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

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

#481

Post by nickthemagicman » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 5:54 AM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #145

DrJones1098 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't have both censorship of things you don't like (anti-vaxx things) and no censorship of things you do like. Religion could be classified as mis-information but that helps a lot of people. Who is the final arbitrator of what is determined as misinformation? If one religion took control that one religion could classify another religion as mis-information and censor them. If one political actor took control they…

The problem is that the scales are completely unbalanced when it comes to information vs misinformation. There is political and financial incentives at play to spread misinformation. It isn't as simple as "the best ideas win" as most social media platforms make it REALLY easy to manipulate the narrative. For example, if some politician will negatively impact my business, I can hire a BUNCH of people to go out and wri…

The only thing that works is trusting humans to be smart enough to make their own decisions and not forcing rules upon them.

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

#482

Post by Thorrez » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 5:55 AM UTC

bori5 wrote: post #467

old-gregg wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel the world needs to go through a learning period where everyone realizes that whatever they read on the Internet is default false The world had 50+ years to learn this about the TV, but didn't. Don't hold your breath.

The Parade https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles/XMinusO...

I don't really see how this is very similar.

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

#483

Post by dheera » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #453

The big problem in todays age is we can no longer assume the government is accountable to us, or even get straight answers from the right people there. Why can't I ask someone at the government directly exactly what their policy is on blocking websites, which sites are blocked, and what the legal basis for blocking is? And get a real, detailed, authoritative answer? And contest that answer if it does not meet legal s…

In this age among democracies it also isn't just governments that are blocking content -- it's companies that play gatekeeper in communications between people. People have stopped reading traditional forms of interpersonal communication, so my only way to get messages out to friends is through platforms like Facebook.

Unfortunately, Facebook themselves like to play gatekeeper on what my friends see and don't see, which I personally think is unethical. For example, if I post something about the election, its visibility may be restricted among my friends, so I need to do all kinds of Unicode upside-down tricks to prevent Facebook from even knowing my post is about the election. If I post a Youtube link instead of a Facebook video, Facebook downranks it because Youtube is a competitor, and downranks it to the point that friends don't actually see it. Sometimes they downrank text only posts to the point that I need to include e.g. a cat picture to get Facebook to give it the proper visibility.

I once posted to my feed something about donating to a particular disaster relief NGO, only to be censored out by Facebook because they mostly censor external links (only a small fraction of friends actually see them). No friends saw it in the first hour in their feed. I asked several and they didn't see it in their feed. Fishy, eh? I delete the post and re-post the same thing saying "Google for XYZ to find the donation website" instead of an actual link and BAM 40+ likes in the first hour and several friends donated.

Personally I think this corporate censorship is unethical. It's okay for Facebook to play the ranking game with business-sponsored media but definitely NOT okay with them doing that between friends who have mutually agreed to follow each other. I'm okay with a "popular posts" section on top of everything else, but the "everything else" really must include every single post of all of the people I have chosen to be friends with unless I specifically tell them to mute a particular person's content.

Ironically, WeChat doesn't engage in this type of censorship. They obey government censorship, but besides that, I can guarantee on WeChat that a post that I make that passes the government test will be seen by every single contact if they happen to be looking at the feed. I much prefer that model, rather than Facebook's sporadic random non-transparent censoring.

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

#484

Post by colordrops » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 6:28 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #461

hliyan wrote: post #434

I'm coming to the realization that misinformation has to be combatted at the ear and not the mouth. I feel the world needs to go through a learning period where everyone realizes that whatever they read on the Internet is default false and they need to verify before they believe anything. In the least they need to verify credibility of sources, if not individual articles or tweets. I suppose what we're experiencing n…

Trusting sources and verifying information is actually an incredibly hard game. Being too credulous leaves you open to misinformation, but on the other hand, being uncritically skeptical leads to the current "fake news" environment where (to those involved) no source is credible and we might as well all just believe whatever meets our preconceptions and dismiss the rest.

Do you have a suggestion or thesis? It's not so hard that it couldn't be taught to average humans. Even if it was extremely hard, it should still be taught, considering its importance.

