them end up as cesspools.
| elevenoh wrote:
| How about the wave of 'I won't change, I won't work on myself,
| so I'll change / sensor you" that's taken hold in SV
| echochambers?
| war1025 wrote:
| The interesting thing about this is that nationalism is in
| general associated with right-leaning politics, and the
| censorship is far and away being applied more aggressively to
| those very same right-leaning nationalist groups.
|
| You would be hard pressed to find liberal / progressive content
| being censored online.
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| I have no idea how you can keep telling yourself that when
| the top 10 shared links on Facebook have been nothing but
| conservative conspiracy theories for over 12 months straight.
| war1025 wrote:
| Facebook is taking a much more hands-off approach than
| Twitter.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > You would be hard pressed to find liberal / progressive
| content being censored online.
|
| No, I wouldn't.
|
| https://fair.org/home/that-facebook-will-turn-to-
| censoring-t...
|
| I _might_ have to work harder to find high-traffic social-
| media accounts peddling stories about the left being censored
| online than finding the same thing about the right.
|
| But, if so, would that really be evidence that the right was
| being censored _more_ , or just that its complaints are being
| amplified more by the very same platforms they claim to be
| selectively censoring them?
| mattnewton wrote:
| > You would be hard pressed to find liberal / progressive
| content being censored online.
|
| I think this is a false dichotomy. Whenever speech calls for
| violence that upsets the current social-political order in
| the US, it is censored regardless of being "left" or "right;"
| one example being the chapo trap house crowd on reddit. My
| understanding that there is less violent content coming from
| voices identified as "progressives" that tend to value other
| more acceptable* methods for social change.
|
| * Acceptable meaning something different per platform, but if
| we are being honest seems to usually mean "can sell
| mainstream ads space alongside them"
| paxys wrote:
| Huh? It's the exact opposite. In the US sites like Facebook &
| Twitter routinely refuse to censor conservative content even
| if it is against their policies because they are afraid of
| pissing off Republicans in Congress.
| war1025 wrote:
| Since my experience is the complete political reverse of
| what you describe (liberals getting away with things that
| conservatives assume they never could), I think the real
| answer is that probably there is less censorship in general
| than people assume.
|
| And I suppose that's probably a good thing.
|
| > And all this still isn't relevant because we are talking
| about government censorship.
|
| Agreed that the article is about government censorship, and
| I commented before I read the article.
|
| However, given that the US government at least has shown
| very little backbone in its threats to regulate social
| media companies, their tendency toward more censorship also
| seems concerning.
| EasyTiger_ wrote:
| Are you intentionally trying to gaslight people? This is
| just straight up false. See Kathy Griffin holding a bloody
| Trump - a tweet which she's retweeted multiple times.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| I think that the right has moved the Overton Window so much
| to the right that they see things that most of the world
| would see as mainstream (Black Lives Matter, Abortion,
| Medicare for All, Defund the Police, Anti-Fascism etc) as
| extreme.
| ttt0 wrote:
| I could bet money that the opposite of what you're saying
| is true. But I think that illustrates a much bigger
| problem. The society is so polarized, that we can't even
| agree on basic facts. Something went terribly wrong with
| the internet and the media and now we're living in two
| completely different realities, that are fundamentally
| incompatible with one another.
| artursapek wrote:
| Exactly. There's nothing "nationalist" about the type of
| censorship we're seeing on Twitter. If anything it's the
| opposite.
| free_rms wrote:
| There's a strong undercurrent of Scary Foreign Election
| Interference to a lot of the pro-censorship arguments,
| FWIW.
| leanstartupnoob wrote:
| Which government agency is censoring Twitter?
|
| Conservatives and libertarians LOVE to bleat about property
| rights, but they can't handle it when private parties won't
| provide free advertising for right-wing conspiracies.
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| Just wait until your favorite social media companies have
| their data centers raided by Trump for trying to
| overthrow the US government and are nationalized and
| converted into nonprofit taxpayer-funded instruments of
| the first amendment you little faggot. We'll have your
| full name and address at that point too. Don't worry, we
| won't kill you, we have far worse plans for you than
| death.
| [deleted]
| artursapek wrote:
| I'm not aware of any govt agency censoring Twitter - only
| conservatives complaining that Twitter is censoring their
| tweets.
| r00fus wrote:
| From the article: > "Poland blocked human rights sites; India
| same-sex dating sites"
|
| Clearly that's the wheelhouse of the right-leaning national
| groups, right? Oh, maybe not. Or maybe it's the rightwing
| nationalist governments cracking down on disadvantaged
| groups?
| war1025 wrote:
| I admit I didn't read the article before commenting.
|
| Really just seems like anyone that can get away with it is
| censoring people with differing opinions.
|
| Seems like something that will surely end well /s
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