The Big [Censored] Theory • Hacker News Board

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#781

Post by ipython » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

epups wrote: post #760

ipython wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? The mainstream media didn’t cover the hunter biden laptop? https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/hunter-...

This piece is from 2022. I'm talking about the time when Twitter and Facebook banned publication of the original NY Post publication, which would have affected elections. We now know the FBI demanded this of Facebook.

So you’re saying your average voter never managed to land somewhere on breitbart and see the 82 point headlines about the hunter biden laptop?

https://web.archive.org/web/20201014171957/http://breitbart....

Look, I’m just on my phone so I’m not going to dig up archive links showing the post article all over the web at the time, but really - what do you want? The emergency broadcast system activated to push the story to everyone’s phone like an amber alert?

I was there - and honestly the news about “suppressing” the ny post story just encouraged me to go read it more, ala the Streisand effect. Which is exactly what I did out of morbid curiosity. I encountered no issues finding the story, had no issues with authorities as a result of searching for it and reading it and took no precautions to protect my identity while doing so.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#782

Post by snowwrestler » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

brigandish wrote: post #756

snowwrestler wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a single one of those stories was suppressed by the government in the U.S., which is what the article details happening in China. In fact many government officials supported and promoted those stories. Disagreement among private parties, or getting less private promotion than you wanted to get, is not “censorship”. It’s free speech in action.

> Not a single one of those stories was suppressed by the government in the U.S. How long were the FBI in possession of Hunter Biden's laptop, why is Mark Zuckerberg trying to blame them for the censorship of the NY Post's story, and do you consider the FBI to be part of the government?

Zuck is trying to blame the FBI to draw attention away from the fact that it was his company that decided to limit the sharing of that story.

The government tells publishers all the time not to print things. The decision is up to the publishers. That’s free speech.

What do you think the government said when the Washington Post called them up and said “we have a bunch of top-secret stuff that one of your contractors stole from the NSA”? The Post published the Snowden stories anyway. This sort of thing happens a lot.

Many people posted and talked about the Hunter laptop story. None of those people went to jail for it.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#783

Post by earth_walker » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 1:39 PM UTC

hackerlight wrote: post #572

welshwelsh wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree. An individual's rights should have nothing to do with the people who happen to surround them and what they happen to think. If different countries allow different things, that would mean that what a person is allowed to do would depend on where they happen to live, which is usually close to where they happened to be born. That doesn't make any sense to me- the lottery of birth should have no im…

Possibly true, but can we at least agree that a democratic majority deciding to censor something is significantly better than a dictatorship deciding to censor something?

I disagree. The majority is never informed enough to make a good decision on something as nuanced as censorship. At least a dictatorship could, theoretically, be benevolent and act on the advice of experts.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#784

Post by Waterluvian » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 1:42 PM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #277

wrs wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a home version of this called ClearPlay that auto-redacts movies and TV. It actually started with DVD players (!) but now does streaming. Ref: https://amazon.clearplay.com/

My Mormon neighbors tend to use VidAngel, which got in huge trouble with an absolutely hilarious payment model. 1. VidAngel purchases a bunch of Blu-ray discs and stores them in a warehouse 2. Tag all the content of a film and create filters so the user can, for example, filter out all sex and violence but leave in vulgarity 3. User "purchases" a Blu-ray for $20 (!!) and VidAngel says, "since we now know you're the o…

That sounds clever and feels obviously legal and fine. I’m shocked that it’s not.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#785

Post by epups » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

ipython wrote: post #781

epups wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This piece is from 2022. I'm talking about the time when Twitter and Facebook banned publication of the original NY Post publication, which would have affected elections. We now know the FBI demanded this of Facebook.

So you’re saying your average voter never managed to land somewhere on breitbart and see the 82 point headlines about the hunter biden laptop? https://web.archive.org/web/20201014171957/http://breitbart.... Look, I’m just on my phone so I’m not going to dig up archive links showing the post article all over the web at the time, but really - what do you want? The emergency broadcast system activated to push the story…

I'm not even sure what your point is here. I'm telling you that the FBI ordered two major social media platforms to suppress sharing of a truthful news story for political reasons. It's also a fact that most media outlets did the same. This is state censorship, and the fact that you could go to Breitbart or whatever fringe news site, or that you personally did so, doesn't change absolutely anything about that.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#786

Post by 6stringmerc » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

MichaelCollins wrote: post #651

jjeaff wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some Mormons may have "weird puritan" values, simply wanting censorship options for some movies is something that many families would like to have, not just Mormons. And I don't think it's necessarily puritan to want to cut out that one or two scenes of a head exploding in an otherwise family friendly flick.

