‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies(news.umich.edu)
news.umich.edu
‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies
https://news.umich.edu/extremely-aggressive-internet-censorship-spreads-in-the-worlds-democracies/
644 comments
> The big problem in todays age is we can no longer assume the government is accountable to us, or even get straight answers from the right people there.
Consider the notion that government has always been this way however its easier to tell this now because we are all so interconnected and informed.
Consider the notion that government has always been this way however its easier to tell this now because we are all so interconnected and informed.
That's a cynical take, a slightly less cynical take is that the rich and (privately) powerful have always tried to cement their power in form of organising a feudal-ish state and that the rest of us had to actively support democratising forces to counteracting them.
What this means is having everything which lends itself to monopoly to democratic control, not private control, and to work together to make democratic control as efficient, localized and legitimate as possible. A well oiled, properly constrained bureaucracy is a wonderful thing, as anyone who has experienced e.g. German and post-soviet bureaucracy can attest to. And yet the Germans (rightfully) still think their bureaucracy needs improvement, because of course it does, but it's still necessary and better than privatising the essential services that are provided.
"Starve the beast" is a warcry of rich and powerful who will benefit from the vacuum after they pervert and hollow out working institutions like the US post office (if you think it's not profitable and relying on tax payers money, do your research please).
Technology and interconnection is kinda neutral here, it has helped to raise awareness of the problems but has also helped to spread misinformation and lies by the likes of Prager U And their ilk
What this means is having everything which lends itself to monopoly to democratic control, not private control, and to work together to make democratic control as efficient, localized and legitimate as possible. A well oiled, properly constrained bureaucracy is a wonderful thing, as anyone who has experienced e.g. German and post-soviet bureaucracy can attest to. And yet the Germans (rightfully) still think their bureaucracy needs improvement, because of course it does, but it's still necessary and better than privatising the essential services that are provided.
"Starve the beast" is a warcry of rich and powerful who will benefit from the vacuum after they pervert and hollow out working institutions like the US post office (if you think it's not profitable and relying on tax payers money, do your research please).
Technology and interconnection is kinda neutral here, it has helped to raise awareness of the problems but has also helped to spread misinformation and lies by the likes of Prager U And their ilk
Even if the post office was not profitable and paid for by the tax payer, that is absolutely fine; it's an essential service, it made America great (I feel dirty saying that), it created the need and provided the funding to set up the core infrastructure of the US - post wagons, trains, airlines.
The US mail is part of the infrastructure and should be protected, funded, and kept alive at all costs.
The US mail is part of the infrastructure and should be protected, funded, and kept alive at all costs.
> That's a cynical take
I always wonder why people make this kind of comment, as if it's a valid argument and not just sentiment. The difference between your first paragraph and their comment is tonal, as both accurately describe reality.
Can I conclude from the rest of your post that you are perhaps reading into the post that their stance is dejected and disengaged, yourself preferring a more activist, "I'm part of the solution" approach?
I always wonder why people make this kind of comment, as if it's a valid argument and not just sentiment. The difference between your first paragraph and their comment is tonal, as both accurately describe reality.
Can I conclude from the rest of your post that you are perhaps reading into the post that their stance is dejected and disengaged, yourself preferring a more activist, "I'm part of the solution" approach?
Ya,no. Top down authoritarian systems (including democratic ones) always corrupt. Power leads to cronyism and sociopaths rising to control. Always, just give it time.
Its not "the rich" vs "the working people" narrative you subscribe to. If anything your attitude and worship of burocracy is what creates the power to be corrupted.
Less is more.
Its not "the rich" vs "the working people" narrative you subscribe to. If anything your attitude and worship of burocracy is what creates the power to be corrupted.
Less is more.
This. Power encourages corruption. Most democratic systems are designed to diffuse power as a means to prevent negative consequences to self-serving behavior.
The less power the gov't has, the better. If the gov't has a very, very limited scope in controlling speech (libel, harassment, threats, etc), then the damage done when it's used for nefarious purposes is limited.
The less power the gov't has, the better. If the gov't has a very, very limited scope in controlling speech (libel, harassment, threats, etc), then the damage done when it's used for nefarious purposes is limited.
[deleted]
> What this means is having everything which lends itself to monopoly to democratic control, not private control, and to work together to make democratic control as efficient, localized and legitimate as possible.
How do you feel about the perspective that democracies allow the majority (or plurality) to force their values on the rest of us?
How do you feel about the notion that the rich and powerful are well acquainted with the techniques used to manipulate democratic systems (such as the double bind)?
> Technology and interconnection is kinda neutral here, it has helped to raise awareness of the problems but has also helped to spread misinformation and lies by the likes of Prager U And their ilk
I agree that technology is value-neutral. my perspective is that just as its easier to spread misinformation, its also easier to compare different accounts of the truth and attempt to check them for consistency. If there had been social media in the 20s its likely that the Illinois Radium Girls may have heard about the legal proceedings in New Jersey, or possible that they would have heard about the dangers of radium (which were known in medical and scientific circles at the time).
How do you feel about the perspective that democracies allow the majority (or plurality) to force their values on the rest of us?
How do you feel about the notion that the rich and powerful are well acquainted with the techniques used to manipulate democratic systems (such as the double bind)?
> Technology and interconnection is kinda neutral here, it has helped to raise awareness of the problems but has also helped to spread misinformation and lies by the likes of Prager U And their ilk
I agree that technology is value-neutral. my perspective is that just as its easier to spread misinformation, its also easier to compare different accounts of the truth and attempt to check them for consistency. If there had been social media in the 20s its likely that the Illinois Radium Girls may have heard about the legal proceedings in New Jersey, or possible that they would have heard about the dangers of radium (which were known in medical and scientific circles at the time).
> How do you feel about the perspective that democracies allow the majority (or plurality) to force their values on the rest of us?
Better than a warlord forcing their values on us, even if the majority often seems lacking and with the exception that you are the warlord.
I agree that governments could do a better job at letting people pick their values themselves, especially with the current Victorian approaches
edit: Well technically a authoritarian warlord doesn't care about your values, only a totalitarian one would require that you tell everyone how much you love him. Maybe the latter is worse, but what would it matter at this point.
Better than a warlord forcing their values on us, even if the majority often seems lacking and with the exception that you are the warlord.
I agree that governments could do a better job at letting people pick their values themselves, especially with the current Victorian approaches
edit: Well technically a authoritarian warlord doesn't care about your values, only a totalitarian one would require that you tell everyone how much you love him. Maybe the latter is worse, but what would it matter at this point.
> Better than a warlord forcing their values on us, even if the majority often seems lacking and with the exception that you are the warlord.
I agree that its better. Would you say its a coincidence that if that question was posed to the warlord he would give a similar answer? "better than starving to death, growing up in a chaotic anarchistic hellhole with no stable values imposed, or being murdered by a warlord because of who you are rather than what you did"
I agree that its better. Would you say its a coincidence that if that question was posed to the warlord he would give a similar answer? "better than starving to death, growing up in a chaotic anarchistic hellhole with no stable values imposed, or being murdered by a warlord because of who you are rather than what you did"
One thing can be better than another, even if that other thing is better than something else. What point are you trying to make?
> What point are you trying to make?
One can advocate for terrible things by comparing them to even worse things. That doesn't make it ok to violate people's rights, it just means we can find even worse examples in history. Here we have an example of a democracy violating people's rights. Someone said government nowadays is unaccountable. I suggested that government has always been largely unaccountable. Someone said I was cynical and that democracy was good because that allows us to wrest control back from the elites. I suggested (in the form of a question) that the people in a democracy are just as capable of violating our rights as the elites. Someone else pointed out that's better than a warlord. I observed that the warlord is also better than what he replaced. Certainly we can agree that violating people's rights is bad, and just like we came up with something better than a warlord, we ought to be able to come up with something better than a democracy.
> One thing can be better than another, even if that other thing is better than something else.
We can keep coming up with better things.
One can advocate for terrible things by comparing them to even worse things. That doesn't make it ok to violate people's rights, it just means we can find even worse examples in history. Here we have an example of a democracy violating people's rights. Someone said government nowadays is unaccountable. I suggested that government has always been largely unaccountable. Someone said I was cynical and that democracy was good because that allows us to wrest control back from the elites. I suggested (in the form of a question) that the people in a democracy are just as capable of violating our rights as the elites. Someone else pointed out that's better than a warlord. I observed that the warlord is also better than what he replaced. Certainly we can agree that violating people's rights is bad, and just like we came up with something better than a warlord, we ought to be able to come up with something better than a democracy.
> One thing can be better than another, even if that other thing is better than something else.
We can keep coming up with better things.
Those are good points. A political system is often more of an expression of a problem, historical or cultural, rather than the root.
Even so, the technological tools for surveillance and censorship are far more effective and widespread today than before. Surveillance might have meant tapping your phone, reading your mail or following you and all the manual labor and cost that entails a few decades ago. Today its conceivable to run a search across every email, call, message, photo, bank transaction, location signal etc a person has quickly and cheaply. The stakes are much higher when they are capable of so much more.
Although this is fair, we do actually know what a state capable of this looks like.
The East German Stasi ended up with records of about 5.6M out of a population of ~16M people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi_Records_Agency
The East German Stasi ended up with records of about 5.6M out of a population of ~16M people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi_Records_Agency
I wonder how many records Google hold. What's more is that the CIA has a stake in Google https://www.wired.com/2010/07/exclusive-google-cia/ I am pretty sure the Google/CIA operation make Stasi's capabilities look like child's play.
Yes those are good points.
In this age among democracies it also isn't just governments that are blocking content -- it's companies that play gatekeeper in communications between people. People have stopped reading traditional forms of interpersonal communication, so my only way to get messages out to friends is through platforms like Facebook.
Unfortunately, Facebook themselves like to play gatekeeper on what my friends see and don't see, which I personally think is unethical. For example, if I post something about the election, its visibility may be restricted among my friends, so I need to do all kinds of Unicode upside-down tricks to prevent Facebook from even knowing my post is about the election. If I post a Youtube link instead of a Facebook video, Facebook downranks it because Youtube is a competitor, and downranks it to the point that friends don't actually see it. Sometimes they downrank text only posts to the point that I need to include e.g. a cat picture to get Facebook to give it the proper visibility.
I once posted to my feed something about donating to a particular disaster relief NGO, only to be censored out by Facebook because they mostly censor external links (only a small fraction of friends actually see them). No friends saw it in the first hour in their feed. I asked several and they didn't see it in their feed. Fishy, eh? I delete the post and re-post the same thing saying "Google for XYZ to find the donation website" instead of an actual link and BAM 40+ likes in the first hour and several friends donated.
Personally I think this corporate censorship is unethical. It's okay for Facebook to play the ranking game with business-sponsored media but definitely NOT okay with them doing that between friends who have mutually agreed to follow each other. I'm okay with a "popular posts" section on top of everything else, but the "everything else" really must include every single post of all of the people I have chosen to be friends with unless I specifically tell them to mute a particular person's content.
Ironically, WeChat doesn't engage in this type of censorship. They obey government censorship, but besides that, I can guarantee on WeChat that a post that I make that passes the government test will be seen by every single contact if they happen to be looking at the feed. I much prefer that model, rather than Facebook's sporadic random non-transparent censoring.
Unfortunately, Facebook themselves like to play gatekeeper on what my friends see and don't see, which I personally think is unethical. For example, if I post something about the election, its visibility may be restricted among my friends, so I need to do all kinds of Unicode upside-down tricks to prevent Facebook from even knowing my post is about the election. If I post a Youtube link instead of a Facebook video, Facebook downranks it because Youtube is a competitor, and downranks it to the point that friends don't actually see it. Sometimes they downrank text only posts to the point that I need to include e.g. a cat picture to get Facebook to give it the proper visibility.
I once posted to my feed something about donating to a particular disaster relief NGO, only to be censored out by Facebook because they mostly censor external links (only a small fraction of friends actually see them). No friends saw it in the first hour in their feed. I asked several and they didn't see it in their feed. Fishy, eh? I delete the post and re-post the same thing saying "Google for XYZ to find the donation website" instead of an actual link and BAM 40+ likes in the first hour and several friends donated.
Personally I think this corporate censorship is unethical. It's okay for Facebook to play the ranking game with business-sponsored media but definitely NOT okay with them doing that between friends who have mutually agreed to follow each other. I'm okay with a "popular posts" section on top of everything else, but the "everything else" really must include every single post of all of the people I have chosen to be friends with unless I specifically tell them to mute a particular person's content.
Ironically, WeChat doesn't engage in this type of censorship. They obey government censorship, but besides that, I can guarantee on WeChat that a post that I make that passes the government test will be seen by every single contact if they happen to be looking at the feed. I much prefer that model, rather than Facebook's sporadic random non-transparent censoring.
Is this because you haven't confirmed your identity? I presume that is for stopping the alleged bot campaigns trying to affect elections.
Or is there a setting somewhere to block political-looking posts? Because this would be awesome. I heard something about 3rd party software claiming such a feature but I wouldn't trust them.
Or is there a setting somewhere to block political-looking posts? Because this would be awesome. I heard something about 3rd party software claiming such a feature but I wouldn't trust them.
I don't think so. I just notice that when I post something Facebook puts a election-related warning below the post, and that seems to be correlated with visibility. So I do various things like misspelling words to stump Facebook's AI and force them to treat it like a neutral post that they don't understand. I don't want their algorithms trying to understand my content or downranking external links. I want them to play the role of blind message passing between friends.
Here's one example of what I do on Facebook. Unicode upside down, misspelling deliberately, and blocking out parts of words in the image to stump their OCR algorithms.
https://i.imgur.com/OtPxeKA.png
It's essentially the same thing one has to do to get things through the China GFW, we now have our very own version in the US courtesy of FB.
Here's one example of what I do on Facebook. Unicode upside down, misspelling deliberately, and blocking out parts of words in the image to stump their OCR algorithms.
https://i.imgur.com/OtPxeKA.png
It's essentially the same thing one has to do to get things through the China GFW, we now have our very own version in the US courtesy of FB.
> In this age among democracies it also isn't just governments that are blocking content -- it's companies that play gatekeeper in communications between people.
Sure but the government could do something about it, but they do not, partially because it supports their agenda. The recent congressional hearings made it quite obvious that the 3 big tech companies having the majority of internet traffic going through them are in sync when it comes to "moderation" enforcement.
Sure but the government could do something about it, but they do not, partially because it supports their agenda. The recent congressional hearings made it quite obvious that the 3 big tech companies having the majority of internet traffic going through them are in sync when it comes to "moderation" enforcement.
Before getting outraged, can we first confirm the story? It seems European countries have blocked gambling ads. There is no source for other claims e.g. human rights website.
They are litterally mentioning Norwegian ISPs blocking "Human Rights Watch" right in the next sentence after talking about blocking gambling ads.
Am I missing something or how is the one sentence a source and the next one isn't?
Am I missing something or how is the one sentence a source and the next one isn't?
If you look further down in this comment thread, that claim has been repeatedly debunked, likewise for Match.com. These sites have never been on any widely adopted DNS blacklist in Norway. It appears censoredplanet analyzed data from a corporate-only ISP.
"looking down this comment thread" is now more science than the findings of acutal scientists? Huh...
I don't know why you view scientists as automagically infallible. Mistakes are quite possible, as are misinterpretations.
For what it's worth I live in Norway. Neither of those domains are DNS blacklisted, nor have they ever been - with the possible exception of on one specific corporate ISP (CATCHCOM). If you disagree, feel free to show some evidence to the contrary.
For what it's worth I live in Norway. Neither of those domains are DNS blacklisted, nor have they ever been - with the possible exception of on one specific corporate ISP (CATCHCOM). If you disagree, feel free to show some evidence to the contrary.
Websites can also block address ranges on their side.
Completely agree with your sentiment. I think the only recourse is to aggressively use the legal system for any case of arbitrary censorship. If you are blocked, you must sue your ISP and/or the government. Articles like this make me happy that we at least have a few organizations to help with this (EFF). Hopefully, with a new administration net neutrality can be restored as well.
So Russia's censor meets your stated requirements, I think. There is an official publicly visible blocklist that includes a justification for each blocked site: http://blocklist.rkn.gov.ru/
There is a procedure for challenging a decision to block. All the content on that list is blocked in accordance with some law, it's just that the laws themselves are questionable...
There is a procedure for challenging a decision to block. All the content on that list is blocked in accordance with some law, it's just that the laws themselves are questionable...
This sounds like a problem that 'real democracy' or 'direct democracy' pretty much diesnt have.
I agree with you, but...
> but that works only in horribly egregious cases like NSA spying revealed by Snowden
Did it really work though?
If government just would have people have a crazy talk on the internet and subject them to paranoia that has been validated, it could have been a nicer situation than what we are currently dealing with.
> but that works only in horribly egregious cases like NSA spying revealed by Snowden
Did it really work though?
If government just would have people have a crazy talk on the internet and subject them to paranoia that has been validated, it could have been a nicer situation than what we are currently dealing with.
I don't get what any government has to do with it. Almost all information now is consumed via Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. These are private companies that has their own censorship rules and push their own agenda aggressively. Government has no control over this, even USA government as was seen recently when Facebook blocked links to NYT articles and Twitter was censoring Trump twits.
All other countries (except for China that just blocks Google entirely) have to live with the fact that all information consumed by their citizens is controlled by private companies from USA.
E.g. when I just started using YouTube, most of my recommendations in Russia were "opposition" channels (mostly by notorious A. Navalny - a daft populist). When I ignored one channel from YouTube recommendations, it offered me another channel with the same content. I had to explicitly ignore these channels for months before it stopped offering them to me. It still continue to offer me channels with more subtle and clever anti-Russian propaganda. Pro-Russian channels on YouTube are blocked regularly. Pro-Russian videos are blocked even more often or they are hidden from search results (e.g. when someone does a video about rampant rusophobia in a movie or a game).
I've canceled my Facebook account because of this. My FB feed was always full of rusophobic articles and all accounts that are even mildly pro-Russian (I'm talking about accounts of Russian people living in Russia) are regularly blocked temporarily or permanently.
All other countries (except for China that just blocks Google entirely) have to live with the fact that all information consumed by their citizens is controlled by private companies from USA.
E.g. when I just started using YouTube, most of my recommendations in Russia were "opposition" channels (mostly by notorious A. Navalny - a daft populist). When I ignored one channel from YouTube recommendations, it offered me another channel with the same content. I had to explicitly ignore these channels for months before it stopped offering them to me. It still continue to offer me channels with more subtle and clever anti-Russian propaganda. Pro-Russian channels on YouTube are blocked regularly. Pro-Russian videos are blocked even more often or they are hidden from search results (e.g. when someone does a video about rampant rusophobia in a movie or a game).
I've canceled my Facebook account because of this. My FB feed was always full of rusophobic articles and all accounts that are even mildly pro-Russian (I'm talking about accounts of Russian people living in Russia) are regularly blocked temporarily or permanently.
Interesting, your post is downvoted without any comments. Maybe it wouldn't harm to say what's wrong?
Well, my comment is against the against the grain (rusophobia is trendy in the contemporary world even among Russians). Also, it's a bit muddy. I said that government has nothing to do with censorship, but I contradict myself.
Although censorship in the US is some kind of internal struggle between parties that is hard to understand for an outsider like me, but promotion of rusophobia in social networks and YouTube is probably endorsed by US government. I doubt that ordinary engineers and managers at Facebook really care so much about Russia to boost rusophobic articles in the feed.
Although censorship in the US is some kind of internal struggle between parties that is hard to understand for an outsider like me, but promotion of rusophobia in social networks and YouTube is probably endorsed by US government. I doubt that ordinary engineers and managers at Facebook really care so much about Russia to boost rusophobic articles in the feed.
The US wasn't in Ukraine to promote democracy. Maybe it was a reaction to Crimea, perhaps they wanted to hinder the pipeline between Germany and Russia, maybe they just wanted influence in another eastern European state, but I am certainly not surprised the conflict is escalating. We are regressing to cold war thinking and while I think Putin is a despot, I see the actions of the US very critically.
Sad really, since we had a better political situation just 15 years ago.
Sad really, since we had a better political situation just 15 years ago.
US/Europe staged a coup in Ukraine before Crimea. Actually, it wasn't even the first coup staged by US in Ukraine.
True, and Crimea was a reaction to that. The EU or some member sates might have been involved here too, because EU association was the goal and it is convenient to blame everything on the US.
The pipeline might have been the reason all along for energy independence from Russia. I wouldn't know on whom to be angry if I were someone from Ukraine, but I would certainly be angry.
But people blaming Russian bots on Twitter can only be called low information voters in my opinion.
The pipeline might have been the reason all along for energy independence from Russia. I wouldn't know on whom to be angry if I were someone from Ukraine, but I would certainly be angry.
But people blaming Russian bots on Twitter can only be called low information voters in my opinion.
It would be more interesting if in general it was impossible to downvote (any comment) without providing a reason.
Don't get the downvotes either. This is a somewhat valid point. I feel like many people, even here on HN really like to paint the world black and white in this regard.
Everything bad we hear about Russia & China must undoubtedly be true, because it's reported by our press, and we have freedom of press, which means that our press never lies or has an agenda. At least when it comes to foreign affairs. So your Facebook feed must've undoubtedly told the unbiased truth about your country.
Everything bad we hear about Russia & China must undoubtedly be true, because it's reported by our press, and we have freedom of press, which means that our press never lies or has an agenda. At least when it comes to foreign affairs. So your Facebook feed must've undoubtedly told the unbiased truth about your country.
Is it sarcasm? A bit hard to get for me.
There's an old and very easy way to create a distorted image by selectively publishing the news: just ignore all the positive news and publish only negative news.
Many opposition channels and blogs in Russia exploit this technique. E.g. there're some anti-Russian blogs (quite many) that publish only vivid descriptions of the most cruel crimes that happened in Russia recently. When people read mostly these blogs they get an impression that everyday life in Russia is permeated by brutal crimes and there's no escape from villains if you step outside your apartment.
They're also quite popular among Russian immigrants living in Europe and USA (my guess is that because they're promoted in Google/Facebook/YouTube search results), and they always tell me in private conversations: "How can you live in such a brutal place where people are killed for no reason every day?"
They don't get that crime happens in every country every day, what is important is statistics: how effective is effort for fighting the crime, how big is percent of victims, etc (btw, also a rich field for statistics manipulation).
But these blogs do not publish fake news - they can publish only true facts. There's enough true facts you can use to create a distorted image if you ignore all the other information.
There's an old and very easy way to create a distorted image by selectively publishing the news: just ignore all the positive news and publish only negative news.
Many opposition channels and blogs in Russia exploit this technique. E.g. there're some anti-Russian blogs (quite many) that publish only vivid descriptions of the most cruel crimes that happened in Russia recently. When people read mostly these blogs they get an impression that everyday life in Russia is permeated by brutal crimes and there's no escape from villains if you step outside your apartment.
They're also quite popular among Russian immigrants living in Europe and USA (my guess is that because they're promoted in Google/Facebook/YouTube search results), and they always tell me in private conversations: "How can you live in such a brutal place where people are killed for no reason every day?"
They don't get that crime happens in every country every day, what is important is statistics: how effective is effort for fighting the crime, how big is percent of victims, etc (btw, also a rich field for statistics manipulation).
But these blogs do not publish fake news - they can publish only true facts. There's enough true facts you can use to create a distorted image if you ignore all the other information.
Yes, that was sarcasm, sorry if that wasn't clear enough.
Here's what I've been saying to my partner recently, "I hardly know what's going on up North of England, or even the other side of London (we live in London), but somehow what we hear about the other side of the world must be true". I find people who hold views whatever they hear in the media to be the absolute truth and that they are well informed because they read a lot of news to be extremely naive. This Mark Twain quote completely represents how I feel:
If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.
If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.
They do and with the help of moderators.
The government does have control over this. They could easily introduce a law which forbids platforms from censoring any legal content. They choose not to do this.
Essentially the US replicated what the USSR had as state censorship but with private corporations and it is impacting international communication not only US. The best part is that some people think it is for the greater good. When you would like to talk about it you are getting downvoted.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Perhaps this gives a clue as to why: https://about.fb.com/news/2018/05/announcing-new-election-pa...
Facebook uses an Atlanticist thinktank as an honest broker to censor information.
Facebook uses an Atlanticist thinktank as an honest broker to censor information.
I do not know why Google blocks pro-russian sources, but I know why I'd blocked them, if I could. They are not "pro-russian", they are all "pro-Putin". Any "pro-russian" source that is not "pro-Putin" will become "anti-russian" in a short time, because of activity of other "pro-russian" sources. They just forcibly stick "anti-russian" label on such a source, and here we are. Putin do all he could, to draw an equality sign between "Russia" and "Putin". And it works. Now no media needs to do nothing, "anti-russian" label sicks to any "anti-Putin" media all by itself. I know this, because I'm russian, I'm anti-Putin, and I tried to find a "pro-russian" and "anti-putin" source. I tried and failed. There is not such thing.
