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

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

#261

Post by ekianjo »

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".

If thats your litteral definition of fascism I suggest you get yourself a dictionary. Please dont make blanket statements to describe complex phenomenons.

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

#262

Post by cirno »

throwsofaraway wrote: post #109

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 t…

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

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

#263

Post by nobody9999 »

busterarm wrote: post #224
JoshuaDavid wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Chemistry is just applied Physics.

And yes, for all you mathematicians out there, Physics is just applied math. :)

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

#264

Post by cortic »

slg wrote: post #98
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.

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.

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

#265

Post by WalterBright »

newguy1234 wrote: post #217
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…

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 entertai…

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.

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

#266

Post by Der_Einzige »

gruez wrote: post #255
Der_Einzige wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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

#267

Post by dalbasal »

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.

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

#268

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#269

Post by selestify »

gruez wrote: post #255
Der_Einzige wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why are you so opposed to reading something before commenting on it?
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