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Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

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Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s saying there is to reliable journalism, and that shattering the illusion that there is is a good thing.

It's not a good thing. You risk committing a false equivalence. Saying there is no 100% reliable journalism is technically accurate, as all news organizations make mistakes and are subject to biases. But some news is more reliable than others: Reuters is not Breitbart.

Exactly. There are news outlets that will hold themselves to a standard and issue corrections and there are news outlets that care more about clicks than truth. These are not equivalent.

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#112
post #52
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I feel it's on us tech people to enable them the free speech they deserve. It's clearly not a technical problem, so it's foolish to try to find a technical solution. This kind of silicon valley elitist Tellerism is doing more harm than good in cases like these.

Actually, it is. It is very much a technical problem. Technology has not yet provided a super-fast, truly decentralized, perfectly uncensorable “Internet for All” solution. If we had that, a lot of this discussion would be moot. Someone in Dalat could teach Vietnamese to any number of foreigners, without any adversary being the wiser. Anyone in China could read up on Tiannenmen Square or the “Free Tibet” movement wit…

Very well said, thank you.

As for tor and the dark web, more important than being fast & solid is ease of use. If we design platforms, protocols, etc by default to be censorship free, then many projects to fill gaps will follow. Tor was an attempt, but failed at widespread adoption, maybe we need something smaller to begin with. E2E encrypted chat apps was a good first step, we need more.

We take many things here in the US for granted. When I go back to my home country, I feel odd sense of insecurity, now imagine people living there for their whole lives - they take censorship as normal and go with it. With censorship comes with censored imaginations, research and so on.

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#113

It's an interesting progression - 5 years ago the Vietnamese government was trying to block Facebook (it was pretty easy to get around). Then they gave up on that and allowed everyone on Facebook, and now they are more concerned with dissent so I guess they are going to patrol social media. It's interesting that they have not decided to return to their previous policy of blocking Facebook. They have some pretty stran…

Any idea what their reasoning is?

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want to operate somewhere they're going to have to comply with local laws. What is your comprehensive alternate?

I heard someone mention once that Richard Stallman’s extremism is valuable (in part) because, by setting one end of the spectrum so far out, he moves the middle in his direction. By cowing to oppressive government demands, rather than support the side of the spectrum they were born on, Facebook and YouTube allow the middle to move towards oppression. In the same way that you do not reward a child’s tantrum with their…

... or you're more interested in organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful (information is more accessible if one works within a government's censorship framework and delivers what is allowed to be delivered than if one deprives an entire nation of access to basic information because a subset of information is controversial).

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#115
post #22

I'm sure they are getting their playbook from their Chinese friends. Even Japan is getting more heavy handed than they were, and in Asia, they are the most liberal of all governments in comparison. Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, all heavy handed as regards the Internet. Russia, China, most of the former Balkan states, Turkey... Brazil, even.

Careful with that high horse buddy! Progressive western countries aren’t exactly new to internet censorship either: https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/21/15847262/german-facebook-...

To view the issue through the lens of extremes: blocking easy search-engine access to child pornography is a form of censorship, and nearly nobody thinks it's a bad idea.

All large companies execute some level of censorship and all countries have standards of decorum. The question is really how much censorship one tolerates, not whether any at all is tolerable.

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#116
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying this would be a bad thing? While I think the internet provides amazing and revolutionary communications options to the human race, Facebook is quite clearly not among them.

Yes. It's the bad thing. Who is to decide whether FB is bad? If you want to fight disinformation on FB, then fight it. But discriminate against using FB is the not the way.

Each individual would choose for themselves whether FB is bad... That's why he said self-censorship. Is there a better alternative when fighting disinformation isn't an option that an individual can (or would) realistically choose?

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#117
post #52
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I feel it's on us tech people to enable them the free speech they deserve. It's clearly not a technical problem, so it's foolish to try to find a technical solution. This kind of silicon valley elitist Tellerism is doing more harm than good in cases like these.

Actually, it is. It is very much a technical problem. Technology has not yet provided a super-fast, truly decentralized, perfectly uncensorable “Internet for All” solution. If we had that, a lot of this discussion would be moot. Someone in Dalat could teach Vietnamese to any number of foreigners, without any adversary being the wiser. Anyone in China could read up on Tiannenmen Square or the “Free Tibet” movement wit…

The scenario you're describing is unlikely to be deliverable.

Any system sufficiently user-friendly to be accessible to the bulk of the global populace is also user-friendly to government authority. Because inevitably, passwords get misplaced and authentication / authorization tokens get forgotten or stolen, and then the average user needs an authority to turn to to re-establish their connection to the network.

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#118
post #68
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about the manner of delivery: "Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden"[1] Notice the and condition, it has to be threatening and intended to harass for example. Just causing someone distress without the intend to harass or threaten is not illegal, so someone feeling upset about what you said is perfectly fine. But if you said it t…

> "Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden" Prohibitions like this one are overly broad and smother a lot of legitimate discussion. Exceptions to free speech used to be limited to things like: * Don't yell "fire" in a crowded theater. * Don't call for violence. If we broaden the scope to any speech someone, somewhere might take offense to,…

> Don't yell "fire" in a crowded theater.

As far as I know, this is a really bad example. I don't think it even supports what you want to say, there is too much to this particular example and its history: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be at first glance. The EU initiative you linked to at least seems to try to "[balance] fundamental principles such as freedom of expression, media pluralism, and the right of citizens to diverse and reliable information" in its wording. It also seems to be a committee linked to a EU cabinet, and thus is not directly sponsored by a national military force. The Vietnamese "cyber-army" in contrast seems to…

"[balance] fundamental principles such as freedom of expression, media pluralism, and the right of citizens to diverse and reliable information" Typical EU-style communication. The word "balance" conjures up images of health, reason, yoga classes and whole grain breakfasts. But in the end, it still represents a worldview of enlightened apparatchiks vs idiotic plebes. Why does there need to be a "balancing act" betwee…

It's more, I suppose, the idea that multiple sources of information should be supported ("pluralism"). There is no such thing as an unbiased news source, so it is best in the long run for multiple sources of news to exist, each with their own viewpoint. It is easier to obtain a more informed opinion if one makes the effort to escape single-viewpoint media. Furthermore, by highlighting "freedom of information", there is at least a signal of intent to try and keep a degree of openness in the process, in that review of what they would call "fake news" does not infringe on that right as much as possible.

Whether you think the EU will actually accomplish what they say, that's another story. My guess is, it is very likely that the process will be more transparent and allow more leeway, versus what is going on in Vietnam -- a single political party controlling opinion through opaque military concerns. All nations / parties / political philosophies produce propaganda and advocacy pieces, that is not news. Vietnam, however, has never been known for generous press freedom. In fact, it recently has been cracking down heavily on all opinion points that do not reflect the ruling party (https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21731192-american-indiff...).

I don't see an equivalent in the EU right now, to be honest. Once Western governments start arresting bloggers and journalists for having an opinion differing from the government like Vietnam is doing, let me know.

Re: Vietnam Deploys Cyber Warriors to Fight ‘Wrongful Views'

#120

It's an interesting progression - 5 years ago the Vietnamese government was trying to block Facebook (it was pretty easy to get around). Then they gave up on that and allowed everyone on Facebook, and now they are more concerned with dissent so I guess they are going to patrol social media. It's interesting that they have not decided to return to their previous policy of blocking Facebook. They have some pretty stran…

Facebook just became better at marketing their "engagement/consensus/echochamber as a service" to governments.
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