When a media use any material to promote it's propaganda ideas, doesn't bother with truth, use any dirty trick to mock opponents, it should be blocked.
But if Google blocked such dirty media, then what is to remain? Only "anti-Putin" media, which is all marked as "anti-russian".
I repeat: I do not know, why Google blocked "pro-putin" media, maybe due to reasons I described above, maybe because of order from a masonic lodge or from USA government. But the result is the same: all that is not blocked is "anti-russian".
When a media use any material to promote it's propaganda ideas, doesn't bother with truth, use any dirty trick to mock opponents, it should be blocked.
But if Google blocked such dirty media, then what is to remain? Only "anti-Putin" media, which is all marked as "anti-russian".
I repeat: I do not know, why Google blocked "pro-putin" media, maybe due to reasons I described above, maybe because of order from a masonic lodge or from USA government. But the result is the same: all that is not blocked is "anti-russian".
There's one clear sign that you can find on any Russian anti-Putin and/or pro-liberal blog or channel: that Russian people are lazy, stupid, alcoholics and drug addicts, that Russians never invented anything (all the technology at all times was stolen from Europe and USA), Russia never won any war (including WWII that was "won" exclusively by USA), etc.
They go even as far as to declare Russian language "stupid and barbaric and ugly" (Gasan Gusejnov).
Not touching any other reason for now, for me it's a clear sign that all opposition is rusophobic and/or paid by the CIA/MI-6.
Why would a sane person call his nation "stupid alcoholics using barbaric language"?..
They go even as far as to declare Russian language "stupid and barbaric and ugly" (Gasan Gusejnov).
Not touching any other reason for now, for me it's a clear sign that all opposition is rusophobic and/or paid by the CIA/MI-6.
Why would a sane person call his nation "stupid alcoholics using barbaric language"?..
> Russia never won any war (including WWII that was "won" exclusively by USA), etc.
Russia didn't take part in WW2. USSR did.
Russia didn't take part in WW2. USSR did.
You are making here general claims from specific cases. It's a logical fallacy. Moreover your claim about Gasan Gusejnov is taken out of context. He said: "кроме того убогого клоачного русского, на котором сейчас говорит и пишет эта страна", i.e. "apart from that sordid and cloacal Russian language in which this country speaks and writes now". It is clear that he didn't mean the Russian language as a whole but the form of Russian language used in oral and written public communication lately.
> one clear sign that you can find on any Russian anti-Putin and/or pro-liberal blog or channel: that Russian people are lazy, stupid, alcoholics and drug addicts
Wow i don’t know how it is in Russia; but that’s exactly the fake impression I’d work to cultivate if I was Putin or the state. If I had to guess, what you’re seeing is a false image designed to make you hate anything not explicitly pro Russia government. Your description follows with tactics used by clandestine groups in the US, like appearing has black activists but taken to absurd levels so as to either alienate other supporters or turn them into extremists.
It sounds like you’re being played.
Wow i don’t know how it is in Russia; but that’s exactly the fake impression I’d work to cultivate if I was Putin or the state. If I had to guess, what you’re seeing is a false image designed to make you hate anything not explicitly pro Russia government. Your description follows with tactics used by clandestine groups in the US, like appearing has black activists but taken to absurd levels so as to either alienate other supporters or turn them into extremists.
It sounds like you’re being played.
> all opposition is rusophobic and/or paid by the CIA/MI-6
This is probably the most ridiculous statement I've read on HN. But unfortunately not surprising.
This is probably the most ridiculous statement I've read on HN. But unfortunately not surprising.
> There's one clear sign that you can find on any Russian anti-Putin and/or pro-liberal blog or channel[...]
> Why would a sane person call his nation "stupid alcoholics using barbaric language"?..
Oh, yeah. Lets label any anti-Putin person as insane.
What are you trying to do? Are you trying to get ban from `dang`, so you could then talk about bloody censorship on HN? "HackerNews is a branch of CIA/MI-6", isn't it?
> Why would a sane person call his nation "stupid alcoholics using barbaric language"?..
Oh, yeah. Lets label any anti-Putin person as insane.
What are you trying to do? Are you trying to get ban from `dang`, so you could then talk about bloody censorship on HN? "HackerNews is a branch of CIA/MI-6", isn't it?
As others have pointed out to varying degrees, everything you highlighted happens at the discretion of the government. Doing nothing does not imply a lack of engagement it simply means that the government sees no reason to act.
Which NYT articles were blocked on Facebook?
At least an "questionably sourced article that made incriminating claims about Joe Biden and his son Hunter".
That was the New York Post, not the Times.
Which is quite of importance if they are true (It looks like that to be honest, but the involvement of family matters should not have happened). It is highly relevant to developments in Europe and the relationship to Russia.
It is silly that Trump was accused of what Biden is probably guilty of. That is a point where you loose me even if there are understandable objections to Trump. He didn't start shit like that at least.
It is silly that Trump was accused of what Biden is probably guilty of. That is a point where you loose me even if there are understandable objections to Trump. He didn't start shit like that at least.
SilentBan(1)
It's not a 'failure of democracy' - that's just how democracy works.
You're just not in the majority....of people behind the scenes using voters to scam each other by pretending there's actual change.
The only thing worse than a politician is someone who votes for them, and believes that's all there is to it.
The real power is at the water kooler.
Snowden had nothing to do with censorship. I haven't seen a credible accusation of internet censorship against the government in recent memory. Private companies can refuse to serve certain customers. And obviously there's copyright law and government secrecy laws. But no personal expression is banned.
US ”censorship” happens through AI flagging and demoting content, screaming louder than the next guy, distorting the narrative, DMCA takedowns. And it's quite effective. A high percent if people won't ever see the content. One can probably still see it if they take extra steps.
I think Snowden was just a general reference to needing whistle-blowers to bring accountability because the rest of us are in the dark.
But I think the point doesn't apply as well here. People measuring censorship thought of that already and aren't simply relying on govt to share info on the censorship it does. They also test access to sites. Obviously non-transparent regimes everywhere will often censor discretly (e.g. a story exposing their corruption).
But I think the point doesn't apply as well here. People measuring censorship thought of that already and aren't simply relying on govt to share info on the censorship it does. They also test access to sites. Obviously non-transparent regimes everywhere will often censor discretly (e.g. a story exposing their corruption).
Mass surveillance induces censorship and has a chilling effect on speech, so it is arguably true that security agencies violated the constitution they are sworn to protect.
Strong disagree. The potential damage done by mass surveillance would be against private communication, not public. Intelligence agencies can and do gather a lot of intelligence by just observing publicly-shared information. And considering the surveillance excesses observed since the war on terror has unfolded, there has been no discernible decrease in speech freedom nor has anyone ever been provably prosecuted or persecuted due to data wrongly collected in one of these programs.
I do think the chilling effect from big brother remains and we don't know if intelligence agencies collect about people, building profiles for example.
What I know is that agencies couldn't produce evidence of data collection helping with their mission. And it becomes a problem if the work too closely with political parties in my opinion.
What I do have seen is panicking about certain people that could gather some crowds and we do know that intelligence agencies like to disturb a civil right movement or two. I demand performance from people payed by taxes and they cannot deliver.
What I know is that agencies couldn't produce evidence of data collection helping with their mission. And it becomes a problem if the work too closely with political parties in my opinion.
What I do have seen is panicking about certain people that could gather some crowds and we do know that intelligence agencies like to disturb a civil right movement or two. I demand performance from people payed by taxes and they cannot deliver.
> 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
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
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.
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.
It could be a mistake, not an intentional lie.
Probably. After reading the paper I'm pretty sure they messed up their testing.
The problem is that they blow it up HUGE both in the paper and the article without cursory checking. That is as bad as lie. Maybe even worse.
From The paper 7.1.2: "Censored Planet data reveals extremely aggressive DNS blocking of many domains in Norway, with many blocks being consistent in all of our vantage points. During the four month period of increased censorship, 25 ASes observed blocking of more than 10 domains in at least six categories. We observed the most rigorous activity in AS 2116 (CATCHCOM) where more than 50 domains were blocked."
Blocking more than 10 domains in 25 ASes I have no reason to doubt. As I said there is extensive DNS blocking. So they write in a way that makes it sound like all the ASes are blocking hrw.org and match. But it's probably only on CATCHCOM. This is a ISP for mostly huge corporate environments where blocking may be by customer demand. So they take one single source of "anomaly" and blow it up. Pretty much a lie.
The problem is that they blow it up HUGE both in the paper and the article without cursory checking. That is as bad as lie. Maybe even worse.
From The paper 7.1.2: "Censored Planet data reveals extremely aggressive DNS blocking of many domains in Norway, with many blocks being consistent in all of our vantage points. During the four month period of increased censorship, 25 ASes observed blocking of more than 10 domains in at least six categories. We observed the most rigorous activity in AS 2116 (CATCHCOM) where more than 50 domains were blocked."
Blocking more than 10 domains in 25 ASes I have no reason to doubt. As I said there is extensive DNS blocking. So they write in a way that makes it sound like all the ASes are blocking hrw.org and match. But it's probably only on CATCHCOM. This is a ISP for mostly huge corporate environments where blocking may be by customer demand. So they take one single source of "anomaly" and blow it up. Pretty much a lie.
It’s such an egregious mistake that you’d have to assume the rest of their data is similarly worthless.
I agree. I mean, were I not a skeptic I'd be walking around dropping the interesting tidbit that "Norway blocks match.com" - it's as bad as the info-memes with nonsense on them people quote from facebook.
Piracy sites? That's strange. Why would Norway block sites like: http://t.ly/TdrE ?
I'm sure you got it wrong and what they actually block is Ninja sites.
I'm sure you got it wrong and what they actually block is Ninja sites.
I agree from a Japanese point of view. I never heard any ISP censorship except child porn. Censoring news sites must be huge news but never heard.
> During the G20 period, we observed increased blocking of domains in the news media and E-commerce category in Japan. DNS blocking was observed in both categories while Echo blocking was seen in the E-commerce category to a smaller extent. The domains being blocked during this time period included popular news domains such as online.wsj.com and washingtonpost.com under the news media category and kickstarter.com and marketwatch.com under the E-commerce umbrella.
Lol. Blocking kickstarter.com for G20? It must be false positive or ISP's DNS server is just suck.
Lol. Blocking kickstarter.com for G20? It must be false positive or ISP's DNS server is just suck.
Yeah, the article mentions some news sites being banned temporarily in Japan, but as someone who reads those sites near daily, I never noticed it happening.
Here is an example from Australia:
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/isps-in-au-and-nz...
What's interesting is the Prime Minister made it explicitly legal for ISPs to do this. Couldn't find the exact news on this but a search turned up the following article which is sort of what I remember https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/04/soci-a04.html .
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/isps-in-au-and-nz...
What's interesting is the Prime Minister made it explicitly legal for ISPs to do this. Couldn't find the exact news on this but a search turned up the following article which is sort of what I remember https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/04/soci-a04.html .
I checked as well (Globalconnect wired; Telenor mobile). It's a fairly ridiculous claim, one which if true would have attracted instant media attention.
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...
https://calvinayre.com/2018/05/10/business/norway-approves-g...
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/norwegian-politic...
That PIA blog post is not exactly high quality.
> Norwegian politicians from the Christian People’s Party are shocked that there is porn on the Internet, and want it eliminated – censored off all the Internet pipes as though the pornography doesn’t exist.
There's some truth here, but it's presented in a shoddy way. Yes, KrF (Christian People's Party) has at various times made noises about pornography DNS filters. I don't recall all the specifics, but various proposals have included opt-out DNS filter and/or filters in schools and such. While I don't support these proposals, I think the language used really exaggerates the reality (and few or none of these measures have ever gained much headway, either at the national or local level)
> If you read the Norwegian Christian paper, though, it is expressing itself very positively toward this censorship (which is somewhat weird for a newspaper, any newspaper – those generally oppose censorship vehemently and defend any and all freedom of the press).
They really dug deep on this one. The paper in question (Dagen) has a circulation of slightly over 10,000. That's not even among the top 20 in the country [1]. I'd be skeptical of assigning much weight to their coverage.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Norway
> Norwegian politicians from the Christian People’s Party are shocked that there is porn on the Internet, and want it eliminated – censored off all the Internet pipes as though the pornography doesn’t exist.
There's some truth here, but it's presented in a shoddy way. Yes, KrF (Christian People's Party) has at various times made noises about pornography DNS filters. I don't recall all the specifics, but various proposals have included opt-out DNS filter and/or filters in schools and such. While I don't support these proposals, I think the language used really exaggerates the reality (and few or none of these measures have ever gained much headway, either at the national or local level)
> If you read the Norwegian Christian paper, though, it is expressing itself very positively toward this censorship (which is somewhat weird for a newspaper, any newspaper – those generally oppose censorship vehemently and defend any and all freedom of the press).
They really dug deep on this one. The paper in question (Dagen) has a circulation of slightly over 10,000. That's not even among the top 20 in the country [1]. I'd be skeptical of assigning much weight to their coverage.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Norway
I know that in the Netherlands there is a specific very small ISP which caters to a certain religious crowd and blocks all sorts of "offensive" content (which is its main selling point).
Perhaps something similar is going on in Norway?
Perhaps something similar is going on in Norway?
>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.
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.
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.
It does, they even have a selection that is translated to english [1]. However I don't know what kind of terms I would search for. I tried "DNS", but it didn't give me anything. I also tried "internet blocking", no luck there either.
[1]: https://lovdata.no/register/loverEngelsk
[1]: https://lovdata.no/register/loverEngelsk
If I'm inferring correctly from the wiki page on Norwegian internet, the DNS blacklist is not made public as they mention it was posted to wikileaks back in 2009. At the time I believe this was exclusively a CP blacklist [1]
The mandate to block torrent sites came about as a result of a court order following a lawsuit brought forth by Hollywood studios against Norwegian ISPs [2]. I tried to find the specific text on lovdata, but came up empty as they don't have a comprehensive list of local court decisions. [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Norway#Internet_ce...
[2] https://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/the-pirate-bay-stenges-i-nor...
[3] https://lovdata.no/register/dommer
The mandate to block torrent sites came about as a result of a court order following a lawsuit brought forth by Hollywood studios against Norwegian ISPs [2]. I tried to find the specific text on lovdata, but came up empty as they don't have a comprehensive list of local court decisions. [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Norway#Internet_ce...
[2] https://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/the-pirate-bay-stenges-i-nor...
[3] https://lovdata.no/register/dommer
I believe it is the court case with ID TOSLO-2015-67093 [1]. Trough my old university account I still have access to lovdata pro so I was able to search for it and view it. I am to lazy to reupload it tonight, but if you are interested I could do it tomorrow.
[1]: https://lovdata.no/pro/#document/TRSIV/avgjorelse/toslo-2015...
[1]: https://lovdata.no/pro/#document/TRSIV/avgjorelse/toslo-2015...
Exactly same thing I mentioned. It is so hard to search and explore these laws.
My guess is that they think DNS resolution failures are consorship. There where some insane numbers like 95% unavailability of pcgamer.com and worldofwarcraft.com in the article as well. It makes no sense.
This reminds me of the disinformation smear campaign against the Canadian health care system run by US insurance companies since the nineties to prevent single payer health care laws from being passed...
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/925354134/frame-canada
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/925354134/frame-canada
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.
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.
I'm pretty sure it never happened. This would have been big news here. The technology press went ape when thepriatebay.org was added to a DNS blocklist. 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.
Either the article writer is confusing Norway with another country or this is just "Journalistic flair" i.e. a lie.
Ok, so your gut feeling vs some scientific research? Could you try to debate the facts instead of a strawman journalist?
Why do you say this journalist is lying, but lack of evidence from other journalists must mean this one is wrong?
Pirate Bay is a big site, and journalists and the population would notice. But they might not know to look for other sites being censored. Just food for thought. I don't know whether to believe it either, but I'm willing to leave it to others to fact check more rigorously.
A perfectly reasonable explanation that obeys all the facts could be that a single telecom blocked access for a short time by mistake, was alerted, and silently fixed it before journalists noticed. I doubt many people are visiting hrw.org on a daily basis, and an outage like that could be mistaken for temporary website issues. A journalist would probably not assume it was a country-wide block and so wouldn't think to write an article about it.
Why do you say this journalist is lying, but lack of evidence from other journalists must mean this one is wrong?
Pirate Bay is a big site, and journalists and the population would notice. But they might not know to look for other sites being censored. Just food for thought. I don't know whether to believe it either, but I'm willing to leave it to others to fact check more rigorously.
A perfectly reasonable explanation that obeys all the facts could be that a single telecom blocked access for a short time by mistake, was alerted, and silently fixed it before journalists noticed. I doubt many people are visiting hrw.org on a daily basis, and an outage like that could be mistaken for temporary website issues. A journalist would probably not assume it was a country-wide block and so wouldn't think to write an article about it.
They say Dec 2019 to Mar 2020:
"Our anomaly detection alerted us to high scores in DNS blocking starting from December 2019 until March 2020"
"Our anomaly detection alerted us to high scores in DNS blocking starting from December 2019 until March 2020"
They say Dec 2019 to Mar 2020:
"Our anomaly detection alerted us to high scores in DNS blocking starting from December 2019 until March 2020"
I'm coming to the realization that misinformation has to be combatted at the ear and not the mouth. I feel the world needs to go through a learning period where everyone realizes that whatever they read on the Internet is default false and they need to verify before they believe anything. In the least they need to verify credibility of sources, if not individual articles or tweets. I suppose what we're experiencing now is the pain of that learning period.
Trusting sources and verifying information is actually an incredibly hard game. Being too credulous leaves you open to misinformation, but on the other hand, being uncritically skeptical leads to the current "fake news" environment where (to those involved) no source is credible and we might as well all just believe whatever meets our preconceptions and dismiss the rest.
Do you have a suggestion or thesis? It's not so hard that it couldn't be taught to average humans. Even if it was extremely hard, it should still be taught, considering its importance.
The problem is that, for many topics, there just isn't a reliable source to go to. Sure, if you want information on scientific topics, you have very good options - go to one of the celebrated journals and read some papers, or at least the press releases from those same journals. When it comes to current domestic affairs (has there been massive election fraud in the US? is ANTIFA terrorizing the US?) then the mainstream media is a trustworthy source.
However, if you want to know about the effects of NAFTA, or US policy on Venezuela and how useful it is, or Russian involvement in the US elections, or trickle-down economics, or the benefits of a stimulus package etc, then the NYT, the Economist, and Breitbart are about as likely to give you a trust-worthy picture. So where can you look to, as an average citizen without time to conduct your own research on each topic you potentially care about? I don't think there is any good answer.
Society absolutely needs a new independent, small-scale, un-elitist media. "Factory journals" and such - small organizations that are not owned by any powers that be, where a few people can spend the time to digest other sources and try to come up with a more accurate picture. Not multi-million dollar ad-based industrial media (NYT), and not activist propagandist media (Breitbart) - that is always going to be far too heavily biased to have any hope of being a trust-worthy source of information on most topics that they can feasibly ignore.
And in case you don't believe me that most US media is a horrible source of information on the outside world, please find one single article on the biggest worker's strike in world history, that happened in January of this year in India.
Edit: to be clear: I'm not in any way claiming that Breitbart is a credible news organization to any extent similar to the NYT or Economist. Breitbart are a disgusting organization whose aim is misinformation, and lying comes naturally to them; the NYT and Economist and others like them do have journalistic practices and actually care about the truth, and are excellent sources for some kinds of news - they just have massive biases in certain other areas, especially on foreign and economic policy, where they are not trustworthy, but even then I wouldn't expect outright lies.
However, if you want to know about the effects of NAFTA, or US policy on Venezuela and how useful it is, or Russian involvement in the US elections, or trickle-down economics, or the benefits of a stimulus package etc, then the NYT, the Economist, and Breitbart are about as likely to give you a trust-worthy picture. So where can you look to, as an average citizen without time to conduct your own research on each topic you potentially care about? I don't think there is any good answer.
Society absolutely needs a new independent, small-scale, un-elitist media. "Factory journals" and such - small organizations that are not owned by any powers that be, where a few people can spend the time to digest other sources and try to come up with a more accurate picture. Not multi-million dollar ad-based industrial media (NYT), and not activist propagandist media (Breitbart) - that is always going to be far too heavily biased to have any hope of being a trust-worthy source of information on most topics that they can feasibly ignore.
And in case you don't believe me that most US media is a horrible source of information on the outside world, please find one single article on the biggest worker's strike in world history, that happened in January of this year in India.
Edit: to be clear: I'm not in any way claiming that Breitbart is a credible news organization to any extent similar to the NYT or Economist. Breitbart are a disgusting organization whose aim is misinformation, and lying comes naturally to them; the NYT and Economist and others like them do have journalistic practices and actually care about the truth, and are excellent sources for some kinds of news - they just have massive biases in certain other areas, especially on foreign and economic policy, where they are not trustworthy, but even then I wouldn't expect outright lies.
I really agree with your point that you need to have a way to know what to believe and that there are serious blind spots.
But I think a small, un-elite media is exactly where the problem is right now. All these blogs and YouTube channels that wants to spread the truth, then discover you can make money pushing conspiracy, have actually been crowding out actual journalistic organizations that have actual reporters.
To me, they are the spiritual successors of the small journals which would have great original reporting on local labor or environmental issues and would also casually report on medical myths and other pet causes of the authors.
I'm not sure what the answer is though and I think you're making some great points here.
But I think a small, un-elite media is exactly where the problem is right now. All these blogs and YouTube channels that wants to spread the truth, then discover you can make money pushing conspiracy, have actually been crowding out actual journalistic organizations that have actual reporters.
To me, they are the spiritual successors of the small journals which would have great original reporting on local labor or environmental issues and would also casually report on medical myths and other pet causes of the authors.
I'm not sure what the answer is though and I think you're making some great points here.
> But I think a small, un-elite media is exactly where the problem is right now. All these blogs and YouTube channels that wants to spread the truth, then discover you can make money pushing conspiracy, have actually been crowding out actual journalistic organizations that have actual reporters.
> To me, they are the spiritual successors of the small journals which would have great original reporting on local labor or environmental issues and would also casually report on medical myths and other pet causes of the authors.
These are very good points, that I'll have to think about more.
> To me, they are the spiritual successors of the small journals which would have great original reporting on local labor or environmental issues and would also casually report on medical myths and other pet causes of the authors.
These are very good points, that I'll have to think about more.
The mainstream media is a trustworthy source regarding election fraud and Antifa's terrorist activities? And "Breitbart are a disgusting organization whose aim is misinformation"?
It's not so much that the main stream media outlets lie about facts. They misrepresent them because they have a bias and a specific opinion on matters that it's so obvious to anyone that isn't on the left. Which is why people flock to other sources such as Breitbart, which at the very least, spins and interprets the events/info with a right-leaning worldview.
The overarching problem is that journalism has become a forum of opinion rather than facts + helping readers understand complex topics by digesting it for them. And it's no wonder we're becoming polarized, because we pick the "opinion" we like, rather than being given the facts and going with it, regardless from which source we get it.
It's not so much that the main stream media outlets lie about facts. They misrepresent them because they have a bias and a specific opinion on matters that it's so obvious to anyone that isn't on the left. Which is why people flock to other sources such as Breitbart, which at the very least, spins and interprets the events/info with a right-leaning worldview.
The overarching problem is that journalism has become a forum of opinion rather than facts + helping readers understand complex topics by digesting it for them. And it's no wonder we're becoming polarized, because we pick the "opinion" we like, rather than being given the facts and going with it, regardless from which source we get it.
The left actually has the same criticisms of the mainstream media as the right does, though usually on other subjects. The media in the US has an extreme centrist position on most issues, leaning to the right on foreign policy and immigration (with no exceptions), but to the left on social issues (with notable exceptions such as Fox News).
I stand by my characterization of Breitbart though - they absolutely knowingly lie about facts. I would also add that you know that your political view is extreme far right when you start calling The Economist "left-leaning".
And I don't think that journalism, especially in the mainstream, has ever been more than an opinion & public relations (propaganda) piece. News organizations are usually owned by rich owners and financed by rich corporations through ads, and so can't stray too far from the mainstream capitalist right-wing/centrist view on most issues of consequence for their sponsors. It happens that lately, corporate America and the rich have generally become much more open on social issues, so you see that reflected in the press.
But you'll be hard pressed to find a mainstream journal or news organization that shares the left's more extreme beliefs on economic issues (e.g. pro unionization, shorter work week), and extremely hard pressed to find any news organization that is against armed support for Israel, that is against the coup attempt in Venezuela, that is against US support for Saudi Arabia, that is for US nuclear disarmament, that is against escalation of the conflict with Russia etc.
Note: if you want to see left-leaning media, look at The Jacobin for example - you'll probably be shocked at how vastly they differ from the NYT. Here is an example: https://jacobinmag.com/2015/05/the-new-york-times-goes-to-wa...
I stand by my characterization of Breitbart though - they absolutely knowingly lie about facts. I would also add that you know that your political view is extreme far right when you start calling The Economist "left-leaning".
