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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

#411

Post by int_19h »

ketzo wrote: post #130
nprz wrote: post #54

Remember how the usefulness of the internet and social media was championed by media during the Arab Spring movement? Now it's suddenly a threat to our democracy. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/16/21570072/obama-interne...

I mean, in that article, he makes a pretty coherent point: > Obama: If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work. And by definition our democracy doesn’t work. We are entering into an epistemological crisis. I don't think that's out of place in a conversation about today's internet/media landscape. He's not saying "the internet i…

If we don't have the capacity to distinguish what's true from what's false, then nothing works. Putting the government (or any other third party) in charge of censorship for the sake of filtering out what's false just moves the decision elsewhere - but it's still made by some people somewhere. Whether those people are determined directly or indirectly through some democratic process, or self-appointed, the same problem applies recursively.

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

#412

Post by lawnchair_larry »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #161
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.

I have no idea how you can keep telling yourself that when the top 10 shared links on Facebook have been nothing but conservative conspiracy theories for over 12 months straight.

That is irrelevant to the claim. Facebook doesn’t share links, the users do. The allegation of bias are associated with inconsistent and/or incorrect applications of their rules.

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

#413

Post by lawnchair_larry »

leanstartupnoob wrote: post #64
artursapek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which government agency is censoring Twitter? Conservatives and libertarians LOVE to bleat about property rights, but they can't handle it when private parties won't provide free advertising for right-wing conspiracies.

You’ve learned how to do a straw man. Next, try your hand at the steel man. Feel free to look it up!

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

#414

Post by doktrin »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #49
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…

Looking in the citations in the article itself, these are the references provided, neither of which seem entirely convincing to me: https://calvinayre.com/2018/05/10/business/norway-approves-g... https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/norwegian-politic...

That PIA blog post is not exactly high quality.

> Norwegian politicians from the Christian People’s Party are shocked that there is porn on the Internet, and want it eliminated – censored off all the Internet pipes as though the pornography doesn’t exist.

There's some truth here, but it's presented in a shoddy way. Yes, KrF (Christian People's Party) has at various times made noises about pornography DNS filters. I don't recall all the specifics, but various proposals have included opt-out DNS filter and/or filters in schools and such. While I don't support these proposals, I think the language used really exaggerates the reality (and few or none of these measures have ever gained much headway, either at the national or local level)

> If you read the Norwegian Christian paper, though, it is expressing itself very positively toward this censorship (which is somewhat weird for a newspaper, any newspaper – those generally oppose censorship vehemently and defend any and all freedom of the press).

They really dug deep on this one. The paper in question (Dagen) has a circulation of slightly over 10,000. That's not even among the top 20 in the country [1]. I'd be skeptical of assigning much weight to their coverage.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Norway

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

#415

Post by Pokepokalypse »

n0nc3 wrote: post #131
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.

Conversely, it has never been easier to inject true claims that are inconvenient for gatekeepers. What tilts the balance of equities in favor of censorship for you?

Seems like it should be TRIVIAL; (if backed up by legal authority of governments - and that's the REAL trick) - to cause all claims to be properly categorized.

Either something is OPINION, or it's FACT. And anything that is Factual, could have the privilege to be labeled as such. Things that are proven not-true or misinformation, or unsupported - they could be permanently labelled "bullshit" and why the hell can't we do this?

Because people will skirt the system. Unless we have a government that supports rule of law.

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

#416

Post by lawnchair_larry »

tstrimple wrote: post #362
ttt0 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could bet money that the opposite of what you're saying is true. But I think that illustrates a much bigger problem. The society is so polarized, that we can't even agree on basic facts. Something went terribly wrong with the internet and the media and now we're living in two completely different realities, that are fundamentally incompatible with one another.

I would take that bet and your money. https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/10/two-new-studies-show-again...

That report doesn’t address the censorship complaints at all.

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

#417

Post by Pokepokalypse »

WalterBright wrote: post #248
busterarm wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, before you had to be rich enough to buy the newspaper to print crazy bullshit, but that certainly happened (and still happens) too.

> rich enough to buy the newspaper That's not how it worked. The moment Gutenberg invented the printing press, printers popped up everywhere and printed anything and everything. That means newspapers, newsletters, pamphlets, flyers, advertisements, bills, leaflets, everything. It was cheap to print, not remotely restricted to the rich, and you certainly did not need to buy a newspaper. Schools print newspapers, busin…

Really this is central to how the USA started, as there were several among the founding fathers who printed newsletters.

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

#418

Post by joegahona »

jedberg wrote: post #310
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.

We tried that on reddit a long time ago. It didn't work. We realized that a lot of people just want to see the discussion. I always click on the comments first myself to see if the article is even worth reading.

The OP is talking about posting comments, not viewing them.

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

#419

Post by lawnchair_larry »

ojbyrne wrote: post #181
paxys wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? It's the exact opposite. In the US sites like Facebook & Twitter routinely refuse to censor conservative content even if it is against their policies because they are afraid of pissing off Republicans in Congress. A "liberal" on Facebook calling for the beheading of a conservative politican would be banned (possibly even arrested) immediately. The opposite can and does happen every day, with no penalty. And all…

I think that the right has moved the Overton Window so much to the right that they see things that most of the world would see as mainstream (Black Lives Matter, Abortion, Medicare for All, Defund the Police, Anti-Fascism etc) as extreme.

You might want to familiarize yourself with the criticisms of those. You might also want to familiarize yourself with what those organizations and ideologies are actually about beyond their slogan (which in most cases has nothing to do with what the slogan is).

But either way, defund the police is not mainstream anywhere - that’s pretty universally understood to be a fringe (and ridiculous) proposition, and has already proven its devastating consequences.

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

#420

Post by slg »

cortic wrote: post #374
slg wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The censorship of the good information is the problem. And it probably started with censorship of bad information that lead to the bubble in the first place. There is nothing nefarious about bubbles. They happen automatically when people are in control of what they consume. Imagine I join Twitter and I am given a list of people to follow. I don't like to hear from people with viewpoints that I think are crazy so I u…

>I am now in a bubble despite there being zero censorship of anything. Its still censorship, but i see what you are getting at. > Stopping that message from spreading to more people seems like a more effective approach Your example would be stopped whether true or false, as it would likely be the wealthy in charge of whats deemed true.

>Its still censorship

How? The bubble is purely a result of my own choices in what I see. Is CNN being censored if I don't tune in to watch every night?

>Your example would be stopped whether true or false, as it would likely be the wealthy in charge of whats deemed true.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with QAnon, but I was referencing an actual real world conspiracy that hasn't been stopped.

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