Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies

news.umich.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 645 posts

Re: ‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies

#51

Post by war1025 »

paxys wrote: post #24

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.

Re: ‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies

#52

Post by Shivetya »

cambalache wrote: post #11
grezql wrote: post #8

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 w…

Let the laws and courts determine that. Not Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey.

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.

Re: ‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies

#53

Post by dragonwriter »

cambalache wrote: post #11
grezql wrote: post #8

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 w…

Let the laws and courts determine that. Not Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey.

> 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?

Re: ‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies

#55

Post by ilikehurdles »

cambalache wrote: post #11
grezql wrote: post #8

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 w…

Let the laws and courts determine that. Not Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey.

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.

Re: ‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies

#56

Post by lilactown »

busterarm wrote: post #47
varispeed wrote: post #40

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…

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".

That's not the literal definition of fascism but it's also Not Good(tm).

Re: ‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies

#58

Post by chrisco255 »

codemac wrote: post #38

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.

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.

Re: ‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies

#59

Post by artursapek »

war1025 wrote: post #51
paxys wrote: post #24

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.

Exactly. There's nothing "nationalist" about the type of censorship we're seeing on Twitter. If anything it's the opposite.

Re: ‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies

#60

Post by colechristensen »

bendbro wrote: post #7

It is extremely dangerous to our democracy to have unlimited free speech. 1. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences. 2. Corporations aren't the government, so the first amendment doesn't apply. 3. Haven't your heard of "fire in a movie theater"? 4. Hate speech IS violence. 5. Reading disinformation from un-check-marked, non-fact-checked sources is anti scientific. Since all scientists have check marks, we…

dang I would like to see posts like this effect bans, there’s simply no value here and little chance of redemption for someone who writes something like this
Post reply on HN