And I don't think that journalism, especially in the mainstream, has ever been more than an opinion & public relations (propaganda) piece. News organizations are usually owned by rich owners and financed by rich corporations through ads, and so can't stray too far from the mainstream capitalist right-wing/centrist view on most issues of consequence for their sponsors. It happens that lately, corporate America and the rich have generally become much more open on social issues, so you see that reflected in the press.
But you'll be hard pressed to find a mainstream journal or news organization that shares the left's more extreme beliefs on economic issues (e.g. pro unionization, shorter work week), and extremely hard pressed to find any news organization that is against armed support for Israel, that is against the coup attempt in Venezuela, that is against US support for Saudi Arabia, that is for US nuclear disarmament, that is against escalation of the conflict with Russia etc.
Note: if you want to see left-leaning media, look at The Jacobin for example - you'll probably be shocked at how vastly they differ from the NYT. Here is an example: https://jacobinmag.com/2015/05/the-new-york-times-goes-to-wa...
> I stand by my characterization of Breitbart though - they absolutely knowingly lie about facts.
I can agree, once I did my own research and found them misrepresenting facts; during the refugee crisis, a Breitbart headline said something along the lines of "x hundred thousand crimes committed by refugees in Germany". I looked at the source/googled the number and found the source government press release, it was the number of people entering the country without permit, of course that's against the (German) law, but a refugee has to per default do this to enter somewhere and claim refugee status (unless they're the kind of refugee that could get plane tickets to a destination country willing to issue them entry visas -- but surely no EU embassy thought "Ah here are some Syrians wanting to visit as tourists for a week, give them visas.").
Obviously the Breitbart article didn't mention this detail, leaving the details of the "crimes" committed to the imagination of their readers...
I can agree, once I did my own research and found them misrepresenting facts; during the refugee crisis, a Breitbart headline said something along the lines of "x hundred thousand crimes committed by refugees in Germany". I looked at the source/googled the number and found the source government press release, it was the number of people entering the country without permit, of course that's against the (German) law, but a refugee has to per default do this to enter somewhere and claim refugee status (unless they're the kind of refugee that could get plane tickets to a destination country willing to issue them entry visas -- but surely no EU embassy thought "Ah here are some Syrians wanting to visit as tourists for a week, give them visas.").
Obviously the Breitbart article didn't mention this detail, leaving the details of the "crimes" committed to the imagination of their readers...
> It's not so hard that it couldn't be taught to average humans.
What makes you believe this? I can't think of a time in history when the average person could critically evaluate information successfully.
What makes you believe this? I can't think of a time in history when the average person could critically evaluate information successfully.
Not really. It's hard in the "NP hard" sense, not the "calculus is hard" sense. We don't have answers and there probably aren't any.
The best you can do is cross-reference everything you know, take into account the degree to which you can verify each thing independently, and try and come up with some correlations between different sources to establish a web of credibility.
Unfortunately, experience has shown that regular humans just don't do this.
The best you can do is cross-reference everything you know, take into account the degree to which you can verify each thing independently, and try and come up with some correlations between different sources to establish a web of credibility.
Unfortunately, experience has shown that regular humans just don't do this.
You act as if there is a singular truth that can be divined from any set of circumstances. You and I can review the same set of events and even if we agree on the facts come to different conclusions. Does that mean you did something wrong just because I disagree with you?
No, I'm not suggesting there is a single truth. I'm suggesting that people think critically and keep an open mind that perhaps they are wrong or don't know the whole picture.
One should only trust named, identified sources. The age of anonymous sources in mainstream media needs to end, because an anonymous source is not a source.
Yes, sources should be protected. But there should be mechanisms in place to protect sources who identify themselves that do not require the gullible public to just believe what they were told, because an authority said it was okay to believe something an anonymous person said about something.
Maybe this is something that the crypto/cert folks should address - a means of verifying that a source has been properly and adequately identified, without revealing the details required to target that individual for harassment/assassination/etc.
A media clearing house for sources, or a blockchain ...
Yes, sources should be protected. But there should be mechanisms in place to protect sources who identify themselves that do not require the gullible public to just believe what they were told, because an authority said it was okay to believe something an anonymous person said about something.
Maybe this is something that the crypto/cert folks should address - a means of verifying that a source has been properly and adequately identified, without revealing the details required to target that individual for harassment/assassination/etc.
A media clearing house for sources, or a blockchain ...
But we also had the Russian election manipulation talk without any named source and evidence and it was widely believed.
I categorize that situation as mass hysteria, personally, another mutation of the 'red-baiting' McCarthy'ism that hasn't escaped American culture, which needs enemies to justify its trillion dollar investment in death machines. It served mostly as a mechanism for Americans to deflect from the real issues with their election: the Democrats fielded a corrupt, criminal candidate who could not defeat an also-corrupt, despicable ex-reality TV star. So, blame Russia.
And therefore, a perfectly good example for why people should demand sources be revealed when it comes to issues of state election security.
Otherwise, we will continue to be ruled by duplicitous subterfuge instead of verifiable facts.
And therefore, a perfectly good example for why people should demand sources be revealed when it comes to issues of state election security.
Otherwise, we will continue to be ruled by duplicitous subterfuge instead of verifiable facts.
This was the perspective that set the course for current actions, but the situation got worse.
I feel like if media didnt seem conglomerated and opinionated, none of this would ever have been an issue. The problem is that globally, media has become aligned in its objectives, languages etc. to the point where anyone with just a shred of critical thinking would at least be skeptical about the quality of truth from mass media.
This is partly because american NGOs have orchestrated a huge indoctrination effort among journalists on a global scale. I have worked for national media for a little under a decade and every place I worked, there was journalists participating in stuff from "open societies foundation".
The quality of journalism has reached such a low that when tourists are group raped for hours and then are finally decapitated by religious fanatics (Any other description would not be allowed in media anymore, but you know who) who film and put it on the internet. they use terms like "Found with injuries on their neck". And then our police and media do everything they can to stop the real horrific truth from surfacing. No wonder people stop believing a word and become overly skeptical.
Honestly I think its a sign of health that people become skeptical regarding mass media. It would be even healthier if the general populace started to dismantle the power structures that dictates our dystopian future.
This is partly because american NGOs have orchestrated a huge indoctrination effort among journalists on a global scale. I have worked for national media for a little under a decade and every place I worked, there was journalists participating in stuff from "open societies foundation".
The quality of journalism has reached such a low that when tourists are group raped for hours and then are finally decapitated by religious fanatics (Any other description would not be allowed in media anymore, but you know who) who film and put it on the internet. they use terms like "Found with injuries on their neck". And then our police and media do everything they can to stop the real horrific truth from surfacing. No wonder people stop believing a word and become overly skeptical.
Honestly I think its a sign of health that people become skeptical regarding mass media. It would be even healthier if the general populace started to dismantle the power structures that dictates our dystopian future.
How should we handle misinformation from official sources? It wasn't that long ago the New York Times told the world they had evidence of Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction, setting off a chain of events that literally killed hundreds of thousands of people. In today's political climate, the misinformation that led to the Iraq War could never have been exposed.
Edit: surely I'm not the only one who remembers how the NYT almost singlehandedly started a war based on false reporting?
Edit: surely I'm not the only one who remembers how the NYT almost singlehandedly started a war based on false reporting?
Is there even a way to vet information from official sources?
Yes, requesting evidence. If they say it is secret, you should conclude the info is false because it very likely is. If there is strategic need to hold it secret, which would probably be < 1% of cases, the public needs a trustable delegate witness. How much trust the witness has is decided by the public.
playing devil's advocate here: If they need evidence, they can just manufacture some, and you're not going to be the one who inspects it. a chosen expert is going to inspect it and go on television assuring everyone "yes this is genuine evidence." all they really need is the video of the expert and maybe a .pdf that 1% of us will read (and be unable to vet its claims).
The various members of the public may have different opinions on the trustworthiness of the witness which means that the government can just make sure that whatever action they are taking is to the benefit of one of these groups and surf on their approval.
The various members of the public may have different opinions on the trustworthiness of the witness which means that the government can just make sure that whatever action they are taking is to the benefit of one of these groups and surf on their approval.
This is not well-understood by most people, even at the time.
Saddam Hussein did have a "weapon of mass destruction", poison gas, and used it on Kurds. You can find photos of bodies with white foam from their mouths from that time.
He did not have much, if any, nuclear technology, despite the "aluminum tubes" news clips which led to the concern over weapons of mass destruction. (There are specialized alloys used in nuclear processing, but not aluminum.)
Aside from that, the main information source was an exiled Iraqi politician that the administration said was credible to construct their narrative.
So Saddam Hussein went from a US ally, to a war criminal.
One major US newspaper tried to push back, but the rest, including the NYT, just repeated everything the White House said.
Saddam Hussein did have a "weapon of mass destruction", poison gas, and used it on Kurds. You can find photos of bodies with white foam from their mouths from that time.
He did not have much, if any, nuclear technology, despite the "aluminum tubes" news clips which led to the concern over weapons of mass destruction. (There are specialized alloys used in nuclear processing, but not aluminum.)
Aside from that, the main information source was an exiled Iraqi politician that the administration said was credible to construct their narrative.
So Saddam Hussein went from a US ally, to a war criminal.
One major US newspaper tried to push back, but the rest, including the NYT, just repeated everything the White House said.
Keep remembering and reminding people, please. Also the political backers, including the new president-elect and many of the talking heads currently employed by the "left" side of the media spectrum. I know they're considered good guys now, but they did much worse than the current crop of bad guys ever managed.
David Frum, Bill Kristol, Nicole Wallace, and General Michael Hayden are now MSNBC and #resist heroes. James Clapper and John Brennan are on CNN payroll as talking heads. At least the orange guy and his particular complicit press never passed a Patriot Act, didn't start any warrantless kidnapping/detainment/torture/execution programs, or mass surveillance programs against their own people, and didn't start any wars. More than I can say for NYT, CNN, et al.
The "official" outlets are populated by former CIA/NSA/FBI, and similar people with a documented history of lying (even to Congress) to protect abuses of constitutional and even human rights. In that context it's very hard to trust ANY information source, especially algorithmically. I don't know how to write a program that recognizes these people who were liars yesterday are now the good guys.
So yes, please keep remembering and remind people. Large parts of the current problem rest on a bed of forgetfulness.
David Frum, Bill Kristol, Nicole Wallace, and General Michael Hayden are now MSNBC and #resist heroes. James Clapper and John Brennan are on CNN payroll as talking heads. At least the orange guy and his particular complicit press never passed a Patriot Act, didn't start any warrantless kidnapping/detainment/torture/execution programs, or mass surveillance programs against their own people, and didn't start any wars. More than I can say for NYT, CNN, et al.
The "official" outlets are populated by former CIA/NSA/FBI, and similar people with a documented history of lying (even to Congress) to protect abuses of constitutional and even human rights. In that context it's very hard to trust ANY information source, especially algorithmically. I don't know how to write a program that recognizes these people who were liars yesterday are now the good guys.
So yes, please keep remembering and remind people. Large parts of the current problem rest on a bed of forgetfulness.
Well, even more recently there have been revelations that one of their sources about the Syrian war has been just some guy who made up all of his story. https://globalnews.ca/news/7350363/rcmp-arrests-abu-huzayfah...
With their recent breaking story of Donald Trump $750 tax, I've been reading through their published article, but have not found any solid evidence for this proposed figure, only just a bunch of links to their previous articles in past years. If anyone can find some actual evidence for the $750 tax bill from the NYT report, I would very much like to see it https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/trump-750-taxes.html
With their recent breaking story of Donald Trump $750 tax, I've been reading through their published article, but have not found any solid evidence for this proposed figure, only just a bunch of links to their previous articles in past years. If anyone can find some actual evidence for the $750 tax bill from the NYT report, I would very much like to see it https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/trump-750-taxes.html
> I feel the world needs to go through a learning period where everyone realizes that whatever they read on the Internet is default false
The world had 50+ years to learn this about the TV, but didn't. Don't hold your breath.
The world had 50+ years to learn this about the TV, but didn't. Don't hold your breath.
It might be counter productive to think it'll get better if people can just assume social media sites will ban/flag misinformation correctly. Maybe only lower profile stuff will slip through, but the volume of misinformation will barely change I suspect and users that haven't learned how to train their own filter might be more likely to believe "unflagged" content.
There is more gate keeping for TV, therefore less false information. Anyone can post on Twitter or Facebook.
Not only this and the parent comment is also correct but this is the lesson that civilization will continually have to deal with every generation ad nauseam. This is our time and our struggle and how we handle this and all the issues afoot will set the course for humanity.
We as a species and our societies by proxy are self actualizing kicking and screaming.
We as a species and our societies by proxy are self actualizing kicking and screaming.
I don't really see how this is very similar.
I'd like to distinguish what this article is talking about, which is the government blocking actual websites, against moderation on private social media websites and platforms.
I don't mean that the latter is not necessarily a problem or not, but we definitely should not be mixing up our thoughts and impression of one with the other, they are very very different in nature.
I don't mean that the latter is not necessarily a problem or not, but we definitely should not be mixing up our thoughts and impression of one with the other, they are very very different in nature.
I think a two-pronged approach is needed, though it's hard to educate the "ear" when it only wants to hear information confirming it's existing position.
I think the problem is that humans by default assume what they’re reading is true for social cohesion. Especially if you think of social media (or comment sections), I mean why would I ever bother interacting with others if I assume everything I’m being told is false?
We just need to put more value in human integrity. It's too easy to do "the wrong thing" with 0 consequences
We had that around 2010 basically before the threat of fake news was conjured up. Still angry at those panicking...
probably things are different now, but in the "old days" school assignments didnt consider internet sources to be "real" sources and you had to use books etc for your reports
If I apply that logic to your comment then everything on the internet should be assumed to be true.
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/.
See https://ooni.org/ and https://ooni.org/install/.
Comforting to note that this software is F/OSS. Thank you.
This is pretty bad. As have been pointed out by multiple commenters in this thread a lot of the examples in this article and the underlying paper are simply incorrect. I'm Norwegian and I can say with extremely high confidence that three domains given as an example in the paper [1] (page 10): hrw.org, match.com and 163.com has never been blocked by any major ISP in Norway. However I do know that some piracy and gambling sites are. I tried to download the data for myself [2] to take a closer look, however as I do not study in the US and thus do not have a .edu email address access is blocked.
[1]: https://censoredplanet.org/assets/censoredplanet.pdf
[2]: https://censoredplanet.org/data/raw
[1]: https://censoredplanet.org/assets/censoredplanet.pdf
[2]: https://censoredplanet.org/data/raw
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
You just need to frame it correctly.
> I don't think you can effectively inoculate the average person against this stuff with education.
A lot of school curriculums ostensibly include critical thinking skills because this is seen as important, but don't tend to teach 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 really teaching children to be critical, or really teaching them that it's best to conform to what they are told? It becomes difficult to teach children critical thinking skills, because of the way schools are presented to them as an objective authority.
I think this work can be done, however - and is most often done by lone wolf teachers acting alone and outside of classroom norms. That's certainly my experience.
A lot of school curriculums ostensibly include critical thinking skills because this is seen as important, but don't tend to teach 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 really teaching children to be critical, or really teaching them that it's best to conform to what they are told? It becomes difficult to teach children critical thinking skills, because of the way schools are presented to them as an objective authority.
I think this work can be done, however - and is most often done by lone wolf teachers acting alone and outside of classroom norms. That's certainly my experience.
It has been done studies of education and gullibility. Sadly enough people who has some education, like a masters degree, was more gullible then people who lacked education. It was first at PhD-level that education seemed to help.
The explanation was that people with some education become prideful and believed they know more then they did, easy targets for gullibility. But people lacking education had often street smarts and was less susceptible. And the ones with phd:s had learned how complicated things really are and was often reluctant to take a hard opinion about things they did not know much about.
The explanation was that people with some education become prideful and believed they know more then they did, easy targets for gullibility. But people lacking education had often street smarts and was less susceptible. And the ones with phd:s had learned how complicated things really are and was often reluctant to take a hard opinion about things they did not know much about.
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".
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".
That's not the literal definition of fascism but it's also Not Good(tm).
Yes, it's feudalism
How?
Well the OP said:
> 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.
And then he said it's facism. To which I say, no, it's feudalism:
> Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of the legal, economic, military, and cultural customs [...]. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships that were derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labor. [0]
I don't get why people downvote me so much. It's basically a direct answer
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism
> 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.
And then he said it's facism. To which I say, no, it's feudalism:
> Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of the legal, economic, military, and cultural customs [...]. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships that were derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labor. [0]
I don't get why people downvote me so much. It's basically a direct answer
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism
> Yes, it's feudalism
Its really, really not feudalism, which is highly de-centralized.
Its really, really not feudalism, which is highly de-centralized.
I'm not so sure, I think if GP had expanded on it a little it's an interesting take.
Multiple corporations (with their 'fiefdoms') is decentralised from government, in a similar manner to peers being decentralised from government (or the crown).
You could either argue 'not as much so', or that 'corporate lobbying, unions, and party donations have a similar influence on policy'; regardless I think it's an interesting idea.
Multiple corporations (with their 'fiefdoms') is decentralised from government, in a similar manner to peers being decentralised from government (or the crown).
You could either argue 'not as much so', or that 'corporate lobbying, unions, and party donations have a similar influence on policy'; regardless I think it's an interesting idea.
First of all this, but even in the very definition of feudalism it's feudalism:
> Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of the legal, economic, military, and cultural customs [...]. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships that were derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labor. [0]
Don't really get all the downvotes. I could extend more on it, and explain my reasoning, but I feel like HN is too caught in this "tech moguls are saviors" and even if they weren't and they wouldn't be where they are, somebody else would be a bad actor.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism
> Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of the legal, economic, military, and cultural customs [...]. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships that were derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labor. [0]
Don't really get all the downvotes. I could extend more on it, and explain my reasoning, but I feel like HN is too caught in this "tech moguls are saviors" and even if they weren't and they wouldn't be where they are, somebody else would be a bad actor.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism
> but even in the very definition of feudalism it's feudalism:
Except there is no “holding of land in exchange for labor”, the only concrete element of the description you quote.
Except there is no “holding of land in exchange for labor”, the only concrete element of the description you quote.
Not in the literal sense of land, but in the economical/capitalistic sense. In capitalism theory, the basic idea behind the growth of capitalism is defined as "land grab", i.e. the system ingests what is foreign and makes it its own. So land in that sense can mean anything that binds people to you. Nowadays this means money in order to pay rent, food, bills etc.
> 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.
Now why do I call this feudalism? To be honest I could call it various other things, the most "getting to the root" would be "class warfare". I chose to call it feudalism in this case, because feudalism was basically the last period/time we chose to call it honestly what it is: Getting ruled from above. They want to implement censorship, because even though we always say "one day it might work against you", but for them it does not. Ever.
So when we introduced parliaments we split law-making power from nobility to politicians, elected by the people. But if you are an "accumulator of wealth", you can basically act as a modern fief. Especially if you work together with politicians.
> 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.
Now why do I call this feudalism? To be honest I could call it various other things, the most "getting to the root" would be "class warfare". I chose to call it feudalism in this case, because feudalism was basically the last period/time we chose to call it honestly what it is: Getting ruled from above. They want to implement censorship, because even though we always say "one day it might work against you", but for them it does not. Ever.
So when we introduced parliaments we split law-making power from nobility to politicians, elected by the people. But if you are an "accumulator of wealth", you can basically act as a modern fief. Especially if you work together with politicians.
Walled gardens (read fiefdoms) run by megacorporations is decentralised, I don't have to accept Alphabet's TOS if I don't want to. They just have so many people who do want to that they can dictate pretty crazy terms.
Governments asking favours of these corporate lords looks centralised and makes us pay attention, but it requires their consent to get anywhere.
Governments asking favours of these corporate lords looks centralised and makes us pay attention, but it requires their consent to get anywhere.
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.
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.
Regardless of whether or not that was a tactic of Mussolini, that is most definitely not the definition of fascism.
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 and don't want to let it get that far.
Fascism has a specific definition that is not just "whatever Mussolini did".
Considering that the term itself comes from his movement, the "Fasces of Revolutionary Action", and that he coined the word fascism personally in 1919 (after the word "fascio"), I think at the very least he gets to be attributed the lions' share of it.
Newton can be credited as being substantially the inventor of Newtonian Physics. That doesn't make alchemy a sub-field of Newtonian Physics, despite the fact that Newton wrote numerous treatises on alchemy.
Or possibly that alchemy has nothing to do with motion and gravitation.
Chemistry isn't a sub-field of Physics either.
Chemistry isn't a sub-field of Physics either.
Exactly.
No, we don't agree.
He literally coined the term when talking about his movement. If anyone has claim to what the definition was, it's him.
But history is written by the winners and I'm sure modern day fascists would like to distance themselves from that history as much as possible...and thus the term gets narrowed and redefined.
He literally coined the term when talking about his movement. If anyone has claim to what the definition was, it's him.
But history is written by the winners and I'm sure modern day fascists would like to distance themselves from that history as much as possible...and thus the term gets narrowed and redefined.
>Chemistry isn't a sub-field of Physics either.
Chemistry is just applied Physics.
And yes, for all you mathematicians out there, Physics is just applied math. :)
Chemistry is just applied Physics.
And yes, for all you mathematicians out there, Physics is just applied math. :)
Except neither is true.
> has nothing to do with motion and gravitation.
Oh but it does. (The force of gravity is essential for some (al)chemical techniques.)
Oh but it does. (The force of gravity is essential for some (al)chemical techniques.)
> That doesn't make alchemy a sub-field of Newtonian Physics
No, but it does make it part of "Newtonism."
No, but it does make it part of "Newtonism."
> Considering that the term itself comes from his movement, the "Fasces of Revolutionary Action", and that he coined the word fascism personally in 1919 (after the word "fascio"), I think at the very least he gets to be attributed the lions' share of it.
Sure, but that doesn't mean any one aspect of what he did, in isolation from the rest, is "the definition of fascism". (And the understanding of the genericized term is at least as much shaped by Naziism as Italian fascism, anyhow; this might annoy Mussolini if he was around to be annoyed -- frankly, that Nazis are taken as an example of "fascism" would probably annoy Hitler, too -- but, you know, that's just the way language evolves; if we're talking about Mussolini's movement in Italy specifically, we generally say "Italian fascism", not just "fascism" unless there is context to indicate that we are specifically talking about Italy.)
Sure, but that doesn't mean any one aspect of what he did, in isolation from the rest, is "the definition of fascism". (And the understanding of the genericized term is at least as much shaped by Naziism as Italian fascism, anyhow; this might annoy Mussolini if he was around to be annoyed -- frankly, that Nazis are taken as an example of "fascism" would probably annoy Hitler, too -- but, you know, that's just the way language evolves; if we're talking about Mussolini's movement in Italy specifically, we generally say "Italian fascism", not just "fascism" unless there is context to indicate that we are specifically talking about Italy.)
So then why not take Mussolini's own words on what fascism is and isn't? His definition required it to be totalitarian: "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state".
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.
> 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.
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.
No. 47, if you'd like to read it.
To be fair, Hitler himself was not universally recognized as a "bad guy" until, well, later.
To be depressingly fair, Hitler was never (and is still not) universally recognized as a "bad guy".
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...
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...
> 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?
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?
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.
QAnon is irrelevant aside from the attention they are getting from their supposed political enemies. You seem to need an image of an enemy. Same with flat earthers. They existed 20 years ago and they were completely irrelevant. Antivax had a lot of people joining because they had partly reasonable objections or trust issues towards official sources and some hobby Don Quijotes with a slight inferiority complex needed to prove themselves by demonizing these groups as if they were the devil. As expected, these groups didn't shrink.
No, before you had to be rich enough to buy the newspaper to print crazy bullshit, but that certainly happened (and still happens) too.
That's still a filter effect. Now, crazy bullshit is being peddled at 100x the rates from before. It's not sustainable.
Yes, we should have never given those poors access to say whatever is on their minds, right? At least not in front of other people...
It'll be the end of civilization.
Everyone should agree with the rich and powerful.
It'll be the end of civilization.
Everyone should agree with the rich and powerful.
Isn't that basically what the Allegory of the cave is advocating for?
If you are uneducated (and almost certainly poor), you do not see reality for how it is, but instead you see shadows against the wall. Only through the process of a dialectical education can you begin to see reality for how it is. As a result, only the educated enlightened individuals should become kings or the guardians of a state.
Any system which agrees with this allegory (and most of Western Philosophy implicity agrees with it) also results in the notion that poor people should not be enfranchised at the same level as wealthier people because they cannot be trusted to govern.
If you reject this allegory, than the fundamental justification for hierarchy (some are more fit to rule than others) and correspondingly the state is shattered
If you are uneducated (and almost certainly poor), you do not see reality for how it is, but instead you see shadows against the wall. Only through the process of a dialectical education can you begin to see reality for how it is. As a result, only the educated enlightened individuals should become kings or the guardians of a state.