I actually agree, but I got the sense that the company being mormon was meant to bias the reader of that comment towards thinking that the company was in the wrong. I hoped to drive the conversation past that prejudice by conceding and dismissing it rather than pushing back against it, because I felt that on this forum pushback would likely prompt a religious flamewar rather than a discussion about digital rental. Us…

Mormons have a well-documented refusal to assimilate while concurrently using devious and mono-social-mind power to cheat the systems they benefit from and complain about frequently. If there’s one home grown US group that embodies “have their cake and eat it too” it’s culturally ingrained in the definition of being a practicing Mormon.

Now if you object, replace the word Mormon with Skinhead regarding mentality of others not in the group, and maybe you’ll get the picture.

Source: non Mormon with about 10 years living in Zion (SLC)

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#787

Post by rurban » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #447

teawrecks wrote: post #439

> When the Netflix-produced Korean show Squid Game went viral and won awards worldwide, many Chinese netizens were asking on social media — when can a Chinese TV show be recognized in that way? Fascinating. I mean, the answer is obvious to everyone else in the world, but it'll be interesting to watch them figure it out over the next few decades. Is Squid Games even allowed in China?

I mean, yes lack of censorship, but there are plenty of countries with little censorship that haven't had the same level of success as Korea in TV shows either. Look at Germany, for example. Big country, economic powerhouse, but German TV shows and movies have little broad international appeal.

German movies which want to be recognized overseas usually go the Nazi road. That always guarantees an Oscar nomination.

And some weird dry German shows had appeal in similar weird neighboring countries (Neitherlands, Russia, China, South Africa, ...) such as Derrick. Unrelated to the fact that its main actor was in the Waffen SS. This related factoid didn't help though.

Similar to the recent run of northern (danish & swedish) TV shows and trash literature in Germany. Proper quality foreign shows, like southern, indian or east asian shows would stand no chance.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#788

Post by danjoredd » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 1:57 PM UTC

still_grokking wrote: post #409

danjoredd wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more extreme in China than in America. In addition to sex, lgbt, and other things of a similar nature, movies with magic are especially rejected. Ever notice how movies seem to be getting more bland and milk/toast each year? its because there is a lot of money in China, and China only accepts a few foreign movies each year. Disney, Warner Bros, etc. all want a slice of that pie so they comply with Chinese censo…

> Germany is almost as bad, I agree, […] I hope we didn't reach Chines levels by now, and that there is still hope. But yes, we're working hard on that and "like" to reach their level soonish. Our variant of the Ministry of Truth gets shaped out a little more with every year. Since the so called "Netzwerkdurchsuchungsgesetz"¹ we've got really close I guess. But there's already more coming: "Chatkontrolle"²… > […] but…

Yes, games were censored, but they stayed the same for the rest of the world. Its a simple value change to make the blood green, so it was easy to pull off. For companies vying to get into China, they have to change the whole product for nearly everyone to get accepted, or have massive amounts of that product censored, and made to be a lesser product as a result. For those companies, why would you risk not only being rejected but having your movie gutted when you can just rewrite the whole thing to work with what the Chinese want? Thankfully videogames are not nearly as concerned with getting china dollars as movie studios so we aren't getting that kind of widespread global censorship yet. But really, its only a matter of time unless something cracks.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#789

Post by _kbh_ » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 1:57 PM UTC

ginger2016 wrote: post #326

briantakita wrote: post #129

Companies & Governments in the US & West censor for political reasons. Why is this any different?

Oliver Stone’s “Ukraine on Fire” won’t be shown on network television in US.

Is network television in the US obligated to show Russian propaganda?.

Re: The Big [Censored] Theory

#790

Post by YurgenJurgensen » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

MichaelCollins wrote: post #308

coryfklein wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Mormon neighbors tend to use VidAngel, which got in huge trouble with an absolutely hilarious payment model. 1. VidAngel purchases a bunch of Blu-ray discs and stores them in a warehouse 2. Tag all the content of a film and create filters so the user can, for example, filter out all sex and violence but leave in vulgarity 3. User "purchases" a Blu-ray for $20 (!!) and VidAngel says, "since we now know you're the o…

Leaving aside the matter of Mormons and their weird puritan sensibilities, what this company essentially did was reinvent movie rental, but because they did it on the internet instead of a brick and mortar shop we're all expected to think it obvious and self evidence that what they did was horrible. In other contexts on sites like this, "do [common thing] but on a computer" patents get mocked and derided because "but…

If you ran a movie rental shop using consumer copies of movies you bought from HMV or Target or whoever, you'd've been sued if the rights holders found out. Rental copies that came with a licence that permits renting cost several times what it cost to buy a consumer copy. And of course, when you sign a deal to get said rental copies, you probably have to agree to a bunch of conditions that probably include not doing exactly what they did.