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

91–100 of 645 posts

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

#91

Post by jsnk »

AntiImperialist wrote: post #63

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 obvi…

> 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.

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

#92

Post by colechristensen »

gameswithgo wrote: post #46
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…

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?

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.

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

#93

Post by dumpsterdiver »

Cerealkiller050 wrote: post #25
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…

This post is gonna be a good litmus test to see how many people read this comment to the end before they start attacking their keyboards

I'd be fine just getting the minute back of my life that I spent reading it. I don't think that reading off a list of contemptuous claims and insults is in any way productive, even when they are intended as satire. Are we not divided enough?

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

#94

Post by thowawaymom »

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.

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

#95

Post by jml7c5 »

tehjoker wrote: post #70
AntiImperialist wrote: post #63

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 obvi…

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.

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

#96

Post by ketzo »

busterarm wrote: post #77
lilactown wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.

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

#97

Post by war1025 »

r00fus wrote: post #69
war1025 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

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

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

#98

Post by slg »

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.

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.

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

#99

Post by mlillie »

> 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.

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

#100

Post by andrekandre »

tehjoker wrote: post #70
AntiImperialist wrote: post #63

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 obvi…

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?

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)

Post reply on HN