Any system which agrees with this allegory (and most of Western Philosophy implicity agrees with it) also results in the notion that poor people should not be enfranchised at the same level as wealthier people because they cannot be trusted to govern.
If you reject this allegory, than the fundamental justification for hierarchy (some are more fit to rule than others) and correspondingly the state is shattered
[deleted]
I don't know how you follow this to any conclusion that doesn't advocate for locking down the entire internet.
That genie is out of the bottle.
That genie is out of the bottle.
> Isn't that basically what the Allegory of the cave is advocating for?
My interpretation of the allegory is that it suggests that everyone "should" employ epistemic humility.
My interpretation of the allegory is that it suggests that everyone "should" employ epistemic humility.
I think it would be more sensible to fix the education system than to appoint uneducated people to government positions just to increase the representation of poorer people.
It's more about education and a skeptical but not paranoid and nihilistic mind, than about "rich and powerful". You should be "this tall to ride". In this case, "this tall to broadcast your thoughts to millions of people".
> rich enough to buy the newspaper
That's not how it worked. The moment Gutenberg invented the printing press, printers popped up everywhere and printed anything and everything. That means newspapers, newsletters, pamphlets, flyers, advertisements, bills, leaflets, everything.
It was cheap to print, not remotely restricted to the rich, and you certainly did not need to buy a newspaper. Schools print newspapers, businesses do, too.
A lot of it was political, too. For a famous example, see "Common Sense".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense
That's not how it worked. The moment Gutenberg invented the printing press, printers popped up everywhere and printed anything and everything. That means newspapers, newsletters, pamphlets, flyers, advertisements, bills, leaflets, everything.
It was cheap to print, not remotely restricted to the rich, and you certainly did not need to buy a newspaper. Schools print newspapers, businesses do, too.
A lot of it was political, too. For a famous example, see "Common Sense".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense
newspapers have reach, which is in the context we're talking about when making comparisons to twitter.
sure, you could cheaply print stuff, but you had to (pay people to) stand on a lot of street corners to get your message out there.
sure, you could cheaply print stuff, but you had to (pay people to) stand on a lot of street corners to get your message out there.
Thomas Paine made money off of Common Sense.
Really this is central to how the USA started, as there were several among the founding fathers who printed newsletters.
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.
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.
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?
It's coming from people that don't share his politics.
You won't find anyone on this board more quick to defend censorship along political lines.
You won't find anyone on this board more quick to defend censorship along political lines.
[deleted]
Because it takes far longer to confirm if a claim is true or not than it does to make a claim.
The folks who makes lots of claims which are false know this, and do so anyway because it is effective at swaying public opinion.
"never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."
The folks who makes lots of claims which are false know this, and do so anyway because it is effective at swaying public opinion.
"never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."
Seems like it should be TRIVIAL; (if backed up by legal authority of governments - and that's the REAL trick) - to cause all claims to be properly categorized.
Either something is OPINION, or it's FACT. And anything that is Factual, could have the privilege to be labeled as such. Things that are proven not-true or misinformation, or unsupported - they could be permanently labelled "bullshit" and why the hell can't we do this?
Because people will skirt the system. Unless we have a government that supports rule of law.
Either something is OPINION, or it's FACT. And anything that is Factual, could have the privilege to be labeled as such. Things that are proven not-true or misinformation, or unsupported - they could be permanently labelled "bullshit" and why the hell can't we do this?
Because people will skirt the system. Unless we have a government that supports rule of law.
I don't even have to reach this question to support my argument. You're effectively comparing 2020 to 2015. I'm comparing 2020 to 1980.
You can't just toss out core enlightenment principles because a handful of loud simpletons latch on to bad ideas. Not without explaining why.
I object to the claim that I've tossed out any "core enlightenment principles" by observing that we have drastically fewer gatekeepers now than we did in 1980.
It is my understanding that toleration, free association, and free expression are core enlightenment principles that enable a civilization to be governed by reason. These are threatened by the censorious attitude of boomers and aging gen-xers with home equity to protect.
It is not unusual for older, wealthier elements of society to question the value of free expression for the masses. [1]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/democratic-enlightenment-philosophy-r...
It is not unusual for older, wealthier elements of society to question the value of free expression for the masses. [1]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/democratic-enlightenment-philosophy-r...
Do you implicate that we need gatekeepers? If so, then yes, if not, then it was falsely concluded.
You know that Mike Wallace interviewed an Imperial Wizard of the KKK on his show in 1957, right?
And Ayatollah Khomeini.
And Ayatollah Khomeini.
I am well aware; read my comment in light of that.
In 1957 there was a television for just about every 5 Americans, an average family size of 3.6 and not that much programming to watch.
Mike Wallace effectively gave the KKK a forum reaching everybody in the United States... That's much more effective than Twitter.
Your comment doesn't read any better.
Mike Wallace effectively gave the KKK a forum reaching everybody in the United States... That's much more effective than Twitter.
Your comment doesn't read any better.
You can watch the Eldon Edwards video right now, with a single Google search, to see how untrue it is that the KKK had in 1957 anything resembling the access to the discourse they have today.
Very few people like the KKK. Arguably fewer than in the past.
If you think the KKK is stronger today than in the 1950s, then you are so ludicrously out of touch that I can't continue this conversation.
They might be able to access more people in raw numbers but we also have a lot more people in raw numbers on the planet. Percentage wise they're insignificant, with virtually all of the country not willing to listen to their bullshit.
As someone from the security industry, you should be a lot more resistant to bogeymen.
They might be able to access more people in raw numbers but we also have a lot more people in raw numbers on the planet. Percentage wise they're insignificant, with virtually all of the country not willing to listen to their bullshit.
As someone from the security industry, you should be a lot more resistant to bogeymen.
Yeah, you missed my point. In fairness, I didn't make it super clear for you.
I had my first Internet Account in the 1980's via PLATO.
When the internet first became a more widely-used thing I thought that it would be a great equalizer, giving every person in the world a voice, and it would democratize information flow and empowerment.
I thought that open debate would absolutely crush all misinformation - and I wrongly thought that nobody would see any profit in spreading it, because their reputation would be destroyed, once proven to be a liar.
Holy shit was I wrong.
When the internet first became a more widely-used thing I thought that it would be a great equalizer, giving every person in the world a voice, and it would democratize information flow and empowerment.
I thought that open debate would absolutely crush all misinformation - and I wrongly thought that nobody would see any profit in spreading it, because their reputation would be destroyed, once proven to be a liar.
Holy shit was I wrong.
I remember free mp3s.
Plus a ton of guys arguing about free beer or speech, and me having zero understanding of why any of it was a big deal.
Plus a ton of guys arguing about free beer or speech, and me having zero understanding of why any of it was a big deal.
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 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.
You are talking about Bush the 2nd right?
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.)
Attic. It is a past tense sentence, just sayin'.
> It is a past tense sentence, just sayin'.
"The president of the United States has been using [...]" is present perfect continuous tense (expressing an action continuing in the present that began in the past), not past tense.
"The president of the United States has been using [...]" is present perfect continuous tense (expressing an action continuing in the present that began in the past), not past tense.
So it could be referring to the office of the president, not a specific president. Politicians lie, it's a commodity across the parties.
i think it was sarcasm.... maybe /s would help?
Alas, Facebook was founded 4 years too late for even the younger Bush.
He is, perhaps, talking about what should have happened during Bush 2.
>> 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.
Donald Trump is far from the only bad actor we've had in our history, and things weren't running smooth as silk before he arrived on the scene, but you sure wouldn't know it from the way people talk.
I think there may be some legitimate truth to this statement that you are not seeing.
Donald Trump is far from the only bad actor we've had in our history, and things weren't running smooth as silk before he arrived on the scene, but you sure wouldn't know it from the way people talk.
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.
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.
> 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.
So censor what they see to ensure they only receive the information you approve of correct?
So censor what they see to ensure they only receive the information you approve of correct?
I don't think platforms (or governments) should ban content they disagree with, but I think platforms should be structured to emphasize compact social groups over viral content. It's irresponsible to have a UI like Twitter, with a "What’s happening" tab deliberately looking for the most controversial topics it thinks you'll like.
No, but the 30 thousandth time a meme resurfaces proporting to show guns being delivered to terrorist refugees it would be nice if Facebook automatically tagged it with the information that actually it's a scene from some movie or where ever it really came from.
Oh that’s interesting, I’m not on facebook much (ever) so I missed this.
> The corporations had the choice to continue to be complicit, silence him completely or provide some balance from other sources
I am not so sure. Did they really have a choice?
I think the financial incentives are lined up so that inevitably such a click-baity behavior and culture is nearly impossible to ignore for the news media as a whole. How can everyone choose not to report together, when it makes such a good-selling piece of content?
I am starting to think that algorithm-driven news sources and targeted advertising is something we should consider banning. Breaking up our collective culture into small bubbles of isolated realities is something that is driving many countries, not just the US, apart.
Even in Finland I see people who are not only entertaining, but 100% believing all the Trump conspiracies based on stories, Twitter posts etc. picked up from social media, although we pretty much don't have any mainstream news here. Even if the educated and responsible journalists have been drowned by the flood of fake news, do-it-yourself journalism and information warfare. They cannot keep up and don't have the time to fact check everything. And when they do, the people who believe in this... shit, have already moved on to the next piece of content that supports their view.
F this.
I am not so sure. Did they really have a choice?
I think the financial incentives are lined up so that inevitably such a click-baity behavior and culture is nearly impossible to ignore for the news media as a whole. How can everyone choose not to report together, when it makes such a good-selling piece of content?
I am starting to think that algorithm-driven news sources and targeted advertising is something we should consider banning. Breaking up our collective culture into small bubbles of isolated realities is something that is driving many countries, not just the US, apart.
Even in Finland I see people who are not only entertaining, but 100% believing all the Trump conspiracies based on stories, Twitter posts etc. picked up from social media, although we pretty much don't have any mainstream news here. Even if the educated and responsible journalists have been drowned by the flood of fake news, do-it-yourself journalism and information warfare. They cannot keep up and don't have the time to fact check everything. And when they do, the people who believe in this... shit, have already moved on to the next piece of content that supports their view.
F this.
Are companies that provide one-to-one communications services, like cell phone companies, complicit in drug dealing, insider trading, and all the other nefarious acts that are no doubt organized using their networks? I think most people would say they're not. Meanwhile, one-to-many communications services, like broadcast TV, by their nature require editorial decisions. If you're only broadcasting one stream someone has to decide what the content is, and thereby becomes responsible for that content.
Social media is many-to-many. Quite a few people seem to have decided this imposes the same sort of centralized responsibility that exists with one-to-many communications, but this is not at all obvious to me. On social networks there is no single stream of information, thus there is no necessity for editorial decisions, thus the mechanism by which one-to-many broadcasters become responsible for the content they carry is not present.
Recommendation systems complicate this somewhat, admittedly. If platform owners are putting their fingers on the scale (algorithmically or otherwise) to determine what gets exposure, some of the responsibility comes back. However, in the simple case of e.g. Twitter showing you content from people you've explicitly chosen to follow, I don't see how they've got any more responsibility than exists in the one-to-one scenario.
Social media is many-to-many. Quite a few people seem to have decided this imposes the same sort of centralized responsibility that exists with one-to-many communications, but this is not at all obvious to me. On social networks there is no single stream of information, thus there is no necessity for editorial decisions, thus the mechanism by which one-to-many broadcasters become responsible for the content they carry is not present.
Recommendation systems complicate this somewhat, admittedly. If platform owners are putting their fingers on the scale (algorithmically or otherwise) to determine what gets exposure, some of the responsibility comes back. However, in the simple case of e.g. Twitter showing you content from people you've explicitly chosen to follow, I don't see how they've got any more responsibility than exists in the one-to-one scenario.
> Are companies that provide one-to-one communications services, like cell phone companies, complicit in drug dealing, insider trading, and all the others nefarious acts that are no doubt organized using their networks? I think most people would say they're not.
Unfortunately this same logic isn’t used when discussing the PLCAA or gun manufacturers in general.
Unfortunately this same logic isn’t used when discussing the PLCAA or gun manufacturers in general.
Cells phones are not comparable to an online service.
Property rights are a thing and those who own the servers can determine what they will store and present to other users.
Conservative groups that don't spread misinformation and hatred are thriving on FB and Twitter. Change the law to make them store and publish anything not already illegal will turn them into cesspools like the various *chan sites inside of a month and advertisers will leave as will people with a conscience.
Property rights are a thing and those who own the servers can determine what they will store and present to other users.
Conservative groups that don't spread misinformation and hatred are thriving on FB and Twitter. Change the law to make them store and publish anything not already illegal will turn them into cesspools like the various *chan sites inside of a month and advertisers will leave as will people with a conscience.
> 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.)
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.)
“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.
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.
Good point about the Volk. To be noted, contemporary Anglo culture has constructed the photo negative of Volk. Everybody of the Volk is intrinsically broken, worthy of contempt and deameaning. Everybody not of the Volk is intrinsically virtuous, worthy of praise and elevation.
History will tell what the consequences of corporatism + negative Volk will be.
History will tell what the consequences of corporatism + negative Volk will be.
That is not Fascism. That is Nazism.
Words have meanings beyond "things I don't like".
Words have meanings beyond "things I don't like".
If thats your litteral definition of fascism I suggest you get yourself a dictionary. Please dont make blanket statements to describe complex phenomenons.
You can see elements of the slippery slope happening with the rewriting of American history in public government-funded schooling.
“who controls the past controls the future. who controls the present, controls the past”
“who controls the past controls the future. who controls the present, controls the past”
I can't imagine what I would do if I had children. Homeschooling for sure.
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.
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.
Yes, I was referring to Chomsky's "manufactured consent", but I suppose consensus works as well here.
> Open debate and discussion are really the only cure for propaganda.
I think "cure" is too strong a word; certainly it is necessary, but perhaps not sufficient. (See: the state of most debate and discussion.) I don't know what would be a cure, or even if that's even possible. Censorship definitely seems to be the wrong approach. Since it's hard to improve what you can't measure, perhaps this attempt to measure censorship will be helpful.
I think "cure" is too strong a word; certainly it is necessary, but perhaps not sufficient. (See: the state of most debate and discussion.) I don't know what would be a cure, or even if that's even possible. Censorship definitely seems to be the wrong approach. Since it's hard to improve what you can't measure, perhaps this attempt to measure censorship will be helpful.
. . . for example: "open debate" will accomplish nothing, if we are continually spending time debating whether or not racism and genocide are immoral. We fought wars over this.
I am very much for "free speech" - but at some point, you have to shut certain topics out of reasonable debate, because at the end of the day, if we have to keep debating things like this, we've learned nothing.
I am very much for "free speech" - but at some point, you have to shut certain topics out of reasonable debate, because at the end of the day, if we have to keep debating things like this, we've learned nothing.
You're not really for free speech if you're arguing that any topic is off limits. Sometimes even playing the devil's advocate for a "bad" topic can be illuminating and can help strengthen and deepen your own understanding of why racism or genocide are immoral.
It takes time, but it does cure it. The biggest problem with censorship is it locks a state into conservatism. What is conservative now was liberal 20-50 years ago. When you censor new ideas, you're stuck 20-50 years ago.
What benefit do you think the government gets out of lockdowns? (other than the obvious one of stopping the spread of the pandemic).
Some people debate the ROI of pandemic controls. Also, not all lockdowns are pandemic lockdowns. There have also been curfews unrelated to the pandemic and in some cases predating it.
Mandatory real time tracking of every citizen.
Sounds insane?
So did the patriot act in the 90s.
Sounds insane?
So did the patriot act in the 90s.
Not every lockdown entails tracking of individuals.
And 9/11 would have not been stopped by forcing everyone to take their shoes off before getting on the plane.
Yet here we are 20 years later still doing it.
Yet here we are 20 years later still doing it.
Yeah, another 9/11 was basically stopped by adding locked compartments and training the pilots in self-defense techniques, some of which are even armed.
That was technically done by Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. That incident started the shoe thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid
One guy later was the underwear bomber. Thank God that didn't take.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid
One guy later was the underwear bomber. Thank God that didn't take.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab
Ten minutes of thinking gave me:
(1) Identification of potential dissidents. Those who violate lockdowns or mask orders are most likely to resist state control.
(2) Normalizing control over common activities. It takes four weeks to normalize a new habit. "Two weeks to stop the spread" has been going on since March (that's thirty-two weeks and counting). Americans are now habituated to state-controlled social behaviors.
(3) Destruction of in-person social channels outside the sphere of state electronic surveillance.
(4) Normalizing fear of non-conformists ("you're killing grandpa").
(5) Destruction of non-sanctioned economies. Global companies have effectively been part of the state for decades, and can easily weather the storm. Smaller businesses can not, which dries up cashflow outside of state-approved channels.
(1) Identification of potential dissidents. Those who violate lockdowns or mask orders are most likely to resist state control.
(2) Normalizing control over common activities. It takes four weeks to normalize a new habit. "Two weeks to stop the spread" has been going on since March (that's thirty-two weeks and counting). Americans are now habituated to state-controlled social behaviors.
(3) Destruction of in-person social channels outside the sphere of state electronic surveillance.
(4) Normalizing fear of non-conformists ("you're killing grandpa").
(5) Destruction of non-sanctioned economies. Global companies have effectively been part of the state for decades, and can easily weather the storm. Smaller businesses can not, which dries up cashflow outside of state-approved channels.
I keep asking people to explain why they downvote posts like yours and nobody wants to. I guess they know the reasons aren't good, they just can't help giving in to the desire for control.
Beautiful list though and well said. I've been trying to think of a succinct way to summarize some of those concepts and I think you've broken them up well.
Beautiful list though and well said. I've been trying to think of a succinct way to summarize some of those concepts and I think you've broken them up well.
Thank you -- that's very kind.
So a cultural revolution?
I don't think that really holds up. I'm in a part of Australia that had a lockdown and we've rolled back most of the restrictions because we're successfully basically eliminated the virus in our state (in the community that is - we have a few cases in quarantine of people arriving internationally every couple of days).
The feeling is that people want to get back to normal, but understand that most of the regulations were necessary given the seriousness of the pandemic. I feel absolutely no sense that people are more willing to submit to Government control now or anything like that, and it's the same even talking to people down in Victoria that had a big second wave and way longer lockdown than we did. Their willingness to comply was to stop the spread of the virus so they could get out of lockdown, and it worked, and now the restrictions are being rolled back.
It's frustrating to hear people in the media here crowing on about 'authoritarianism' and 'government control' over this, especially because the State Governments that are in charge of pandemic restrictions have demonstrated little desire to maintain restrictions longer than was sensible given the virus. But at the same time, these conservative commentators who are aligned with our right-wing Federal Government happily ignore actual authoritarian, draconian laws that the Feds are passing to give police and intelligence services unprecedented powers for warrantless mass surveillance etc. over the last decade...
I'd even go as far as saying that the pandemic would actually be a really bad time for a Government to try and 'normalise' increased government control, because there's no legitimate or logical reason to maintain it once the pandemic is over (if we get a vaccine for instance). The desire to throw off all the restrictions once the virus is gone is just too strong.
The feeling is that people want to get back to normal, but understand that most of the regulations were necessary given the seriousness of the pandemic. I feel absolutely no sense that people are more willing to submit to Government control now or anything like that, and it's the same even talking to people down in Victoria that had a big second wave and way longer lockdown than we did. Their willingness to comply was to stop the spread of the virus so they could get out of lockdown, and it worked, and now the restrictions are being rolled back.
It's frustrating to hear people in the media here crowing on about 'authoritarianism' and 'government control' over this, especially because the State Governments that are in charge of pandemic restrictions have demonstrated little desire to maintain restrictions longer than was sensible given the virus. But at the same time, these conservative commentators who are aligned with our right-wing Federal Government happily ignore actual authoritarian, draconian laws that the Feds are passing to give police and intelligence services unprecedented powers for warrantless mass surveillance etc. over the last decade...
I'd even go as far as saying that the pandemic would actually be a really bad time for a Government to try and 'normalise' increased government control, because there's no legitimate or logical reason to maintain it once the pandemic is over (if we get a vaccine for instance). The desire to throw off all the restrictions once the virus is gone is just too strong.
First: thank you for replying, and not just downvoting.
> The feeling is that people want to get back to normal, but understand that most of the regulations were necessary given the seriousness of the pandemic.
It is highly debatable that lockdowns ever were, or currently are, either necessary or effective.
> State Governments that are in charge of pandemic restrictions have demonstrated little desire to maintain restrictions longer than was sensible given the virus.
The US is in the thirty-second week of "two weeks to stop the spread".
Credibility went right out the window when the powers-that-be decreed weddings and funerals as too risky, but protests and riots as totally fine.
Not to mention the long list of politicians whose personal lives seem to be an exception from the rules they have imposed on others.
> There's no legitimate or logical reason to maintain it once the pandemic is over.
I remember airports before 9/11. Hell, I remember the US before 9/11.
The ironically-named Patriot Act represented a massive seizure of power and a wholesale trampling of American civil rights. None of the airport security measures introduced were necessary or effective, and yet they continue to this day.
Since 9/11, the United States has been at war in the Middle East for twenty years, squandering trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of innocent lives to achieve... nothing.
This was neither legitimate nor logical. But it did make a bunch of politicians and their friends very powerful and very wealthy.
I also remember, at the time, the moral frenzy that enveloped the nation after the fall of the twin towers.
Things now feel the same from where I sit.
> The feeling is that people want to get back to normal, but understand that most of the regulations were necessary given the seriousness of the pandemic.
It is highly debatable that lockdowns ever were, or currently are, either necessary or effective.
> State Governments that are in charge of pandemic restrictions have demonstrated little desire to maintain restrictions longer than was sensible given the virus.
The US is in the thirty-second week of "two weeks to stop the spread".
Credibility went right out the window when the powers-that-be decreed weddings and funerals as too risky, but protests and riots as totally fine.
Not to mention the long list of politicians whose personal lives seem to be an exception from the rules they have imposed on others.
> There's no legitimate or logical reason to maintain it once the pandemic is over.
I remember airports before 9/11. Hell, I remember the US before 9/11.
The ironically-named Patriot Act represented a massive seizure of power and a wholesale trampling of American civil rights. None of the airport security measures introduced were necessary or effective, and yet they continue to this day.
Since 9/11, the United States has been at war in the Middle East for twenty years, squandering trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of innocent lives to achieve... nothing.
This was neither legitimate nor logical. But it did make a bunch of politicians and their friends very powerful and very wealthy.
I also remember, at the time, the moral frenzy that enveloped the nation after the fall of the twin towers.
Things now feel the same from where I sit.
The government isn’t a magic entity or intelligent AI that wants or doesn’t want things. The government is people. And a certain breed of people are magnetically attracted to power, which is part of human nature that goes back to the beginning of humanity. The benefit leaders get out of lockdowns is power, which regardless of its legitimacy or necessity is one of the most intoxicating and addictive things on Earth.
I'll go with the normalisation of curtailing freedoms on a whim.
Sweden managed to just ask their citizens to behave properly and it worked.
Sweden managed to just ask their citizens to behave properly and it worked.
I don't think they were trying to make the case that the government wasn't a bad actor. I read it more to mean that they liked it better when they were the only bad actor.
You've failed to make the case that the government is not a "bad actor".
I think a close reading of the OP would show they aren't portraying the state with great friendliness. Some run the show for the benefit of powerful forces and to various extents try to think about long term goals. "Bad Actors" is a decent shorthand for group trying also serving the wealthy and themselves but with a destructively short term agenda.
The key point the GP makes and I think you're missing is that stop manipulation isn't a matter of removing "tyrants" but creating an active, educated population.
I think a close reading of the OP would show they aren't portraying the state with great friendliness. Some run the show for the benefit of powerful forces and to various extents try to think about long term goals. "Bad Actors" is a decent shorthand for group trying also serving the wealthy and themselves but with a destructively short term agenda.
The key point the GP makes and I think you're missing is that stop manipulation isn't a matter of removing "tyrants" but creating an active, educated population.
The reasoning course should start at first grade
>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.
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.
just because it's in the curriculum doesn't mean it will be taught well.
consider (for example) k-12 mathematics pretty much anywhere...
consider (for example) k-12 mathematics pretty much anywhere...
Ah, but that was intentional! We didn't want people to really understand statistics, because that was governments' favourite tool to control the masses. ;-)
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.
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.
Agreed on k-12 maths, but the analysis of persuasive techniques was actually taught quite well and comprehensively, at least when I went through school (finished in 2011).
As someone currently tutoring an 8th grader in math: The curriculum is not really much different than what I went through in the 80's and 90's. They're still learning Algebra going into High School, and lots of work with fractions, percentages, interest rates, area, volume and so forth leading up to it. The kids still loathe word problems.
The basics are just being taught differently.
The basics are just being taught differently.
Maybe it is part of the curriculum because you ended up with Murdoch. That guy has been running the show since the 60s.