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

#485

Post by anticodon » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 6:32 AM UTC

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #453

The big problem in todays age is we can no longer assume the government is accountable to us, or even get straight answers from the right people there. Why can't I ask someone at the government directly exactly what their policy is on blocking websites, which sites are blocked, and what the legal basis for blocking is? And get a real, detailed, authoritative answer? And contest that answer if it does not meet legal s…

I don't get what any government has to do with it. Almost all information now is consumed via Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. These are private companies that has their own censorship rules and push their own agenda aggressively. Government has no control over this, even USA government as was seen recently when Facebook blocked links to NYT articles and Twitter was censoring Trump twits.

All other countries (except for China that just blocks Google entirely) have to live with the fact that all information consumed by their citizens is controlled by private companies from USA.

E.g. when I just started using YouTube, most of my recommendations in Russia were "opposition" channels (mostly by notorious A. Navalny - a daft populist). When I ignored one channel from YouTube recommendations, it offered me another channel with the same content. I had to explicitly ignore these channels for months before it stopped offering them to me. It still continue to offer me channels with more subtle and clever anti-Russian propaganda. Pro-Russian channels on YouTube are blocked regularly. Pro-Russian videos are blocked even more often or they are hidden from search results (e.g. when someone does a video about rampant rusophobia in a movie or a game).

I've canceled my Facebook account because of this. My FB feed was always full of rusophobic articles and all accounts that are even mildly pro-Russian (I'm talking about accounts of Russian people living in Russia) are regularly blocked temporarily or permanently.

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

#486

Post by petre » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 6:34 AM UTC

tootie wrote: post #474

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #453

The big problem in todays age is we can no longer assume the government is accountable to us, or even get straight answers from the right people there. Why can't I ask someone at the government directly exactly what their policy is on blocking websites, which sites are blocked, and what the legal basis for blocking is? And get a real, detailed, authoritative answer? And contest that answer if it does not meet legal s…

Snowden had nothing to do with censorship. I haven't seen a credible accusation of internet censorship against the government in recent memory. Private companies can refuse to serve certain customers. And obviously there's copyright law and government secrecy laws. But no personal expression is banned.

US ”censorship” happens through AI flagging and demoting content, screaming louder than the next guy, distorting the narrative, DMCA takedowns. And it's quite effective. A high percent if people won't ever see the content. One can probably still see it if they take extra steps.

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

#487

Post by tptacek » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 6:39 AM UTC

n0nc3 wrote: post #452

tptacek wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even have to reach this question to support my argument. You're effectively comparing 2020 to 2015. I'm comparing 2020 to 1980.

You can't just toss out core enlightenment principles because a handful of loud simpletons latch on to bad ideas. Not without explaining why.

I object to the claim that I've tossed out any "core enlightenment principles" by observing that we have drastically fewer gatekeepers now than we did in 1980.

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

#488

Post by tptacek » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 6:41 AM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #455

tptacek wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am well aware; read my comment in light of that.

In 1957 there was a television for just about every 5 Americans, an average family size of 3.6 and not that much programming to watch. Mike Wallace effectively gave the KKK a forum reaching everybody in the United States... That's much more effective than Twitter. Your comment doesn't read any better.

You can watch the Eldon Edwards video right now, with a single Google search, to see how untrue it is that the KKK had in 1957 anything resembling the access to the discourse they have today.

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

#489

Post by jedberg » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 6:44 AM UTC

joegahona wrote: post #418

jedberg wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So was I.

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

#490

Post by unishark » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 6:54 AM UTC

tootie wrote: post #474

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #453

The big problem in todays age is we can no longer assume the government is accountable to us, or even get straight answers from the right people there. Why can't I ask someone at the government directly exactly what their policy is on blocking websites, which sites are blocked, and what the legal basis for blocking is? And get a real, detailed, authoritative answer? And contest that answer if it does not meet legal s…

Snowden had nothing to do with censorship. I haven't seen a credible accusation of internet censorship against the government in recent memory. Private companies can refuse to serve certain customers. And obviously there's copyright law and government secrecy laws. But no personal expression is banned.

I think Snowden was just a general reference to needing whistle-blowers to bring accountability because the rest of us are in the dark.

But I think the point doesn't apply as well here. People measuring censorship thought of that already and aren't simply relying on govt to share info on the censorship it does. They also test access to sites. Obviously non-transparent regimes everywhere will often censor discretly (e.g. a story exposing their corruption).