‘Extremely aggressive’ internet censorship spreads in the world’s democracies • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by babas » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

vinni2 wrote: post #28

> 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…

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.

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

#102

Post by slashdev » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

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.

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...

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

#103

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

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.

> 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?

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

#104

Post by justicezyx » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

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...

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

#105

Post by teraku » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

lilactown wrote: post #56

busterarm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yes, it's feudalism

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

#106

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

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.

Regardless of whether or not that was a tactic of Mussolini, that is most definitely not the definition of fascism.

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

#107

Post by oblio » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #86

tptacek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#108

Post by bendbro » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #60

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

> bans

Ironic given the context

> redemption

I'm actually in the confession booth right now, so consider my sins redeemed!

In seriousness, what do you find so horrible about this post? I thought it was fun.

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

#109

Post by throwsofaraway » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 10:29 PM UTC

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

#110

Post by mattnewton » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 10:29 PM UTC

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.

> 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"