The Murdoch's have been influencing Australia Earlier then the 60's. It goes back to WWI, Keith Murdoch - Rupert's father made his name reporting on World War I, especially The Gallipolli campaign. He was hugely influential in shaping how the campaign was viewed and received in Australia.
It would later come out that there was exaggerations and embellishments in his reporting (https://insidestory.org.au/the-myth-of-keith-murdochs-gallip...)
In Australia, Gallipolli and the ANZAC mythos became part of our national identity. It is hard to explain to non-Australians the impact of the "Anzac legacy" on our culture it was like Australia's Gettysburg or Waterloo etc. Anzac Day is still celebrated and observed more than 100 years later it is a major patriotic celebration.
Murdoch also tried to use his influence to block the advancement of Sir John Monash (arguably the greatest allied general of WWI and the last person to ever be knighted on the battlefield).
It would later come out that there was exaggerations and embellishments in his reporting (https://insidestory.org.au/the-myth-of-keith-murdochs-gallip...)
In Australia, Gallipolli and the ANZAC mythos became part of our national identity. It is hard to explain to non-Australians the impact of the "Anzac legacy" on our culture it was like Australia's Gettysburg or Waterloo etc. Anzac Day is still celebrated and observed more than 100 years later it is a major patriotic celebration.
Murdoch also tried to use his influence to block the advancement of Sir John Monash (arguably the greatest allied general of WWI and the last person to ever be knighted on the battlefield).
I think we need to add "nobody ever talks about.." to the list of trope fallacies.
I experienced similar topics in curriculum here in the US in English and history classes in middle/high school as well as the English class I took in college (part of the liberal arts requirement for basically every degree at my school).
I remember those classes in VCE. Unfortunately a lot of people interpreted it as a class on "how to be persuasive" (as a writer) rather than "how to avoid being persuaded by propagandists" (as a reader).
We were taught common logical fallacies, and then tested on how well we could spot instances of them in a news article. But I remember also being asked to write persuasive essays, without being taught how to reason in a way that avoided those fallacies.
We were taught common logical fallacies, and then tested on how well we could spot instances of them in a news article. But I remember also being asked to write persuasive essays, without being taught how to reason in a way that avoided those fallacies.
Its impossible to not be fallacious in any meaningful discourse that goes on long enough, and that's okay.
Every single invocation of an expert is an argument from authority.
Every single invocation of logic like "it is more like nature therefor it is more good" is a naturalistic fallacy.
Do we even need to get to other ones like "appeal to emotion"?
Maybe we should instead recognize that "logic" does not necessarily describe reality (given that there are an infinite number of possible logics based on which axioms you start with), and that being worried about and trying to avoid "logical fallacies" in our reasoning does not help us see reality more closely to how it is.
Every single invocation of an expert is an argument from authority.
Every single invocation of logic like "it is more like nature therefor it is more good" is a naturalistic fallacy.
Do we even need to get to other ones like "appeal to emotion"?
Maybe we should instead recognize that "logic" does not necessarily describe reality (given that there are an infinite number of possible logics based on which axioms you start with), and that being worried about and trying to avoid "logical fallacies" in our reasoning does not help us see reality more closely to how it is.
There's obviously levels to it, its not "This is a fallacy/incorrect argument" and "This is a good argument".
Invocation of expert is not the end of all discussion, as there are non-truthful experts and authorities (such as Government) which are more obviously less trustworthy. That doesn't mean that you should ignore all authority (I've never seen that argued).
Naturalistic fallacy really depends on how much you value the natural state of things, but it is usually used to point out that just because it is 'natural' doesn't mean it is good or sensible to do/continue.
Appeal to emotion. Appeals to emotion are often used to incite people without them thinking through. "They killed our people!" sounds a lot more convincing/inciting than, "They had an altercation which unfortunately escalated, leading to the deaths of several people that we knew". Using emotion to obscure or not properly think about how it came to be to that point and what should be done from then on.
I think you're conflating logic (ex: mathematical logic, or far less rigorous careful reasoning) with an overly strict definition of a logical fallacy.
Naturalistic fallacy really depends on how much you value the natural state of things, but it is usually used to point out that just because it is 'natural' doesn't mean it is good or sensible to do/continue.
Appeal to emotion. Appeals to emotion are often used to incite people without them thinking through. "They killed our people!" sounds a lot more convincing/inciting than, "They had an altercation which unfortunately escalated, leading to the deaths of several people that we knew". Using emotion to obscure or not properly think about how it came to be to that point and what should be done from then on.
I think you're conflating logic (ex: mathematical logic, or far less rigorous careful reasoning) with an overly strict definition of a logical fallacy.
All I'm trying to say is that high school students should be taught "how to reach a logical conclusion" rather than "how to be persuasive in an amoral way".
> Maybe we should instead recognize that "logic" does not necessarily describe reality
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, but it sounds a dangerous path to go down. People have already discarded facts - I think discarding logic as well would make things even worse.
> Maybe we should instead recognize that "logic" does not necessarily describe reality
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, but it sounds a dangerous path to go down. People have already discarded facts - I think discarding logic as well would make things even worse.
I liked the stance in Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach by Douglas Walton, wherein "logical fallacies" are thought of as more the consequence of an argument which inappropriately shifts from one argumentative context to another.
For example, if during a formal debate you were to threaten to harm your opponent if they didn't agree with you (an "Appeal to Force" fallacy), this wouldn't be an appropriate argument for this context. But in, say, a contract negotiation between a union and a business, the union could threaten to strike if the business doesn't agree to terms, and it can be part of a valid argument. Thus appeals to force (and, as Walton argued, all "informal fallacies") aren't inherently fallacious in all contexts. Rather, the threat of harm was an inappropriate change in context from a formal debate to a negotiation, and it's the change in context which creates these fallacies.
For example, if during a formal debate you were to threaten to harm your opponent if they didn't agree with you (an "Appeal to Force" fallacy), this wouldn't be an appropriate argument for this context. But in, say, a contract negotiation between a union and a business, the union could threaten to strike if the business doesn't agree to terms, and it can be part of a valid argument. Thus appeals to force (and, as Walton argued, all "informal fallacies") aren't inherently fallacious in all contexts. Rather, the threat of harm was an inappropriate change in context from a formal debate to a negotiation, and it's the change in context which creates these fallacies.
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.
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.
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.
HN really needs a way to force people to have at least clicked on the article before posting. Maybe something where the article has to be clicked on, and then a X minute timer is started so that people will be strongly incentivized to read the article before commenting.
Then I'll just click the link, read some memes on reddit, then come back once the timer runs out.
Of course you will, but the point is that many people like you will find such a process more of a hassle than it's worth. My solution would reduce the amount of this happening significantly, even if it won't stop every do-badder...
Why are you so opposed to reading something before commenting on it?
A lot of people aren't interested in discussing linked material and therefore reading it, they just want to have a discussion on the topic of the title.
And in the process turning this site in to a predictable talking-point forum that just gets triggered by random title keywords.
A few weeks back I saw a front page article written in terrible english, being factually wrong on almost all points (it was talking about tech history so you can be objectively wrong), and was like 2 pages of rambling - blogspam 101.
But the title was something complaining about Electron and it was clear that nobody read it and everyone was just bandwagoning on Electron.
Then there was that outrage about a guy who was maintaining faker.js and people spinning same old BS about licenses and how everyone should use GPL - meanwhile it was obvious nobody even looked at what the library did because none of the discussion applied.
So people interested in discussing points should maybe find a different site for this - it's really dragging down the quality of content.
A few weeks back I saw a front page article written in terrible english, being factually wrong on almost all points (it was talking about tech history so you can be objectively wrong), and was like 2 pages of rambling - blogspam 101.
But the title was something complaining about Electron and it was clear that nobody read it and everyone was just bandwagoning on Electron.
Then there was that outrage about a guy who was maintaining faker.js and people spinning same old BS about licenses and how everyone should use GPL - meanwhile it was obvious nobody even looked at what the library did because none of the discussion applied.
So people interested in discussing points should maybe find a different site for this - it's really dragging down the quality of content.
[deleted]
We tried that on reddit a long time ago. It didn't work. We realized that a lot of people just want to see the discussion.
I always click on the comments first myself to see if the article is even worth reading.
I always click on the comments first myself to see if the article is even worth reading.
I thought that was the WHOLE point of Reddit when I joined years ago. It was like Digg but ONLY for people that had "Read-It".
I think that was the idea and it quickly devolved into horse shit.
I would love a site that was like Read-It but forced people to "read-it" first.
I think that was the idea and it quickly devolved into horse shit.
I would love a site that was like Read-It but forced people to "read-it" first.
My take on “read it” - is that I read the title, look at the score and then the qty of comments
If it’s an interesting title and the score and qty of comments is high, i go to the comments.
I’m pretty much in /all and I hide tons of subs using RES...
So my feed on /all is pretty clean and tailored to things I’m open to.
If it’s an interesting title and the score and qty of comments is high, i go to the comments.
I’m pretty much in /all and I hide tons of subs using RES...
So my feed on /all is pretty clean and tailored to things I’m open to.
First and foremost thanks for reddit, Ive had an account for 14years, and pretty much hit the site every single day for 14 years
With that said; I do the same thing... but I rarely upvote a story - I do check out stories but far far less than the comments.
I do the same here on HN. Especially here because there are a ton of smart people here and HN is pretty strict on being anti-troll - but i dont count ant-trolling as censorship, it’s forum-housekeeping.
Before reddit I mostly was on slashdot, and some other forums that don’t exit any longer.
With that said; I do the same thing... but I rarely upvote a story - I do check out stories but far far less than the comments.
I do the same here on HN. Especially here because there are a ton of smart people here and HN is pretty strict on being anti-troll - but i dont count ant-trolling as censorship, it’s forum-housekeeping.
Before reddit I mostly was on slashdot, and some other forums that don’t exit any longer.
I just was talking to someone about this.
I'm the worst on HN at commenting on a topic before/instead of reading the article.
But I see HN not as a place to share random articles around the web, but as a place to discuss interesting topics with a (relative to other alternatives) civil and educated userbase.
I'm usually not super interested in what a single person has to say on a given subject (i.e. the linked article) as much as I am in the collective thoughts/responses from the HN community.
Again, admitting that I'm likely part of the problem, but just being honest, and -- in my own mind, at least -- feels like a mostly justified reason for making the most of the time that I have/feel like spending on these topics.
If a similar community existed that was (again, relative to other alternatives) civil & educated, but just allowed discussion on topics vs. links to articles, I'd be hanging out/engaging there instead.
I'm the worst on HN at commenting on a topic before/instead of reading the article.
But I see HN not as a place to share random articles around the web, but as a place to discuss interesting topics with a (relative to other alternatives) civil and educated userbase.
I'm usually not super interested in what a single person has to say on a given subject (i.e. the linked article) as much as I am in the collective thoughts/responses from the HN community.
Again, admitting that I'm likely part of the problem, but just being honest, and -- in my own mind, at least -- feels like a mostly justified reason for making the most of the time that I have/feel like spending on these topics.
If a similar community existed that was (again, relative to other alternatives) civil & educated, but just allowed discussion on topics vs. links to articles, I'd be hanging out/engaging there instead.
Honestly clicking on the article just leads to paywalls or ad laden disasters that just consume my CPU (or complain if I have an ad blocker).
HN just works, so it's a lot less work just to read the discussion here.
HN just works, so it's a lot less work just to read the discussion here.
HN self-policed fine back when caustic takedowns of incorrect comments were normal/expected/rewarded. But in the dang era of "comments must be nice" you get more upvotes by regurgitating HN-friendly views quickly based on the headline than by reading the article, so of course people respond to that incentive.
Yet it also goes on to say this:
> “When the United States repealed net neutrality, they created an environment in which it would be easy, from a technical standpoint, for ISPs to interfere with or block internet traffic,” she said. “The architecture for greater censorship is already in place and we should all be concerned about heading down a slippery slope.”
What this alludes to is that somehow 2010 Open Internet Order 1. equals the concept of "Net Neutrality" as a whole and 2. was the backbone of internet freedom in the United States and both are untrue. In fact, none of the fear astroturfing that took place during that campaign ever came true. I'm interested in knowing who started that campaign and why.
I'm always in favor of iterating on broad ideas like Net Neutrality but it is constantly being used to misrepresent the state of freedom on the internet.
> “When the United States repealed net neutrality, they created an environment in which it would be easy, from a technical standpoint, for ISPs to interfere with or block internet traffic,” she said. “The architecture for greater censorship is already in place and we should all be concerned about heading down a slippery slope.”
What this alludes to is that somehow 2010 Open Internet Order 1. equals the concept of "Net Neutrality" as a whole and 2. was the backbone of internet freedom in the United States and both are untrue. In fact, none of the fear astroturfing that took place during that campaign ever came true. I'm interested in knowing who started that campaign and why.
I'm always in favor of iterating on broad ideas like Net Neutrality but it is constantly being used to misrepresent the state of freedom on the internet.
Why would you let the actual content of what you are supposedly responding to get in the way of whatever you are soapboxing about?
>This reads like an assumption that the article is about tech companies in the United States and their effects to combat election misinformation.
I completely disagree with this. The parent didn't mention companies once. This must be some kind of 'blue-black or white-gold' thing because the rest of your post reads like nonsense to me. I'm sorry that I haven't got anything substantial to add to this, but I'm just very confused by the fact that your comment is the highest response right now.
I completely disagree with this. The parent didn't mention companies once. This must be some kind of 'blue-black or white-gold' thing because the rest of your post reads like nonsense to me. I'm sorry that I haven't got anything substantial to add to this, but I'm just very confused by the fact that your comment is the highest response right now.
The source article is about countries forcing ISP-level bans on accessing certain sites, while the parent comment is about misinformation. Nobody's blocking gambling content, pornography, or Match.com because they're worried about misinformation.
varispeed talks about control and manipulation. That's far broader than misinformation.
Yet also not "gambling content, pornography, or Match.com."
Sorry for being curt in the last reply. To expand on this, I think a key line might be
>bad actors use these techniques to control people to their advantage.
which I interpret broadly as enticing people to do things not sanctioned by the status quo morality. Some governments aren't happy about sexual liberty, others about certain religious or political belief. The internet with the liberation of information also liberated a certain relativism that is corrosive to the epistemic fundament of established power.
>bad actors use these techniques to control people to their advantage.
which I interpret broadly as enticing people to do things not sanctioned by the status quo morality. Some governments aren't happy about sexual liberty, others about certain religious or political belief. The internet with the liberation of information also liberated a certain relativism that is corrosive to the epistemic fundament of established power.
The behavior of tech companies in the US was certainly a template for governments around the world to block their own content as corporate censorship wasn't criticized and instead hailed because it censored the right people. Heck, they have validated Chinas censoring attempts or that of any dictatorship really.
Tech companies were stupid, but so were the users. And not only those that believed in more esoteric conspiracies.
Tech companies were stupid, but so were the users. And not only those that believed in more esoteric conspiracies.
Agree. Another big problem I've noticed is that there are so many partisan news sources. If you are liberal, you go to CNN which has a liberal spin to it. If you are conservative, fox news. The problem is each one is adding their own biases to it.
I saw this clear as day when I was watching live streams during the Portland federal courthouse protest. I would watch these for several hours per day as a form of entertainment. When I read the news articles written the following day, I was completely shocked at how much bias was present in the mainstream news media.
During these protests it essentially went like this: during the day, the protest was 100% peaceful, hardly any police. Literally a perfect 100% peaceful protest. As night came, the crowd would shift. The peaceful people would leave and then a new group would start showing up, dressed in all black and start doing full blown violence against police. Starting fires, destroying private property and many similar illegal and dangerous stuff.
The following day I read articles on CNN that said there was very little violence and it was almost entirely peaceful. This was false because there was tons of violence at the night. When you read articles in fox news they say the protest was mostly violent. This was also false because the day time protest was 100% peaceful.
This type of news reporting is pushing division politics and social media further fans the flames because people can confirm their narrative and also get false reporting from idiots on twitter/facebook which spreads misinformation.
I could also tell this is heavily influencing people's view on the world because I would debate people on reddit. For liberal people, they would link me CNN and washington post articles to support their arguments. If I argued with conservatives, they would link me fox news and breitbart articles. This is what they're linking to me as their "proof" to support their argument. If I responded by saying that fox news/cnn is biased reporting, they would jump to personal attacks at me, almost like this was their favorite football team I was bashing.
I saw this clear as day when I was watching live streams during the Portland federal courthouse protest. I would watch these for several hours per day as a form of entertainment. When I read the news articles written the following day, I was completely shocked at how much bias was present in the mainstream news media.
During these protests it essentially went like this: during the day, the protest was 100% peaceful, hardly any police. Literally a perfect 100% peaceful protest. As night came, the crowd would shift. The peaceful people would leave and then a new group would start showing up, dressed in all black and start doing full blown violence against police. Starting fires, destroying private property and many similar illegal and dangerous stuff.
The following day I read articles on CNN that said there was very little violence and it was almost entirely peaceful. This was false because there was tons of violence at the night. When you read articles in fox news they say the protest was mostly violent. This was also false because the day time protest was 100% peaceful.
This type of news reporting is pushing division politics and social media further fans the flames because people can confirm their narrative and also get false reporting from idiots on twitter/facebook which spreads misinformation.
I could also tell this is heavily influencing people's view on the world because I would debate people on reddit. For liberal people, they would link me CNN and washington post articles to support their arguments. If I argued with conservatives, they would link me fox news and breitbart articles. This is what they're linking to me as their "proof" to support their argument. If I responded by saying that fox news/cnn is biased reporting, they would jump to personal attacks at me, almost like this was their favorite football team I was bashing.
This is hardly new. "60 Minutes" was infamous in the 1960s for the egregious slanting of their segments. It was so bad that the smarter people being interviewed by them would demand that the interview be simultaneously filmed by their own people.
As for riots, my dad remarked to me that the TV media would represent the crowds as large or small simply by where they pointed the camera and the zoom level used. And they would, depending on their agenda.
Mass media has always been heavily agenda based.
As for riots, my dad remarked to me that the TV media would represent the crowds as large or small simply by where they pointed the camera and the zoom level used. And they would, depending on their agenda.
Mass media has always been heavily agenda based.
Yeah very true I guess. I guess the big eye opener now is that cell phones are cheap and high speed mobile data is cheap so that allows anyone to become a "citizen reporter" so to speak. If something serious is happening, it is very likely someone will be live streaming it to facebook, youtube or similar platform so that is a complete game changer at breaking away from main stream media.
I think an even bigger eye opener for me is that we seem to have agreement on both sides that there is bias and it’s creating division, but we don’t see any catalyst for change it. If a true ly neutral news org came out (or exists already) would people give up their biased soap operas for the good of the country?
There is way too much money to be made in biased "news" sources. And they're all biased. I think the only one we MIGHT be able to rely on is AP since it's a non-profit. But I don't know if that is any guarantee.
Governments are non-profit, but history shows us that government news sources are heavily biased.
Trump boat parades are an example. Some were epic in scope, thousands of boats. Multiples more people on beaches. Nicest bunch of people.
News almost completely ignored it.
News almost completely ignored it.
> almost like this was their favorite football team I was bashing.
And there you have it.
And there you have it.
It's a real shit situation. The fact that we cannot agree on facts in politics is truly frightening and I cannot see an easy way out of it.
Perhaps in 20-30 years we will see social media as something akin to smoking. Something super dangerous, addictive and a mind virus. That's my most optimist hope.
Around the time of Snowden leaks, I decided to cancel my Facebook, Instagram, etc. accounts. I am still a YouTube junkie, it's hard to give up. But right now I think that's my only "AI algorithm curated wormhole" type of content that I consume. Even partly doing a "social media diet" has significantly improved my well-being. I was really surprised to see how much my mentality changed from the experiment. Haven't looked back since.
Perhaps in 20-30 years we will see social media as something akin to smoking. Something super dangerous, addictive and a mind virus. That's my most optimist hope.
Around the time of Snowden leaks, I decided to cancel my Facebook, Instagram, etc. accounts. I am still a YouTube junkie, it's hard to give up. But right now I think that's my only "AI algorithm curated wormhole" type of content that I consume. Even partly doing a "social media diet" has significantly improved my well-being. I was really surprised to see how much my mentality changed from the experiment. Haven't looked back since.
ⓘ Claims about censorship in the United States are disputed. Click here for more info: https://xkcd.com/1357/
I will never understand why people feel like reasonable conversation is something to be only techically legal and limited in every capacity possible, instead of something we should try and pursue. I've seen this argument come up all the time as justfication for the destruction of ideas in good faith and rarely ever for actual harassment or intimidation. It's ironcially almost always linked in bad faith, to misrepresent the weight of whatever being replied to.
> I will never understand why people feel like reasonable conversation is something to be only techically legal and limited in every capacity possible, instead of something we should try and pursue.
Because we've learned in the past decade or so that the "marketplace of ideas" fallacy is false. Ideas aren't traded like market goods; rather, they spread like disease. And the way to prevent dangerous ideas like Nazism from threatening society is the same as the way we prevent diseases like COVID from threatening society: containment. Isolate the afflicted, and implement measures to limit the exposure of everyone else.
Because we've learned in the past decade or so that the "marketplace of ideas" fallacy is false. Ideas aren't traded like market goods; rather, they spread like disease. And the way to prevent dangerous ideas like Nazism from threatening society is the same as the way we prevent diseases like COVID from threatening society: containment. Isolate the afflicted, and implement measures to limit the exposure of everyone else.
Crude ideas are like snakes and the more you struggle against them, the more allure they have for others. Or just use some Nietzsche quote, I don't care.
People disputing the marketplace of ideas want to be authoritative voices in my experience. If we had been a little more relaxed in the face of objection, we might have fared better.
Anyway, if you are correct, we would need an authority on truth and I see a lot of problems already. Frankly, literature is full of examples why this is a bad idea, but don't let me stop you.
People disputing the marketplace of ideas want to be authoritative voices in my experience. If we had been a little more relaxed in the face of objection, we might have fared better.
Anyway, if you are correct, we would need an authority on truth and I see a lot of problems already. Frankly, literature is full of examples why this is a bad idea, but don't let me stop you.
> 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.
That is by FAR the best summary of the issue I have read.
Analogy:
It's as if we've been living behind castle walls and now those walls are gone. We can now be directly attacked by enemy armies, whereas before we could only be practically reached by our own government's police and military. Having been sheltered for so long, we don't know how to hold our own without those walls.
That is by FAR the best summary of the issue I have read.
Analogy:
It's as if we've been living behind castle walls and now those walls are gone. We can now be directly attacked by enemy armies, whereas before we could only be practically reached by our own government's police and military. Having been sheltered for so long, we don't know how to hold our own without those walls.
I'm curious—who prevented you from reading the article, which has nothing to do with your comment?
I made a small article about how to investigate the truth about something.
https://saidit.net/s/Solutions/comments/50i5/how_to_investig...
The first steps are: 1) logical fallacies 2) the scientific method .. And I think that these should be part of basic education.
Then we have 4) possible fraud/crime 5) bias 6) Unknowns. Which help to understand the limits or problems with different conclusions.
And 7) solutions. is how to work towards a common acceptable solution
https://saidit.net/s/Solutions/comments/50i5/how_to_investig...
The first steps are: 1) logical fallacies 2) the scientific method .. And I think that these should be part of basic education.
Then we have 4) possible fraud/crime 5) bias 6) Unknowns. Which help to understand the limits or problems with different conclusions.
And 7) solutions. is how to work towards a common acceptable solution
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.
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.
You would be hard pressed to find liberal / progressive content being censored online.
Exactly. There's nothing "nationalist" about the type of censorship we're seeing on Twitter. If anything it's the opposite.
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.
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.
I'm not aware of any govt agency censoring Twitter - only conservatives complaining that Twitter is censoring their tweets.
[deleted]
What we LOVE is a market free of force and fraud, and we love rule of law. Within that there are very nuanced conversations to be had about when the threshold for force or fraud has been reached.
Enforcement of contracts is essential to a healthy society, but is it good to enforce a contract where one party either lied or coerced the other to sign? No, or at least not necessarily.
The nature of the contract between social media platforms and their users (both explicit and implicit) has changed dramatically since the days that Twitter was "the free speech wing of the free speech party". Users have sacrificed a increasing amount of privacy for less and less obvious benefit. In the meantime, many people have come to depend upon these services for connecting with others, for their livelihoods, and for news independent of corporate media.
Have the social media companies deceived their users? Or have they forced unconscionable terms upon their users? Have they violated consumer protection laws?
I am not a lawyer. I don't know the answers to those questions. But I do know that there are some lawyers and judges who do think that some of these social media companies have overstepped. We don't necessarily need a civil rights case, or a constitutional amendment, or even to repeal Section 230. All I think is necessary is for existing contract and consumer protection laws be litigated and enforced.
This kind of action would benefit both left and right, and I think is more constructive than opportunistically deciding that "businesses can do whatever they want" when you think it only hurts people on the right.
Enforcement of contracts is essential to a healthy society, but is it good to enforce a contract where one party either lied or coerced the other to sign? No, or at least not necessarily.
The nature of the contract between social media platforms and their users (both explicit and implicit) has changed dramatically since the days that Twitter was "the free speech wing of the free speech party". Users have sacrificed a increasing amount of privacy for less and less obvious benefit. In the meantime, many people have come to depend upon these services for connecting with others, for their livelihoods, and for news independent of corporate media.
Have the social media companies deceived their users? Or have they forced unconscionable terms upon their users? Have they violated consumer protection laws?
I am not a lawyer. I don't know the answers to those questions. But I do know that there are some lawyers and judges who do think that some of these social media companies have overstepped. We don't necessarily need a civil rights case, or a constitutional amendment, or even to repeal Section 230. All I think is necessary is for existing contract and consumer protection laws be litigated and enforced.
This kind of action would benefit both left and right, and I think is more constructive than opportunistically deciding that "businesses can do whatever they want" when you think it only hurts people on the right.
Twitter is a private company with zero legal authority to enforce anything other than not sharing your tweets.
Be honest that you really want to use the force of government laws to mandate that Twitter spreads your version of free speech across the platform paid for and developed by Twitter.
Be honest that you really want to use the force of government laws to mandate that Twitter spreads your version of free speech across the platform paid for and developed by Twitter.
I honestly think you should stop trying to read minds. You aren't very good at it.
Perhaps you should try reading my words instead and responding to them rather than the imaginary things you pretend I actually think? It might work out better.
Perhaps you should try reading my words instead and responding to them rather than the imaginary things you pretend I actually think? It might work out better.
> All I think is necessary is for existing contract and consumer protection laws be litigated and enforced.
Ergo, what you really want is government to enforce your version of free speech through "existing" contract law.
Ergo, what you really want is government to enforce your version of free speech through "existing" contract law.
Can you please tell me what "my version" of free speech is? Is this different from the normal understanding of free speech? Because I haven't actually said anything about "free speech" other than quoting Jack Dorsey.
While I do believe in the necessity of freedom of speech (not just the first amendment, but a particular set of cultural values) those abstract values aren't my primary concern here. My concerns (across the various tech platforms out there) are:
* the disruption to peoples' businesses that result from the opaque and largely incontestable content moderation process. This is mainly a concern where the content in question does not violate either the law nor the TOS.
* The exploitation of consumers through the gradual degradation of privacy.
* The attempts to undermine consumer rights by removing users' options for legal remedy in the TOS
Basically, if users' are providing value to these platforms through advertising revenue, mine-able private information, transaction fees, etc. what expectations can the users' have with regard to the value they receive and how they are treated by the platforms? I do not think the answer of "nothing" is acceptable.
While I do believe in the necessity of freedom of speech (not just the first amendment, but a particular set of cultural values) those abstract values aren't my primary concern here. My concerns (across the various tech platforms out there) are:
* the disruption to peoples' businesses that result from the opaque and largely incontestable content moderation process. This is mainly a concern where the content in question does not violate either the law nor the TOS.
* The exploitation of consumers through the gradual degradation of privacy.
* The attempts to undermine consumer rights by removing users' options for legal remedy in the TOS
Basically, if users' are providing value to these platforms through advertising revenue, mine-able private information, transaction fees, etc. what expectations can the users' have with regard to the value they receive and how they are treated by the platforms? I do not think the answer of "nothing" is acceptable.
Private censorship is still censorship, and when large monopolies or cartels dominate the market, it can be just as damaging.
You’ve learned how to do a straw man. Next, try your hand at the steel man. Feel free to look it up!
There's a strong undercurrent of Scary Foreign Election Interference to a lot of the pro-censorship arguments, FWIW.
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?
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?
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
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
Amusing how when it's aligned with your viewpoints (suppression of speech for rightwing groups), it's partisan. Otherwise, it's "anyone can get away with it".
Hypocrisy on display
Hypocrisy on display
You misread my comment, which fair enough the wording wasn't great.
What I actually said is "anyone who can get away with it"
And obviously they would be doing it for partisan reasons.
What I actually said is "anyone who can get away with it"
And obviously they would be doing it for partisan reasons.
> 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?
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?
The whole discussion is sapir-whorfed hard by the fake left-right nomenclature. Old-school-leftists, such as communists and socialists are catching ban-hammers, yes that's true. "Pronoun-left" on the other hand is not.
> 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 very-left 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"
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 very-left 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"
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.
A "liberal" on Facebook calling for the beheading of a conservative politican would be banned (possibly even arrested) immediately. The opposite can and does happen every day, with no penalty.
And all this still isn't relevant because we are talking about government censorship.
A "liberal" on Facebook calling for the beheading of a conservative politican would be banned (possibly even arrested) immediately. The opposite can and does happen every day, with no penalty.
And all this still isn't relevant because we are talking about government censorship.
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.
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.
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.
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.
None of those things, properly understood[1], were in any way mainstream until very recently. And arguably still aren't mainstream.
[1] Obviously, black lives do matter and fascism is bad, but as slogans "Black Lives Matter" and "Anti-Fascism" represent very radical political programs. You should be as suspicious of these slogans as I assume you are of slogans like "All Lives Matter" and "Anti-Communism".
[1] Obviously, black lives do matter and fascism is bad, but as slogans "Black Lives Matter" and "Anti-Fascism" represent very radical political programs. You should be as suspicious of these slogans as I assume you are of slogans like "All Lives Matter" and "Anti-Communism".
And the fact that people apparently can’t stand to hear this shows how far left the tech overton window has shifted. As if we all were not already aware.
That's not how the Overton Window works. The Overton Window says what kind of opinions are socially acceptable. If you describe those things are mainstream, they're by definition inside the Overton Window. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you're more likely to be fired for being a nationalist rather than a communist, so that's another indicator that the Overton Window is actually on the left.
> Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you're more likely to be fired for being a nationalist rather than a communist
I see no evidence that that is the case.
I see no evidence that that is the case.
I don't keep track of this, but there is a lot of "canceling" going on recently. If we talk strictly about politics, I did saw a couple of left-leaning people who got fired for politics, because the angry mob went after their employment. But most of the time I see it happening to right-leaning people. And what I never saw was anyone on the left got kicked off platforms like PayPal for example. Though it's within the realm of possibility that the social media just gave me the impression that this is the case. However, considering the fact that basically every corporation and even some of the smaller companies are changing their logos in support of BLM, LGBT Pride etc., I think it's quite reasonable to assume that.
> But most of the time I see it happening to right-leaning people.
And the question you have to ask is how do you see it when it happens to right-leaning people? Is it happening in your immediate neighborhood? Or is this supposed social "cancelling" happening to people who have pre-existing or readily-made-available access to strong, highly-visible, wealthy network that shares their story as outrage fuel and/or enables the socially "cancelled" a highly-visible platform to do so?
Information gathered as unstructured anecdotes, especially absent analysis of the systematic biases in how the information gets to you, is not a reliable basis for drawing conclusions about relative frequency, especially when the topic is specifically differential suppression of viewpoints and information.
And the question you have to ask is how do you see it when it happens to right-leaning people? Is it happening in your immediate neighborhood? Or is this supposed social "cancelling" happening to people who have pre-existing or readily-made-available access to strong, highly-visible, wealthy network that shares their story as outrage fuel and/or enables the socially "cancelled" a highly-visible platform to do so?
Information gathered as unstructured anecdotes, especially absent analysis of the systematic biases in how the information gets to you, is not a reliable basis for drawing conclusions about relative frequency, especially when the topic is specifically differential suppression of viewpoints and information.
I'm not the one you're replying to, but here's how I think the Overton Window works.
Everyone has a personal Overton Window - the set of ideas that they think are reasonable and acceptable, even if they personally don't agree. When most of the personal Overton Windows approximately align on a particular topic, then we have society's Overton Window.
For example, think about gay marriage. 50 years ago, maybe even 20, 95% of society thought that gay marriage was clearly not acceptable. That meant that 95% of society agreed with 95% of society's personal Overton Windows on the topic, and so we had a clear society-wide Overton Window.
Now we have maybe 30% of people who still think that gay marriage is clearly not acceptable. We also have 40% who think that gay marriage is clearly in bounds. Of those, maybe half (so 20% of the population) think any doubts about gay marriage are clearly unacceptable. There is no position which a large majority of society finds acceptable. (All numbers made up, but I think they're in the approximate neighborhood.)
The society-wide Overton Window didn't move. It shattered.
Everyone has a personal Overton Window - the set of ideas that they think are reasonable and acceptable, even if they personally don't agree. When most of the personal Overton Windows approximately align on a particular topic, then we have society's Overton Window.
For example, think about gay marriage. 50 years ago, maybe even 20, 95% of society thought that gay marriage was clearly not acceptable. That meant that 95% of society agreed with 95% of society's personal Overton Windows on the topic, and so we had a clear society-wide Overton Window.
Now we have maybe 30% of people who still think that gay marriage is clearly not acceptable. We also have 40% who think that gay marriage is clearly in bounds. Of those, maybe half (so 20% of the population) think any doubts about gay marriage are clearly unacceptable. There is no position which a large majority of society finds acceptable. (All numbers made up, but I think they're in the approximate neighborhood.)
The society-wide Overton Window didn't move. It shattered.
> That's not how the Overton Window works. The Overton Window says what kind of opinions are socially acceptable
"Socially acceptable" is, necessarily, relative to some defined group.
Especially in a political system with limited major parties and partisan primary elections (especially if they are closed, but even if they are open in theory but tend to attract a specific mostly-stable community in practice), and a substantial population that participates in neither parties primaries, considering the Overton Window within each party and/or ideological identity group as well as the "national" Overton Window can be useful. The GP comment could be rephrased without, I think, change of meaning as "the Overton Window of the community of the ideological Right and/or the Republican Party has moved relative to the rest of society such that it excludes much of the window as viewed by those not ideologically tied strongly to the Left or Right faction".
"Socially acceptable" is, necessarily, relative to some defined group.
Especially in a political system with limited major parties and partisan primary elections (especially if they are closed, but even if they are open in theory but tend to attract a specific mostly-stable community in practice), and a substantial population that participates in neither parties primaries, considering the Overton Window within each party and/or ideological identity group as well as the "national" Overton Window can be useful. The GP comment could be rephrased without, I think, change of meaning as "the Overton Window of the community of the ideological Right and/or the Republican Party has moved relative to the rest of society such that it excludes much of the window as viewed by those not ideologically tied strongly to the Left or Right faction".
That's funny that you say that because those who find themselves right of center generally say the same thing. The mainstream media, hollywood, and academia, have become so liberal that the center feels like extreme right to them.
Again, goes to show the polarization of the US.
Again, goes to show the polarization of the US.
Curious in what country you live in that sees "Defund the Police" as mainstream.
You might want to familiarize yourself with the criticisms of those. You might also want to familiarize yourself with what those organizations and ideologies are actually about beyond their slogan (which in most cases has nothing to do with what the slogan is).
But either way, defund the police is not mainstream anywhere - that’s pretty universally understood to be a fringe (and ridiculous) proposition, and has already proven its devastating consequences.
But either way, defund the police is not mainstream anywhere - that’s pretty universally understood to be a fringe (and ridiculous) proposition, and has already proven its devastating consequences.
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.
I would take that bet and your money.
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/10/two-new-studies-show-again...
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/10/two-new-studies-show-again...
I don't know, I haven't been on facebook since ages, because I got sick of constantly being banned for discussing politics.
Facebook doesn't ban you for discussing politics - unless your version of "politics" involves advocating for violence.
Now that's what I call a loaded question.
You're right, they technically don't. But they ban everything that can be even remotely interpreted as "offensive". To give you one example, I got banned for pointing out the appeal to nature fallacy. I've said that rape and murder is technically natural and yet it's not socially acceptable. Literally just that. Nothing less, nothing more. But someone either misinterpreted that simple sentence or found it offensive because of the context of the conversation, and thus I got banned.
You're right, they technically don't. But they ban everything that can be even remotely interpreted as "offensive". To give you one example, I got banned for pointing out the appeal to nature fallacy. I've said that rape and murder is technically natural and yet it's not socially acceptable. Literally just that. Nothing less, nothing more. But someone either misinterpreted that simple sentence or found it offensive because of the context of the conversation, and thus I got banned.
That report doesn’t address the censorship complaints at all.
Yes I think Facebook allowed the Fauci threats as PR to make themselves look neutral. Mark Zuckerberg and his employees have been playing good cop bad cop with us since the beginning to make the public perceive Facebook as a neutral bystander when in fact they're in a large part responsible for the whole mess and are not neutral at all.
Do you have examples of these calls for beheadings of non conservatives?
OP is probably referring to the Steve Bannon's recent statement calling for the beheading of Dr. Fauci. This has been very widely covered, even by Trumpist media. See:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio...
https://www.newsweek.com/bannon-calls-fauci-beheading-154528...
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/05/steve-bannon-makes-beheading...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/steve-bannon-s-twitter-acc...
https://nypost.com/2020/11/06/twitter-bans-steve-bannon-for-...
This kind of political speech has no place in a democratic society. The fact that it comes down to social media and Internet providers to regulate it, however, is reflective of a policy failure. Keeping calls for extremist violence out of the public sphere ought to be the responsibility of the criminal legal system, not private business.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-electio...
https://www.newsweek.com/bannon-calls-fauci-beheading-154528...
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/05/steve-bannon-makes-beheading...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/steve-bannon-s-twitter-acc...
https://nypost.com/2020/11/06/twitter-bans-steve-bannon-for-...
This kind of political speech has no place in a democratic society. The fact that it comes down to social media and Internet providers to regulate it, however, is reflective of a policy failure. Keeping calls for extremist violence out of the public sphere ought to be the responsibility of the criminal legal system, not private business.
Ok but Bannon was permanently banned from Twitter for this
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.
Facebook is taking a much more hands-off approach than Twitter.
That is irrelevant to the claim. Facebook doesn’t share links, the users do. The allegation of bias are associated with inconsistent and/or incorrect applications of their rules.
"You would be hard pressed to find liberal / progressive content being censored online."
You must be joking? Twitter, Google, FB, the blatantly partisan censorship?
You must be joking? Twitter, Google, FB, the blatantly partisan censorship?
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.
> 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.
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.
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 state controlled side, but existing at the extreme of free and open would be come with its own set of problems. 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.
Not disagreeing -- but what popular parts of the internet are not cesspools?
Is it possible that they become cesspools because poop isn't allowed to flow everywhere else? Is there a finite quantity of poop that could be diluted if it were spread out evenly, or is the supply unending?
The problem isn't quantity, but risk. There's a reason we restrict literal poop to a few designated places - while there's only a finite amount of excrement deposited any given time, you don't want every place you visit and interaction you're a part of to carry a chance of you witnessing someone defecating.
Exactly and this is the dirty little detail that people don't want to realize. People think you can just censor right wing misinformation but guess what happens? The right wing movements simply create their own websites and start blocking anything that is a counter argument. Biggest example is reddit which has focused on blocking right wing groups. /r/thedonald used to be big on reddit but they got banned. So they went on to create their own version of reddit and now that website has exploded in popularity. It is apparently in the top 500 most visited websites in the USA now.
It is very likely that moving forward, many right wing people will shift away platforms like facebook, twitter, and reddit. In fact, these platforms already exist. Gab is a replacement for facebook and parler is a replacement for twitter.
It is very likely that moving forward, many right wing people will shift away platforms like facebook, twitter, and reddit. In fact, these platforms already exist. Gab is a replacement for facebook and parler is a replacement for twitter.
Propaganda is vulnerable to open discourse, promoters of false information are handicapped by the flaws in their arguments. The only way it can flourish is censored away into manipulative misdirection and secretive groups.
There is also the immunity to bad ideas aspect; Its important that the propaganda is heard openly and argued against in public, as this makes people immune to these arguments. Censor these bad ideas and we make the next generation vulnerable to them.
I don't think we can offset this with education, as with drugs, we never give the kids the very best bad idea - argument when we try to teach the dangers of drugs, this is why so many are vulnerable to the dealers quiet persuasion. I really feel like the more we silence movements like the alt right, the more vulnerable our society becomes to their bad ideas.
There is also the immunity to bad ideas aspect; Its important that the propaganda is heard openly and argued against in public, as this makes people immune to these arguments. Censor these bad ideas and we make the next generation vulnerable to them.
I don't think we can offset this with education, as with drugs, we never give the kids the very best bad idea - argument when we try to teach the dangers of drugs, this is why so many are vulnerable to the dealers quiet persuasion. I really feel like the more we silence movements like the alt right, the more vulnerable our society becomes to their bad ideas.
>Propaganda is vulnerable to open discourse, promoters of false information are handicapped by the flaws in their arguments. The only way it can flourish is censored away into manipulative misdirection and secretive groups.
This is repeated so much it is practically a meme at this point, but is there anything to actually back it up? Especially when users have the ability to control what they see. If someone is in a bubble of disinformation, it doesn't matter how many voices outside the bubble try to debunk those claims.
It seems like a more effective approach would to be to work on preventative measures so people are never exposed to these harmful beliefs rather than wait until these beliefs are heard and then try to convince them they are wrong.
This is repeated so much it is practically a meme at this point, but is there anything to actually back it up? Especially when users have the ability to control what they see. If someone is in a bubble of disinformation, it doesn't matter how many voices outside the bubble try to debunk those claims.
It seems like a more effective approach would to be to work on preventative measures so people are never exposed to these harmful beliefs rather than wait until these beliefs are heard and then try to convince them they are wrong.
> If someone is in a bubble of disinformation
The censorship of the good information is the problem. And it probably started with censorship of bad information that lead to the bubble in the first place.
>work on preventative measures so people are never exposed
This is where the analogy breaks down, its not a virus, its an idea, anyone can come up with an idea, good or bad. you want to protect people from themselves, you must immunize them from the bad ideas they could come up with. We know it works, it was the only vehicle from the dark ages to the enlightenment.
We also have the problem that if you set up a perfect system of blocking bad ideas, the people who run it can have bad ideas of their own. Hell the mechanism we have to even tell the difference between bad ideas and good ideas in society (open free discourse) will have been destroyed.
There are plenty of examples of people trying to do this around the world, tyrants and hell-holes created with the best of intentions.
The censorship of the good information is the problem. And it probably started with censorship of bad information that lead to the bubble in the first place.
>work on preventative measures so people are never exposed
This is where the analogy breaks down, its not a virus, its an idea, anyone can come up with an idea, good or bad. you want to protect people from themselves, you must immunize them from the bad ideas they could come up with. We know it works, it was the only vehicle from the dark ages to the enlightenment.
We also have the problem that if you set up a perfect system of blocking bad ideas, the people who run it can have bad ideas of their own. Hell the mechanism we have to even tell the difference between bad ideas and good ideas in society (open free discourse) will have been destroyed.
There are plenty of examples of people trying to do this around the world, tyrants and hell-holes created with the best of intentions.
>The censorship of the good information is the problem. And it probably started with censorship of bad information that lead to the bubble in the first place.
There is nothing nefarious about bubbles. They happen automatically when people are in control of what they consume. Imagine I join Twitter and I am given a list of people to follow. I don't like to hear from people with viewpoints that I think are crazy so I unfollow someone if they say something I disagree with. If some gets retweeted into my feed saying something I agree with, I might follow them regardless of the validity of their comment since I don't have the time or motivation to fact check everything. Wouldn't you know it, I am now in a bubble despite there being zero censorship of anything. If one of the people in my bubble repeats some false claim, am I going to see someone dispute that claim or will the disputing occur outside my bubble?
>This is where the analogy breaks down, its not a virus, its an idea, anyone can come up with an idea, good or bad. you can't protect people from themselves, you can only immunize them, we know it works, it was the only vehicle from the dark ages to the enlightenment.
Ideas do have virality to them. Something like QAnon is a prime example. Is isn't like "wealthy democrats drink the blood of children" is some random idea that multiple people reached through parallel thinking. It was a particular conspiracy theory that spread from one person to another. Stopping that message from spreading to more people seems like a more effective approach than trying to retroactively unconvince people who have already bought into the conspiracy.
I agree with the rest of your comment about the dangers of censorship. That is why I said I would have a preference for something that is closer to free and open than not, but that doesn't mean we can't recognize the specific situations in which completely free and open systems can go wrong.
There is nothing nefarious about bubbles. They happen automatically when people are in control of what they consume. Imagine I join Twitter and I am given a list of people to follow. I don't like to hear from people with viewpoints that I think are crazy so I unfollow someone if they say something I disagree with. If some gets retweeted into my feed saying something I agree with, I might follow them regardless of the validity of their comment since I don't have the time or motivation to fact check everything. Wouldn't you know it, I am now in a bubble despite there being zero censorship of anything. If one of the people in my bubble repeats some false claim, am I going to see someone dispute that claim or will the disputing occur outside my bubble?
>This is where the analogy breaks down, its not a virus, its an idea, anyone can come up with an idea, good or bad. you can't protect people from themselves, you can only immunize them, we know it works, it was the only vehicle from the dark ages to the enlightenment.
Ideas do have virality to them. Something like QAnon is a prime example. Is isn't like "wealthy democrats drink the blood of children" is some random idea that multiple people reached through parallel thinking. It was a particular conspiracy theory that spread from one person to another. Stopping that message from spreading to more people seems like a more effective approach than trying to retroactively unconvince people who have already bought into the conspiracy.
I agree with the rest of your comment about the dangers of censorship. That is why I said I would have a preference for something that is closer to free and open than not, but that doesn't mean we can't recognize the specific situations in which completely free and open systems can go wrong.
>I am now in a bubble despite there being zero censorship of anything.
Its still censorship, but i see what you are getting at.
> Stopping that message from spreading to more people seems like a more effective approach
Your example would be stopped whether true or false, as it would likely be the wealthy in charge of whats deemed true.
Its still censorship, but i see what you are getting at.
> Stopping that message from spreading to more people seems like a more effective approach
Your example would be stopped whether true or false, as it would likely be the wealthy in charge of whats deemed true.
>Its still censorship
How? The bubble is purely a result of my own choices in what I see. Is CNN being censored if I don't tune in to watch every night?
>Your example would be stopped whether true or false, as it would likely be the wealthy in charge of whats deemed true.
I'm not sure if you are familiar with QAnon, but I was referencing an actual real world conspiracy that hasn't been stopped.
How? The bubble is purely a result of my own choices in what I see. Is CNN being censored if I don't tune in to watch every night?
>Your example would be stopped whether true or false, as it would likely be the wealthy in charge of whats deemed true.
I'm not sure if you are familiar with QAnon, but I was referencing an actual real world conspiracy that hasn't been stopped.
Nothing about QAnon is inherently viral, there's no real rhyme or reason to QAnon theories and they contradict each other half the time. QAnon is just the latest adaptation of solipsistic, uncritical, and delusional thinking that started long before the internet and will continue long after it dies. Ever wonder what happened to flat earth theory? That used to be the "viral" bad idea of the time, but if you look around now it's practically dead. It's dead because flat earthers have moved on to QAnon [1]. "Wealthy democrats drink the blood of children" is literally a random stupid idea that only spreads because these idiots all talk to each other. It could be anything; In a different decade they would instead be talking about the Freemasons, or a flat earth, or the Jewish agenda. The common theme is not the idea or the politics, it's the broken mentality that creates a worldview in which nothing is your fault, everything bad is caused by inhuman others, and you are one of the few smart enough to see what others cannot.
It's foolish to think that censoring these people actually solves anything. Because you never addressed the broken psychology that attracts them to this garbage in the first place, they'll continue finding other outlets, your attempts to censor them only feeding their delusions further. Censorship might help you avoid them on the internet, but let's see if you can avoid them at the polls.
[1] In Search Of A Flat Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
It's foolish to think that censoring these people actually solves anything. Because you never addressed the broken psychology that attracts them to this garbage in the first place, they'll continue finding other outlets, your attempts to censor them only feeding their delusions further. Censorship might help you avoid them on the internet, but let's see if you can avoid them at the polls.
[1] In Search Of A Flat Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
> Propaganda is vulnerable to open discourse, promoters of false information are handicapped by the flaws in their arguments. The only way it can flourish is censored away into manipulative misdirection and secretive groups.
This is so false it's bordering on the absurd. Anyone with even a little experience with debate and techniques like Gish gallop, which are widely employed, know that rational arguments simply do not convince most people of things. Humans aren't purely rational beings. It's dangerous to assume we can just talk away propaganda because all evidence points to the contrary.
More than 80% of Trump supporters believe the election was rigged against their candidate despite there literally being no evidence supporting this claim. We're seeing propaganda succeed on such a massive scale because it's so widely spread and so difficult to counter. You've got literally millions of people who have been conditioned to label everything that contradicts their views as "fake news". There is a reason why Fox News viewers score lower on current information than people who don't watch any news at all. Their propaganda works and talking about it and pointing it out isn't helping at all.
This is so false it's bordering on the absurd. Anyone with even a little experience with debate and techniques like Gish gallop, which are widely employed, know that rational arguments simply do not convince most people of things. Humans aren't purely rational beings. It's dangerous to assume we can just talk away propaganda because all evidence points to the contrary.
More than 80% of Trump supporters believe the election was rigged against their candidate despite there literally being no evidence supporting this claim. We're seeing propaganda succeed on such a massive scale because it's so widely spread and so difficult to counter. You've got literally millions of people who have been conditioned to label everything that contradicts their views as "fake news". There is a reason why Fox News viewers score lower on current information than people who don't watch any news at all. Their propaganda works and talking about it and pointing it out isn't helping at all.
Think of the last hundred years, the countries that supported some form of free expression and discourse are now the most progressive rational societies on the planet. And the ones that enforced moral standards and 'ministries of truth', usually religious, are the most regressive.
It doesn't matter whether you can change someones mind on the spot, it matters that your argument is superior and the public tend to repeat and re-argue the superior argument. And yes, things like election fraud, that might be possible, and has happened before, is harder to argued against than a flat earth. But these positions are also the ones where we might be wrong.
It doesn't matter whether you can change someones mind on the spot, it matters that your argument is superior and the public tend to repeat and re-argue the superior argument. And yes, things like election fraud, that might be possible, and has happened before, is harder to argued against than a flat earth. But these positions are also the ones where we might be wrong.
The fact is this is not how ideas progressed historically.
Eventually regressive nations LOSE economically, politically, and in warfare. They are not convinced through debate.
Eventually regressive nations LOSE economically, politically, and in warfare. They are not convinced through debate.
> More than 80% of Trump supporters believe the election was rigged against their candidate despite there literally being no evidence supporting this claim.
This is not accurate. Many non-Trump supporters also do not trust the results. I suspect you have not paid a lot of attention to the legitimate concerns.
> We're seeing propaganda succeed on such a massive scale because it's so widely spread and so difficult to counter.
This is true, but as of late, it’s going the opposite direction. It’s not that anything that contradicts their views is fake news, it’s the stuff that contradicts reality. See finepeoplehoax.org for a great example.
This is not accurate. Many non-Trump supporters also do not trust the results. I suspect you have not paid a lot of attention to the legitimate concerns.
> We're seeing propaganda succeed on such a massive scale because it's so widely spread and so difficult to counter.
This is true, but as of late, it’s going the opposite direction. It’s not that anything that contradicts their views is fake news, it’s the stuff that contradicts reality. See finepeoplehoax.org for a great example.
I'm curious -- what are you hoping that argument will accomplish?
Freedom of ANY kind allows bad things to happen. The most secure world is one in which we are all locked up, nobody ever interacts, and are only fed via tube from their government provided feeder in their government provided cube.
Since I'm fairly sure that isn't what you're advocating, please, explain what you're hoping to accomplish by stating that a free and open internet is a problem.
Freedom of ANY kind allows bad things to happen. The most secure world is one in which we are all locked up, nobody ever interacts, and are only fed via tube from their government provided feeder in their government provided cube.
Since I'm fairly sure that isn't what you're advocating, please, explain what you're hoping to accomplish by stating that a free and open internet is a problem.
I was responding to a comment that stated an authoritarian/nationalistic movement would fear a free and open internet. I was pointing out that a free and open internet can be a tool of an authoritarian/nationalistic movement. I was hoping to open some people's eyes to how openness can be abused.
Also I don't know if this was intentional, but just letting you know that your phrasing of this post comes off as needlessly confrontational. You can ask for clarification without asking "what are you hoping that argument will accomplish" which sounds accusatory as it implies a nefarious motive.
Also I don't know if this was intentional, but just letting you know that your phrasing of this post comes off as needlessly confrontational. You can ask for clarification without asking "what are you hoping that argument will accomplish" which sounds accusatory as it implies a nefarious motive.
That is why we need the education to identify and expose propaganda. Something most governments have either completely ignored or severely neglected in public education because of how useful and successful their own propaganda has been in shaping public ideas and narrative.
Weird is that in the US the liberals want to censor and the conservatives argue for free speech. They are at their throats so much that is probably doesn't really matter anymore.
Joe Biden wrote the original Patriot act.
Lets not pretend that liberalism doesn't come with a jackboot on the neck of the people either.
Lets not pretend that liberalism doesn't come with a jackboot on the neck of the people either.
TIL: Joe Biden represents liberalism.
If you look at his cabinet pick so far yes. I hope you're ready for Trump II the Trumpening.
> Joe Biden wrote the original Patriot act.
No, he didn't.
USA PATRIOT Act was from Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI). It incorporated material from 3 earlier bills, one of which was also by Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the others by Sen. Daschle (D-SD) and Rep. Oxley (R-OH).
https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/3162...
No, he didn't.
USA PATRIOT Act was from Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI). It incorporated material from 3 earlier bills, one of which was also by Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the others by Sen. Daschle (D-SD) and Rep. Oxley (R-OH).
https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/3162...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Counterterrorism_Act_o...
I should have said draft instead of original.
I should have said draft instead of original.
It wasnt substantively similar to the USA PATRIOT Act, beyond being laws that have some relation to terrorism.
How about the wave of 'I won't change, I won't work on myself, so I'll change / sensor you under the pretense of virtue" that's taken hold in SV echochambers?
> 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.
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.
Indeed, in 1848 authoritarianism and nationalism were the two major opponents on the European political stage.
A lot of people would say the same thing is happening today.
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.
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.
>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.
No, but they would have covered the protests against it.
> 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.
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.
Corporate/social media censorship is now the en vogue censorship and the one we are most problems with, at least in the western world. Or maybe it's the one with most publicity. In comparison, government/ISP censorship seems to have died out and be pretty mild.
However, something like China's censorship is much worse than social media.
I thought we luckily would be free of such, but I do consider Poland western, and Japan a reputable democracy. It is still dangerous because a threat we thought dead or dormant is still active.
Really surprising. AFAIK Japan has strict free to speech by constitution. I never heard such censorship except child porn blocking. Any citations? I can't find any source even in Japanese.
That’s probably a false positive.
In this thread you have multiple people denying that this ever happened: https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/jwudsb/u_of_michigan...
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...
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/16/21570072/obama-interne...
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. He's not saying "the internet is bad," or even "social media is bad"; he's saying that the internet clearly has the potential to amplify disinformation to a point that becomes harmful, something I think anyone would be hard-pressed to disagree with.
> 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. He's not saying "the internet is bad," or even "social media is bad"; he's saying that the internet clearly has the potential to amplify disinformation to a point that becomes harmful, something I think anyone would be hard-pressed to disagree with.
Disinformation assumes the average person is stupid though. Whose to say the inherent undisputable (because you can't prove or deny) conspiracy theory someone believes is true? Why is the onus on media companies to police how we want to live our lives and believe in whatever nonsense we want to? I play videogames and watch tv shows, because it inspires me to think a particular way outside of the norm, should it be banned? This is literally the same argument about banning and burning books.
You dont have to be stupid to fall for disinformation, you just have to want to believe a lie.
A lot of people are ok with lies if they confirm what they already believe.
A lot of people are ok with lies if they confirm what they already believe.
Yes but those types of people are not looking for truth, they're looking for information that supports their bias. So if you tell them to shut up and take it, now they internally fabricate a conspiracy theory. What's worse is you have no idea what they're thinking or planning now.
The only people who care about "truth" in capitalism are shareholders and affluent individuals. It binds them to the culture and when a bunch of lowlifes and poorer people tell them "fuck off" essentially, they get pissy and upset that the people don't like the status quo.
The only people who care about "truth" in capitalism are shareholders and affluent individuals. It binds them to the culture and when a bunch of lowlifes and poorer people tell them "fuck off" essentially, they get pissy and upset that the people don't like the status quo.
> The only people who care about "truth" in capitalism are shareholders and affluent individuals.
These are the people that care about stability, in order to enjoy their wealth. A country that cannot agree with one another on objective reality isn't one that can be governed, and is destined to fall.
Which might be why so many of the "disinformation" fighters come from the establishment, and so many proprietors of distortions and lies are those with grudges (Greenwald, Bannon, etc.) or nothing to lose (QAnon/MAGA types).
It comes down to a difference between people that benefit from a stable status quo, and those (for whatever reason) that want to tear it down.
These are the people that care about stability, in order to enjoy their wealth. A country that cannot agree with one another on objective reality isn't one that can be governed, and is destined to fall.
Which might be why so many of the "disinformation" fighters come from the establishment, and so many proprietors of distortions and lies are those with grudges (Greenwald, Bannon, etc.) or nothing to lose (QAnon/MAGA types).
It comes down to a difference between people that benefit from a stable status quo, and those (for whatever reason) that want to tear it down.
What an incredibly paternalistic and disappointing quote from Obama. “If we don’t have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from false”.
So clearly we need the gov’t to step in help the rabble who are clearly unable to figure out the “truth” on their own.
Does he realize this is the exact argument authoritarian gov’ts give for censorship? We need to censor to avoid “social disharmony” or stop those “fomenting discord”.
So clearly we need the gov’t to step in help the rabble who are clearly unable to figure out the “truth” on their own.
Does he realize this is the exact argument authoritarian gov’ts give for censorship? We need to censor to avoid “social disharmony” or stop those “fomenting discord”.
Mainstream press also has the ability to publish and amplify disinformation, and they do[0]. The internet is a hugely important tool that can be used to shed light on actual power structures and their atrocities. This good of exposing evil and corruption far outweighs the potentially bad outcome of a minority of individuals believing incorrect information.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8mP2jN6bJI
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8mP2jN6bJI
If we don't have the capacity to distinguish what's true from what's false, then nothing works. Putting the government (or any other third party) in charge of censorship for the sake of filtering out what's false just moves the decision elsewhere - but it's still made by some people somewhere. Whether those people are determined directly or indirectly through some democratic process, or self-appointed, the same problem applies recursively.
I read that article earlier today, and gotta say I was pretty disappointed that Vox chose the title "Obama: The internet is “the single biggest threat to our democracy”" based on this exchange:
> Obama: Now you have a situation in which large swaths of the country genuinely believe that the Democratic Party is a front for a pedophile ring...I was talking to a volunteer who was going door-to-door in Philadelphia in low-income African American communities, and was getting questions about QAnon conspiracy theories.
> Goldberg: Is this new malevolent information architecture bending the moral arc away from justice?
> Obama: I think it is the single biggest threat to our democracy.
The second paragraph in the article is more in line with what he actually said:
> Now he worries that the internet and social media have helped create “the single biggest threat to our democracy.”
There's a big difference between saying that the internet is the single biggest threat to society, and saying that it (and more specifically, social media) has helped some people communicate disinformation and "fake news" - which is what Obama see as the threat to society in this context.
> Obama: Now you have a situation in which large swaths of the country genuinely believe that the Democratic Party is a front for a pedophile ring...I was talking to a volunteer who was going door-to-door in Philadelphia in low-income African American communities, and was getting questions about QAnon conspiracy theories.
> Goldberg: Is this new malevolent information architecture bending the moral arc away from justice?
> Obama: I think it is the single biggest threat to our democracy.
The second paragraph in the article is more in line with what he actually said:
> Now he worries that the internet and social media have helped create “the single biggest threat to our democracy.”
There's a big difference between saying that the internet is the single biggest threat to society, and saying that it (and more specifically, social media) has helped some people communicate disinformation and "fake news" - which is what Obama see as the threat to society in this context.
My cynical take is that had Cambridge Analytica targeted Putin/Lukashenko/Morales/Maduro instead of Brexit/Trump we would celebrated Cambridge Analytica as a hero of democracy and open society.
Surprising that there's no data on Australia here. The Australian government has implemented a ton of [1] regulation/censorship on the internet.
There's also been an [2] anti-encryption law recently passed to give the government unprecedented access to social media accounts and website in the name of national security...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Austral...
[2] https://fee.org/articles/australia-s-unprecedented-encryptio...
There's also been an [2] anti-encryption law recently passed to give the government unprecedented access to social media accounts and website in the name of national security...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Austral...
[2] https://fee.org/articles/australia-s-unprecedented-encryptio...
Annoying when the subject of the article is a paper but the article does not link to the paper.
Here is the link
https://censoredplanet.org/assets/censoredplanet.pdf
https://censoredplanet.org/assets/censoredplanet-slides.pdf
Yesterday there was a discussion on the HN frontpage about Firefox "HTTPS-Only Mode" and the thread's 2nd to top comment was a user saying they wanted only one source of DNS data: their ISP. (No other alternatives or backups.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25122260
Perhaps some users really do not care if their ISP now or in the future censors their access to resources on the internet. Perhaps some users will only start to care about the potential for censorship when a site being censored is one they want to access.
Generally, anyone using third party DNS is potentially subject to censorship via an easy, popular method.
SNI is another easy method. Browsers by default send plaintext SNI to every HTTPS site. However not all HTTPS sites require SNI (check for presence of SNI or check SNI against Host header). Additionally, all Cloudflare sites support encrypted SNI.
Here is the link
https://censoredplanet.org/assets/censoredplanet.pdf
https://censoredplanet.org/assets/censoredplanet-slides.pdf
Yesterday there was a discussion on the HN frontpage about Firefox "HTTPS-Only Mode" and the thread's 2nd to top comment was a user saying they wanted only one source of DNS data: their ISP. (No other alternatives or backups.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25122260
Perhaps some users really do not care if their ISP now or in the future censors their access to resources on the internet. Perhaps some users will only start to care about the potential for censorship when a site being censored is one they want to access.
Generally, anyone using third party DNS is potentially subject to censorship via an easy, popular method.
SNI is another easy method. Browsers by default send plaintext SNI to every HTTPS site. However not all HTTPS sites require SNI (check for presence of SNI or check SNI against Host header). Additionally, all Cloudflare sites support encrypted SNI.
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 right 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
Cooperation is hard because of the prisoner's dilemma etc. You don't need "certain business people" to malevolently prevent international cooperation.
> 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)
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)
This is why I am not a philosophical adherent to capitalism.
>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 have 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.
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 have 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.
> 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.
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.
But it's tiny compared to propaganda by domestic actors.
All foreign propaganda is peddled by domestic actors. Otherwise, it wouldn't be effective.
All foreign propaganda is peddled by domestic actors. Otherwise, it wouldn't be effective.
> Other countries will have to do the same if they want to protect their national interests.
2030: EU bans Google
2030: EU bans Google
> The only defense against it it following China's footsteps.
Is that the point you were trying to make?
Is that the point you were trying to make?
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.
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 for something that served no US national interest), 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 to protect us from meaningless internet bugaboos.
It's a naked power grab, and anyone who supports it because of "muh democracy" is a collaborator with tyranny.
"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 for something that served no US national interest), 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 to protect us from meaningless internet bugaboos.
It's a naked power grab, and anyone who supports it because of "muh democracy" is a collaborator with tyranny.
> 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.
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.
"Foreign interference" has been going on from day 0 in the United States
Agree. Not as effective as today. But yes.
Anyone who actually use the excuse of "foreign interference" for totalitarian censorship basically basically doesn't believe in the concept of democracy.
Agree. I think Democracy has failed because the tools of propaganda have become very effective.
Democracy died in the U.S. a long time ago... the Deep State was formed and it had a monopoly on propaganda, not only for keeping the citizens in line but also using it to control many other countries. The major competitor was Soviet Union, which wasn't very successful for long. Fast forward to today, there are many countries which are powerful enough and have competitive tools for propaganda.
While many countries are well equipped for offence, only China has very good defense against it. If other countries don't take actions to strengthen their defense, it's going to be very difficult for them.
Agree. Not as effective as today. But yes.
Anyone who actually use the excuse of "foreign interference" for totalitarian censorship basically basically doesn't believe in the concept of democracy.
Agree. I think Democracy has failed because the tools of propaganda have become very effective.
Democracy died in the U.S. a long time ago... the Deep State was formed and it had a monopoly on propaganda, not only for keeping the citizens in line but also using it to control many other countries. The major competitor was Soviet Union, which wasn't very successful for long. Fast forward to today, there are many countries which are powerful enough and have competitive tools for propaganda.
While many countries are well equipped for offence, only China has very good defense against it. If other countries don't take actions to strengthen their defense, it's going to be very difficult for them.
You're mostly right in everything, except that 'the Deep State' is not that deep and is not that much part of the state - most US propaganda is actually pretty transparently done by the corporate sector. We call it PR and marketing now, but it is exactly propaganda, used to great effectiveness everywhere in the world. Teb other major leg of US propaganda is the entertainment industry, which is also extremely effective at selling grand narratives, and has a very favorable lens from which it always presents the US and its allies, whether it be in gaming, mass market films, or even critical darlings (see the fawning reception the extremely pro-American, pro-militaristic 'The Hurt Locker' got everywhere in the critical press).
most US propaganda is actually pretty transparently done by the corporate sector
Agree, but I'm not talking about most. I understand there is "cholesterol bad" or "anti-vaxx, stupid, amirite?" from pharmaceuticals or "almonds make penis hard" from nutrition "science" funded by the food industry. That is not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the Deep State, which is comprised of ex-military, the CIA and weapons industry people. They're pretty deep into everything.
Agree, but I'm not talking about most. I understand there is "cholesterol bad" or "anti-vaxx, stupid, amirite?" from pharmaceuticals or "almonds make penis hard" from nutrition "science" funded by the food industry. That is not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the Deep State, which is comprised of ex-military, the CIA and weapons industry people. They're pretty deep into everything.
This doesn't take away too much from your general point, which I agree with, but I think this is important to mention in itself:
> ["foreign interference"] fairly obviously got us our "free trade" policies which gutted the US manufacturing capabilities [...] (thanks, China).
'free trade' is definitely not a product of outside interference, it is a product of American company owners' interests - the easier it is to own manufacturing plants in other countries without giving up your IP (the key items of most 'free trade' agreements), the easier it becomes for corporations to manufacture everything where labor is cheapest.
> ["foreign interference"] fairly obviously got us our "free trade" policies which gutted the US manufacturing capabilities [...] (thanks, China).
'free trade' is definitely not a product of outside interference, it is a product of American company owners' interests - the easier it is to own manufacturing plants in other countries without giving up your IP (the key items of most 'free trade' agreements), the easier it becomes for corporations to manufacture everything where labor is cheapest.
> Anyone who actually use the excuse of "foreign interference" for totalitarian censorship basically basically doesn't believe in the concept of democracy.
David Atkins, Regional Director, CA Dems / Elected DNC Member:
"No seriously...how do you deprogram 75 million people? Where do you start? Fox? Facebook?
We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan. Or the failures of Reconstruction in the South." [0]
[0] https://twitter.com/DavidOAtkins/status/1328898661569363969
David Atkins, Regional Director, CA Dems / Elected DNC Member:
"No seriously...how do you deprogram 75 million people? Where do you start? Fox? Facebook?
We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan. Or the failures of Reconstruction in the South." [0]
[0] https://twitter.com/DavidOAtkins/status/1328898661569363969
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.).
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.).
Do you have a source of what specific stuff you're referring to? I want to read more and learn about some of that cause with sounds interesting to look at the US in that light.
You could try browsing content from Mises Institute or Cato Institute.
[deleted]
>What we recognize as freedoms and human rights are more appropriately associated with limited government, separation of powers, and republics.
There's a term for this, "liberal democracy".
There's a term for this, "liberal democracy".
> News, human rights and government sites saw a censorship spike in Poland after protests in July 2019
I'm not aware of any site blocking other than unregistered online gambling sites. If something like that would occur it would be a big news.
Polish politicians are not able to censor polish Internet without causing a big stir - the infrastructure is not controlled by state entities.
Only facebook/twitter are able to do so, because they are in complete control of their microcosm. Recently fb banned account of a polish politician with 780k followers. He is a bizzare person that sometimes likes to express edgy opinions or make political attention-grabbing mini happenings. Nevertheless a major politician was silenced by decision of some employee of polish division of american corporation.
I'm not aware of any site blocking other than unregistered online gambling sites. If something like that would occur it would be a big news.
Polish politicians are not able to censor polish Internet without causing a big stir - the infrastructure is not controlled by state entities.
Only facebook/twitter are able to do so, because they are in complete control of their microcosm. Recently fb banned account of a polish politician with 780k followers. He is a bizzare person that sometimes likes to express edgy opinions or make political attention-grabbing mini happenings. Nevertheless a major politician was silenced by decision of some employee of polish division of american corporation.
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.
Interesting that politico sent one straight to print today without an online article first.
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...
> 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...
You should look up and see what the "factual errors" were and see if you agree if it was about editorial integrity.
Wasnt that an editorial decision? he did write an opinion about them but how did he get them to pull them down?
He personally called and asked to have it removed. Politico and some other papers too.
Whatever your views on the particular case being blogged about below, it is widely regarded as being hugely important for the freedom of journalists and journalism. In fact I haven't heard the argument that it isn't, if there is one at all. I've also seen nothing to suggest that the below is some kind of bold fabrication. If you're not worried by it, you probably should be. Whenever you hear "They can't be trusted to analyse and come to the correct conclusion." Means _you_ can't and won't get the chance. Make up your own mind is difficult advice to follow when you're not allowed the information on which to do so.
>Even my blog has never been so systematically subject to shadowbanning from Twitter and Facebook as now. Normally about 50% of my blog readers arrive from Twitter and 40% from Facebook. During the trial it has been 3% from Twitter and 9% from Facebook. That is a fall from 90% to 12%. In the February hearings Facebook and Twitter were between them sending me over 200,000 readers a day. Now they are between them sending me 3,000 readers a day. To be plain that is very much less than my normal daily traffic from them just in ordinary times. It is the insidious nature of this censorship that is especially sinister – people believe they have successfully shared my articles on Twitter and Facebook, while those corporations hide from them that in fact it went into nobody’s timeline. My own family have not been getting their notifications of my posts on either platform.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...
>Even my blog has never been so systematically subject to shadowbanning from Twitter and Facebook as now. Normally about 50% of my blog readers arrive from Twitter and 40% from Facebook. During the trial it has been 3% from Twitter and 9% from Facebook. That is a fall from 90% to 12%. In the February hearings Facebook and Twitter were between them sending me over 200,000 readers a day. Now they are between them sending me 3,000 readers a day. To be plain that is very much less than my normal daily traffic from them just in ordinary times. It is the insidious nature of this censorship that is especially sinister – people believe they have successfully shared my articles on Twitter and Facebook, while those corporations hide from them that in fact it went into nobody’s timeline. My own family have not been getting their notifications of my posts on either platform.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...
Unbelievable. This is a tragedy.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India
google "internet kill switch india" for numerous examples.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
[deleted]
> 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.
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.
If the rest of the content in this article is as misleading as the part about Norway it is useless. The allegations about Norwegian ISPs blocking human rights websites and match.com are demonstrably false.
As part of a wider European effort there is an DNS-based block (The Child Sexual Abuse Anti-Distribution Filter (CSAADF) is part of the COSPOL Internet Related Child Abusive Material Project (CIRCAMP))run by the ISPs to censor access to child pornography.
As part of a wider European effort there is an DNS-based block (The Child Sexual Abuse Anti-Distribution Filter (CSAADF) is part of the COSPOL Internet Related Child Abusive Material Project (CIRCAMP))run by the ISPs to censor access to child pornography.
A while back it was not possible to get to the Pirate Bay from Ireland. Not sure how it is now.
"We imagine the internet as a global medium where anyone can access any resource, and it’s supposed to make communication easier, especially across international borders,".
It is. That doesn't mean that a democratically elected govt has to allow sites considered "good" by a private group (like the authors of this article) especially when even the authors themselves seem to be okay with blocking child pornography sites. It's tricky to argue against articles like this as it can quickly be twisted into an argument against human rights or same-sex marriages.
As far as I can see, all parties involved are behaving exactly like one would expect in a free society. People deciding who they want ruling them, democratically elected govts deciding what's good for their societies, ISPs following the laws and those who want to access the blocked sites firing up vpns and accessing them anyway while a group of people whining about this whole situation for profit pretending like they are the watchmen of a free society. This is virtue signalling. A private group passing judgment on what other sovereign nations may consider right and wrong (at that time) for their peoples.
It is. That doesn't mean that a democratically elected govt has to allow sites considered "good" by a private group (like the authors of this article) especially when even the authors themselves seem to be okay with blocking child pornography sites. It's tricky to argue against articles like this as it can quickly be twisted into an argument against human rights or same-sex marriages.
As far as I can see, all parties involved are behaving exactly like one would expect in a free society. People deciding who they want ruling them, democratically elected govts deciding what's good for their societies, ISPs following the laws and those who want to access the blocked sites firing up vpns and accessing them anyway while a group of people whining about this whole situation for profit pretending like they are the watchmen of a free society. This is virtue signalling. A private group passing judgment on what other sovereign nations may consider right and wrong (at that time) for their peoples.
> especially when even the authors themselves seem to be okay with blocking child pornography sites.
...are you not? Like, I get your "moral relativism" argument, but I don't think anyone besides "extra-principled" libertarians would think there is some hypocrisy between advocating against the censorship of news/political ideas and literal child abuse.
...are you not? Like, I get your "moral relativism" argument, but I don't think anyone besides "extra-principled" libertarians would think there is some hypocrisy between advocating against the censorship of news/political ideas and literal child abuse.
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...
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...
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.
[0] I'm not going to provide an example, shouldn't be too hard to come up with a slightly controversial example yourself.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I looked up "Suroosh Alvi". The results are a little different but IMO pretty similar content-wise, nothing jarring. I do see the 5th result you mentioned on yandex missing on google's front page, but all of the google results seem pretty relevant, and the link you mentioned seems to be hosted on vice.com, so I'm not sure if I buy the idea that they're trying to hide that link. Has this guy recently done something controversial? Searching his name on both engines he just seems like a regular guy? Why do you think google would be censoring him?
I'm not sure, but they might be talking about one of Vice's other founders, Gavin McInnes, who is known as a far-right provocateur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_McInnes#Views
Maybe Tim Pool? Big far-right podcaster, was famously an early intern at Vice, regularly claims to be one of Vice's founders.
I tried Tim Pool and Gavin Mcinnes both have pretty similar results on both search engines. Besides, google is totally fine with Tim Pool, that guy has one of the biggest political channels on YouTube.
In absolutely no way is Tim Pool "far-right"; to make such an assertion is an offense both to him as well as to far-rightists.
Tbf, I know very little about Tim Pool. I did see the viral tweet where he claimed the reason he was voting for Trump was because of the Kenosha shooter, which reads very "right accelerationist" to me.
Why won't you provide an example?
I've found the opposite. Google promotes stalking sites[0] to the very top of results for their targets in a way that no other search engine does. Not Bing, no Yandex, not any of the little indie engines. You have to go dozens of pages into results to find them, but they're always on the very first page with Google despite being tiny sites compared to the results they displace.
[0] also not going to name them and give them promotion
[0] also not going to name them and give them promotion
The most offensive thing is not even the censorship, but how awful and almost completely useless search engines have become. Years ago I used to be able to find almost anything, no matter how obscure it was, if I tried hard enough. Today I most often just give up, because it sometimes seems like you can't find the answers to even really basic questions. I don't know what they did, but every search engine is now a complete garbage. They're now basically just shortcuts to the actual search features on websites that everyone already knows, when you're too lazy to type in the URL or click on a bookmark to the actual website.
>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.
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.
Direct link to the study: https://censoredplanet.org/assets/censoredplanet.pdf
In a US context as a US citizen I'm a big free speech advocate and am against people censoring that in the name of things such as "hate speech" etc..
Outside of the US though I have mixed emotions. The reason for that has to do with the effect that the Internet has had on cultures throughout the world since the smartphone and social media really caught on.
Before social media and and the smartphone revolution I remembered seeing more of a difference of world views, culture etc. when I traveled to Europe, Africa, Asia etc.. Today, due in large part to the Internet, things are much more homogenized and that diversity seems to have been traded for ideas that tend to favor the Anglo/American world view.
While we may moralize and say that some countries are better for adopting ideas etc. that we think are better, people in these countries might understandably disagree with all of that being positive. Thus censorship is viewed as a way to try to limit this outside influence. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I can understand the why...
Outside of the US though I have mixed emotions. The reason for that has to do with the effect that the Internet has had on cultures throughout the world since the smartphone and social media really caught on.
Before social media and and the smartphone revolution I remembered seeing more of a difference of world views, culture etc. when I traveled to Europe, Africa, Asia etc.. Today, due in large part to the Internet, things are much more homogenized and that diversity seems to have been traded for ideas that tend to favor the Anglo/American world view.
While we may moralize and say that some countries are better for adopting ideas etc. that we think are better, people in these countries might understandably disagree with all of that being positive. Thus censorship is viewed as a way to try to limit this outside influence. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I can understand the why...
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.
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.
Read the article. This is about government censorship, not Twitter/Facebook independently removing things.
Can someone link to sources? Which sites Norway and Poland blocked?
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/
so is it fake news then?
Yes, it is. Their claims about censorship in Norway and Japan have been confirmed to be false too.
I'm Polish and I am not aware of any website blocking. While censorship on government website may occur, and the pro-government media may omit certain facts, I don't think any websites were actually blocked.
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-à-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).
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).
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...
https://stratechery.com/2019/the-internet-and-the-third-esta...
Only P2P platforms like Bittorrent and Bitcoin have shown effective censorship resistance from government.
For effective censorship resistant speech, the only effective solution is P2P speech platforms like scuttlebutt and member.cash
Moving from one private platform to another is just rearranging deckchairs.
For effective censorship resistant speech, the only effective solution is P2P speech platforms like scuttlebutt and member.cash
Moving from one private platform to another is just rearranging deckchairs.
What is the "Freedom Score" based upon? I find it strange that the USA has such a low score (in the 80's), though I do note that the censorship in the USA isn't really as much state-driven, as it is corporate. I also noted that Iceland has a lower score than Norway, which seems odd to me, as it's for instance known to fervently support the integrity of servers stationed there.
I've noticed that part of the reason Norway has less censorship than other countries, is because it's outside the EU (despite being a de-facto member). In several instances of using a VPN, things that were censored in the EU (I remember checking several EU countries) weren't cencored in either Norway or the USA.
I've noticed that part of the reason Norway has less censorship than other countries, is because it's outside the EU (despite being a de-facto member). In several instances of using a VPN, things that were censored in the EU (I remember checking several EU countries) weren't cencored in either Norway or the USA.
>“When the United States repealed net neutrality, they created an environment in which it would be easy, from a technical standpoint, for ISPs to interfere with or block internet traffic,”
I don't really see how this is true. Net neutrality made it possible for companies to implement the ability to block stuff (but not actually block stuff)? Wasn't it always technically and legally possible for companies to block stuff, sometimes even required? The very next paragraph mentions child pornography or pirated content.
I don't really see how this is true. Net neutrality made it possible for companies to implement the ability to block stuff (but not actually block stuff)? Wasn't it always technically and legally possible for companies to block stuff, sometimes even required? The very next paragraph mentions child pornography or pirated content.
I don't think there is any specific solution, just like there isn't any "solution" to the various wars going on around the world. Social media is going to be a geopolitical quagmire with governments and corporations constantly fighting for control in an ongoing game of whack-a-mole. The tech part has been commoditized. It's time to exit this arena and let the black-suited government guys take over. There should be more interesting technologies on the horizon soon.
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...
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...
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".
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?
Then there is always someone to point out this is not about China... come on.
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.
About a sixth of the global population lives in China, so it only makes sense that they'd come up regularly in discussions of global trends.
Hackernews is a community in which discussion of politics is frowned upon, unless its about China then anything goes.
If you live in a developed European country that is considering this, look at Turkey and Thailand to see where this sort of thing gets you.
The cat is out of the bag. Countries know they can apply censorship now and they will. I think this article has it's pen in the right place. This is a trend within the world's freest democracies.
Direct censorship has been pretty limited so far, but a permanent structure for internet censorship has been put in place.
Direct censorship has been pretty limited so far, but a permanent structure for internet censorship has been put in place.
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?
[deleted]
[deleted]
What’s funny is that this article doesn’t even load on my T-Mobile connection here in the US without a VPN. I’m not accusing anyone of impropriety, but it’s certainly a funny coincidence.
The internet is completely controlled server side and has been for over a decade. There isn't a single site or platform that isn't compromised in one form or another.
It’s all fun and games to coup whoever you want.
Until the chickens come home to roost. And you find your own people rioting, and your society begins to melt down from all its inequality.
Until the chickens come home to roost. And you find your own people rioting, and your society begins to melt down from all its inequality.
Surprised it didn’t call out more western/OECD nations. From my perspective the internet in the west is a shadow of its former progressive self.
How about the online discourse manipulation (arguable another form of censoring ideas)? It's a cat & mouse game that can't be won.
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.
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.
Let the laws and courts determine that. Not Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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)?
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
So, we should rely on state censorship in preference to the free marketplace of ideas competing for private support to relay them?
Yes, do you want the free market to decide who should or should not be killed?
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Common carrier laws are pretty uncontroversial. Those existing laws could be updated to include communication networks that are more relevant in the modern day.
I am sure forbidding Jack Dorsey to kill one of his minions also drastically limits his free will, but _c'est la vie_.
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.
If the answer is "you can't do anything on the internet that you couldn't do before" then that changes the headline.
There are such things as good and bad in the world.
Cultural relativism is brain poison. It is very important to define and fight for universal human rights, such as the right to date and marry someone regardless of gender.
Cultural relativism is brain poison. It is very important to define and fight for universal human rights, such as the right to date and marry someone regardless of gender.
There is no line, thats censorship as well and should be rejected.
Would a site selling dog meat be blocked? Or would sales to your country be barred (as they'd, presumably, be illegal)?
> obviously bad, like child pornography or pirated content
No one who would equate the potential loss of revenue from copyright infringement and the systematic sexual exploitation of children is doing so in the children's interest.
It's too far to say that this is how the US can pass and renew DMCA but can't find it in their hearts to arrest anyone on Epstein's frequent flyer list, though, isn't it?
No one who would equate the potential loss of revenue from copyright infringement and the systematic sexual exploitation of children is doing so in the children's interest.
It's too far to say that this is how the US can pass and renew DMCA but can't find it in their hearts to arrest anyone on Epstein's frequent flyer list, though, isn't it?
TRUTH is suppressed in the name of trust/loyalty/compliance/privacy/conspiracy/discipline/patriotism/sedition/job/national security/intellectual property https://yts.mx/movies/citizenfour-2014
This is the tip of the iceberg.
We already knew that governments censor Human rights and leaks proving war-crimes and false flags. Even the UK puts journalists in prison.
But today it has grown to the censorship of Doctors and Scientists, because they have better insight in what is really happening than the governments. That is because the governments are guided by lobbyists.
We already knew that governments censor Human rights and leaks proving war-crimes and false flags. Even the UK puts journalists in prison.
But today it has grown to the censorship of Doctors and Scientists, because they have better insight in what is really happening than the governments. That is because the governments are guided by lobbyists.
The Internet interprets the absence of censorship as weakness or wickedness, and attacks it.
the Internet golden age of freedom won't be back for the mainstream, it was an artefact of its rapid explosion and the inability of large State players to react in time. We've seen the window between the period when it was below the radar and the period when its threat was recognised but counter-measures were not developed - but that is pretty much over
of course there will always be spaces of freedom but they won't be so easily accessible for the average person - or else there will be draconian measures to "correct" that situation
the big revelation is that the majority of the people in the "free world" (also euphemistically called "the West") are clamouring for these freedoms to be ended, which is a societal phenomenon one wouldn't have expected 10, 20 years ago... but these changes were coming regardless
of course there will always be spaces of freedom but they won't be so easily accessible for the average person - or else there will be draconian measures to "correct" that situation
the big revelation is that the majority of the people in the "free world" (also euphemistically called "the West") are clamouring for these freedoms to be ended, which is a societal phenomenon one wouldn't have expected 10, 20 years ago... but these changes were coming regardless
Maybe I missed something, but what is that 3D model supposed to represent?
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 and judges is a simple minded solution and should never be considered the best or final solution.
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 and judges is a simple minded solution and should never be considered the best or final solution.
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 a nearly 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.
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 a nearly 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.
Population size and distrust of authority have a fairly linear relationship. The bigger we get, the further from power and decision-making we feel we are. This makes a great case for no censorship.
Of course, the gremlins created by the above scenario makes a great case for some censorship.
Until authority can be coaxed into becoming more transparent and, thereby, creating trust, we will keep having this conversation.
Of course, the gremlins created by the above scenario makes a great case for some censorship.
Until authority can be coaxed into becoming more transparent and, thereby, creating trust, we will keep having this conversation.
The only thing that works is trusting humans to be smart enough to make their own decisions and not forcing rules upon them.
personally, I don't think there is a fix to the fact that people will be interconnected and seek stuff that fits their worldview one way or another - draconian eavesdropping and censorship will only make those circles tighter and more extreme
I think we have to embrace the fact that there are layers of informational warfare and hope for some degree of stability once hyper-connectivity has seen off a couple generations
people have to be more willing to debate ideas they find crazy and be patient because the opposite strategy is a losing one
of course governments and big tech will suppress information and even prosecute people for saying the "wrong" things, but this has a limited scope and the backlash is more of that stuff happening in closer circles/bubbles
I think we have to embrace the fact that there are layers of informational warfare and hope for some degree of stability once hyper-connectivity has seen off a couple generations
people have to be more willing to debate ideas they find crazy and be patient because the opposite strategy is a losing one
of course governments and big tech will suppress information and even prosecute people for saying the "wrong" things, but this has a limited scope and the backlash is more of that stuff happening in closer circles/bubbles
Well, Google and Facebook engage in effective censorship already - which, while not massive-scale, is still aggressive (depending on where you're standing I guess). And and that kind of covers the world's democracies.
losing freedom of speech is much easier than re-gaining it.
Is there any research that proves that internet miss information is any worse than the typical propaganda that people have been subjected too for the majority of our recent history?
Abandon this thread, all ye who enter.
Censorship is now also called "fact checking" on social media platforms.
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.
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.
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.
From the HN guidelines:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
I think these examples you cited are pretty clearly off topic
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
I think these examples you cited are pretty clearly off topic
Politics is generally off-topic here other than in a few specific posts that are explicitly allowed because they're so newsworthy, like the death of RBG and the media calling the election.
I think the fact that politics can't be discussed here is itself a form of censorship.
Because people are not able to freely exchange ideas about politics, you end up with silos.
The main reason why the subject of politics causes flame wars is because people are thinking about it emotionally because they have very little actual information to work with.
The less sharing of information there is on the subject, the more divided people are going to be.
Because people are not able to freely exchange ideas about politics, you end up with silos.
The main reason why the subject of politics causes flame wars is because people are thinking about it emotionally because they have very little actual information to work with.
The less sharing of information there is on the subject, the more divided people are going to be.
It's not the case that politics can't be discussed here. Many HN stories have political overlap. At the same time, we can't allow all political posts and we have to moderate flamewars, or HN will turn into a political site, which is against its mandate (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
I've written about this many times: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... These explanations have become pretty stable by now, so I think they answer the question pretty completely. Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902396.
If anyone has a better idea about how we should approach this, I'd love to hear it. But please make sure that you've familiarized yourself with the previous explanations first and understand the constraints we're subject to. If it's something simple like "just ban politics" or "just allow everything", I've already answered many times why that won't work.
I've written about this many times: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... These explanations have become pretty stable by now, so I think they answer the question pretty completely. Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902396.
If anyone has a better idea about how we should approach this, I'd love to hear it. But please make sure that you've familiarized yourself with the previous explanations first and understand the constraints we're subject to. If it's something simple like "just ban politics" or "just allow everything", I've already answered many times why that won't work.
There are valid reasons for limiting which topics people can discuss in a space, in my opinion. If I disallow people from discussing politics on my cooking forum that's not censorship. It's keeping the discussion focused on the actual topic.
HN seems to take a middle ground position of allowing politics when they are relevant to the topic, but not otherwise. That is also what I promote on all platforms I moderate.
HN seems to take a middle ground position of allowing politics when they are relevant to the topic, but not otherwise. That is also what I promote on all platforms I moderate.
Politics can be discussed here. It's that most users don't want to discuss it. They know that most political discussions turn into flame wars and they would rather not have HN be a place of flame.
There's a million places to discuss politics online if you want to.
Yes, Hacker News is censored by the owner. There is no question about that. If you are anti-censorship, this is not the place for you.
Dirlewanger(2)
You are getting flagged for posting off topic, not because of any kind of political censorship. There are subreddits for the kind of posts you're submitting.
> both sides of the political spectrum have no idea what the other is claiming.
I'm not sure that's true. As your post about Michigan voter database points out, one side is making up facts they themselves don't believe in order to push the perception the results are invalid. The objective is not to reverse the results, which it's very unlikely they'll be able to do, but to use the perception to justify moves you allude to on the first post.
All in all, this is dangerous territory here in HN, as most of the debates around these end up in shouting matches.
Presenting multiple sides of an argument is only productive if all sides are engaging the debate honestly.
I'm not sure that's true. As your post about Michigan voter database points out, one side is making up facts they themselves don't believe in order to push the perception the results are invalid. The objective is not to reverse the results, which it's very unlikely they'll be able to do, but to use the perception to justify moves you allude to on the first post.
All in all, this is dangerous territory here in HN, as most of the debates around these end up in shouting matches.
Presenting multiple sides of an argument is only productive if all sides are engaging the debate honestly.
This is incorrect and illustrates the parent’s point. There is a sincerely held belief that a subset of the people who had the means, motive, and opportunity to influence the results in key districts may have succumbed to the temptation. This is actually the more rational position as far as I can tell. So, a lot of people are looking at anything that may prove or disprove this. This is in no way unlike what the democrats do. It’s still a common belief that the 2000 election was stolen, and academics were analyzing it even years after. Also, Trump lost by fewer votes than Abrams did, and that’s still a conspiracy theory in the left. It seems odd to me that so many folks on the left don’t realize how similar they are.
Are you engaging honestly? Or are you just assuming bad faith?
The dangerous territory is acting as though legitimate questions and inquiry is dangerous territory. Many of us in tech have had election security concerns for like a decade. We set up voting machines for kids to hack at defcon.
Of course, there are loud Q anon types on twitter throwing out all kinds of crap. Most of them are actually sincere as well, even though we know better and it seems silly. But those voices aren’t representative of the legitimate concerns.
I asked my wife, who hates Trump, if she was tasked with reporting a vote total in a crucial district, and she had the opportunity to plausibly fudge the numbers such that it would change the outcome, would she “do the right thing” and save us from another 4 years of Trump?
She said yes without hesitation. Somehow, I don’t think she is the only person who thinks that way. That doesn’t mean that someone cheated, but only a fool would take their word for it. With so much on the line, it’s in everyone’s best interest to get more certainty. We already know that voter fraud happens routinely, and even enough to swing elections. Especially in Philadelphia. We also know that humans make mistakes. In most elections, mistakes are a rounding error that is below the noise floor. In a tight race, a few mistakes can change the outcome.
You’re better off letting them look and find nothing than shout them down and say “nothing to see here!”. As part of this process, a lot of irregularities are going to be found that appear suspicious, and most are going to have benign explanations after they are investigated. That doesn’t make it bad faith.
They have already found several errors and thousands of ballots on memory cards that they “forgot” to upload. Ensuring that these were isolated incidents only makes sense.
Are you engaging honestly? Or are you just assuming bad faith?
The dangerous territory is acting as though legitimate questions and inquiry is dangerous territory. Many of us in tech have had election security concerns for like a decade. We set up voting machines for kids to hack at defcon.
Of course, there are loud Q anon types on twitter throwing out all kinds of crap. Most of them are actually sincere as well, even though we know better and it seems silly. But those voices aren’t representative of the legitimate concerns.
I asked my wife, who hates Trump, if she was tasked with reporting a vote total in a crucial district, and she had the opportunity to plausibly fudge the numbers such that it would change the outcome, would she “do the right thing” and save us from another 4 years of Trump?
She said yes without hesitation. Somehow, I don’t think she is the only person who thinks that way. That doesn’t mean that someone cheated, but only a fool would take their word for it. With so much on the line, it’s in everyone’s best interest to get more certainty. We already know that voter fraud happens routinely, and even enough to swing elections. Especially in Philadelphia. We also know that humans make mistakes. In most elections, mistakes are a rounding error that is below the noise floor. In a tight race, a few mistakes can change the outcome.
You’re better off letting them look and find nothing than shout them down and say “nothing to see here!”. As part of this process, a lot of irregularities are going to be found that appear suspicious, and most are going to have benign explanations after they are investigated. That doesn’t make it bad faith.
They have already found several errors and thousands of ballots on memory cards that they “forgot” to upload. Ensuring that these were isolated incidents only makes sense.
Since you brought up inconsistencies.. If you're curious, they are requesting data to do the analysis - https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.283580...
(I'd love said logs)
Personally, I just try to explore what I can. I regularly post on HN because these are computer related investigations or things I find interesting. I was hoping it would lead to interesting discussion about how to validate this stuff, or someone to point out I'm wrong (and thus I could improve my analysis). Don't we all want discourse and to improve our understanding of reality.
I'm just the super curious, I have to know the world to make it better. I also love when I hear some confusion I do FOIA requests, pull data and dive in. I don't care about the results at the start. Exploring the data helps me make informed decisions.
(I'd love said logs)
Personally, I just try to explore what I can. I regularly post on HN because these are computer related investigations or things I find interesting. I was hoping it would lead to interesting discussion about how to validate this stuff, or someone to point out I'm wrong (and thus I could improve my analysis). Don't we all want discourse and to improve our understanding of reality.
I'm just the super curious, I have to know the world to make it better. I also love when I hear some confusion I do FOIA requests, pull data and dive in. I don't care about the results at the start. Exploring the data helps me make informed decisions.
Thanks, I had not seen that one yet. I agree, the more that these are shared, the sooner they get reviewed by other experts who can debunk them, and we all improve our knowledge. Looking forward to whatever comes of this one.
People seem to conflate understanding an opponents argument with accepting the opponents argument.
>NOTE: I make no real claims in there, simply state the counter argument to the main media narrative
You claim that, and you might be acting in good faith, but enough bad faith actors have used the "I'm just asking questions" excuse that any fringe/conspiratorial material is assumed to be bad faith, and therefore flagged.
You claim that, and you might be acting in good faith, but enough bad faith actors have used the "I'm just asking questions" excuse that any fringe/conspiratorial material is assumed to be bad faith, and therefore flagged.
Why isn't this post removed for meta discussion?
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...
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...
Did you mean to post that link? It doesn't give any information on a reporter being banned from reddit.
bendbro(9)
HN is the perfect example why censorship is getting more and more extreme.
If we are going to have an honest conversation about censorship in the United States, we must call out the political left as the principal perpetuator. Whether it's college campuses violently protesting conservative speakers (e.g. Ben Shapiro), tech platforms banning and labeling speech they disagree with (e.g. Twitter, YouTube, Reddit), or corporate America demonizing those whose speak the truth and/or hold differing views from politically left ideologies (e.g. James Damore), postmodern leftist ideology, as articulated so poignantly by Dr. Jordan Peterson, is not only attacking our free speech, but drawing under question the very ideas that form the foundation of our country. I think I speak for many rational liberally-minded small-government constitutional conservatives when I say that it has become increasingly dangerous for us to even have our ideas, let alone express them. This notion that because you feel your ideas you give the moral high-ground you can justify doing horrible things to your fellow citizen with whom you disagree with must be stopped.
The only way to do this is to embrace decentralized and unmoderated platforms. We've lost the freedom of the distributed internet by exchanging it for the convenience of centralized platforms like google and facebook. Even hacker news, and reddit are centralized dictatorships with a bit of democratic groupthink tossed in (effectively minimizing provocative content).
I think we'll start to see stuff built on IPFS and libp2p that will break that trend at least for some of us. Maybe it'll be like the internet used to be, for the technically inclined who aren't afraid of being offended or offensive.
I think we'll start to see stuff built on IPFS and libp2p that will break that trend at least for some of us. Maybe it'll be like the internet used to be, for the technically inclined who aren't afraid of being offended or offensive.
Have you read James Damore's essay? If you look at only the abstract theory, there wasn't a whole lot of 'think differently' or rebellious points of view in there. Totally identical mindset to the status quo establishment. He just decided to be rude while presenting his arguments using non-technical language, and pointing out things about people that they're powerless to change. That's what makes it scary. For example, no one would have thought the worst of him if he wrote a treatise talking about behavioral correlations between samples having or not having the sry gene and called out publishers for suppressing such statistics. Instead he called women neurotic. Not a great way to speak truth to power.
Not defending the rest of damore but the neurotic thing is a reference to well known research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism. The fault in that case lies with whoever named a technical research concept using a word that already had negative popular associations.
Gov. outsourced its censorship to corporations. That is why HN censors all alternatives to the mainstream.
[deleted]
And what do you think these nation states are going to do once your corporate browser won't let you visit HTTP sites? They're going to use the centralization of HTTPS cert authorities to completely control of public speech. Sure, you can self sign, or leave HTTP on, but no one will be able to access it.
>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.
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.
Why can't I ask someone at the government directly exactly what their policy is on blocking websites, which sites are blocked, and what the legal basis for blocking is? And get a real, detailed, authoritative answer? And contest that answer if it does not meet legal standards?
The current standard is far, far removed from that. They can block a site or surveil you without any realistic accountability. The legal system is technically a recourse, but that works only in horribly egregious cases like NSA spying revealed by Snowden, and after years of delay after the case has faded from public consciousness. Even that didn't change anything about how the government acts today. And we would not have known about it if it hadn't been for "illegal" whistleblowing.
When the average person can't even get straight answers from the government about how they govern, let alone influence that policy, that is a failure of democracy. We are trying to solve problems in the democratic functioning of government using technology, but that will only ever be a cat and mouse game. These f decided on their own that mass surveillance & censorship is okay, and we are left trying to use technology to hide when we should be able to demand a national conversation about what kinds of surveillance is okay.