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An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

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Re: An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

#11

Post by kmeisthax »

throw0101d wrote: post #4

With regards to the section on Flooding: > We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”[2] > Contempora…

Reminds me of what the Church of Scientology did to USENET's alt.religion.scientology newsgroup[0].

More generally, I think the Internet is unusually useful for this kind of attack. The netheads that built it had a very specific political view - namely, that censorship is network interference with a political motive. "The Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it", and all that. Ergo, all we have to do to have free speech is build better networks.

Censorship by free speech - i.e. flooding / sporgery / etc - is the "GPL judo move" of dictators. You want unimpeded network traffic? Heheh, sure. Fine. We can have 'free speech'. Free speech for me and my twenty billion alts all saying the same thing, too!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporgery

Re: An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

#12

Post by raphlinus »

nottorp wrote: post #10

Interesting, when I saw the title i thought it's an article about self censorship of entertainment in order to not offend any possible pressure group. Seems to be about present day dictatorships though.

I think the distinction is not as hard and fast as you make it out. I found "Tools for thinking about censorship"[1] to be extremely thought-provoking. There are many nuanced arguments, but a central one is that governments often leverage self-censorship in order to effect their control over the flow of information.

[1]: https://www.exurbe.com/tools-for-thinking-about-censorship/

Re: An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

#13

Post by amadeuspagel »

Orwell wrote about subtle censorship in a preface to Animal Farm[1] -- the book itself is about totalitarian censorship in the Soviet Union, the preface is about a more subtle censorship in britain that made it hard to publish the book.

[1]: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

Re: An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

#14

Post by amadeuspagel »

kmeisthax wrote: post #11
throw0101d wrote: post #4

With regards to the section on Flooding: > We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”[2] > Contempora…

Reminds me of what the Church of Scientology did to USENET's alt.religion.scientology newsgroup[0]. More generally, I think the Internet is unusually useful for this kind of attack. The netheads that built it had a very specific political view - namely, that censorship is network interference with a political motive. "The Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it", and all that. Ergo, all we have to do…

Usenet was useful for this kind of attack, the internet allows you to create moderated forums that can withstand it.

Re: An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

#15

Post by pvg »

throw0101d wrote: post #4

With regards to the section on Flooding: > We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”[2] > Contempora…

It's interesting that this take on Russian propaganda is itself a becoming a little outdated - flooding makes sense externally given you have external channels for it and internally, where the channels might be a given but the regime does not want to appear overly coercive.

Russia now has fewer external channels than it did in 2016 (your link) and 2021 (posted link). It's more coercive internally and a more coercive (but reasonably rational) regime needs more consistent internal messaging so that people know where the line of trouble is - defining the limits of public behaviour and expression becomes a more important part of the propaganda. There's still 'flooding' but it isn't sufficient.

Re: An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

#16

Post by jancsika »

Has anyone made a kind of interactive post-Orwellian censorship sandbox? Seems like LLMs should make this possible.

E.g., the user posts a trivially true thing and the LLM starts to reply with falsehoods, half-truths, concern trolling, etc. If the user can keep the truth above some percentage of the posts (or get the truth to bubble up to top comment) then they win that level.

Maybe even different levels like Space Invaders so the LLM speeds up with each level, perhaps even adding more sock puppets each level.

Would definitely be instructive. If done right it should also have an effect on the way the user consequently reads and assesses content on HN, Reddit, etc. :)

Re: An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

#17

Post by pixl97 »

pvg wrote: post #15
throw0101d wrote: post #4

With regards to the section on Flooding: > We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”[2] > Contempora…

It's interesting that this take on Russian propaganda is itself a becoming a little outdated - flooding makes sense externally given you have external channels for it and internally, where the channels might be a given but the regime does not want to appear overly coercive. Russia now has fewer external channels than it did in 2016 (your link) and 2021 (posted link). It's more coercive internally and a more coercive…

There is still plenty of flooding, but it looks more like these days it's about social media account creation that generates content to get picked up by superspreaders. At least for foreign consumption this seems more effective.

https://www.youtube.com/@RyanMcBethProgramming talks about this on a number of his videos.

Re: An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

#18

Post by gsinclair »

photochemsyn wrote: post #7

This article is a bit narrow in scope, e.g. > "Horrified by Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany, Orwell spun a tale that continues to color how we picture state censorship in controlled societies." Orwell was equally 'horrified' by the British Empire's imperialist practices, which he documented in then-Burma. See "Shooting an Elephant" for example: George Orwell: "I had already made up my mind that imperialism…

I don’t get it. I see Palestinian advocacy all over the place.

Re: An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

#19

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

I think the biggest danger for censorship in the US is public/private censorship cooperation.

The government is prohibited by the First Amendment from censoring.

However, due to the centralization of the Internet, most communication passes through just a few gatekeepers.

Congress holds hearing decrying content that they do not have the right to officially censor, but nevertheless use this to make their wishes crystal clear. Present for those hearings are the leadership of these gatekeepers, who are also made aware of all the other levers that Congress has that could make their lives miserable - anti-trust, section 230, copyright, not to mention government contracts.

Of course like Henry II who never actually ordered Becket's death, Congress doesn't actually order censorship, just makes it clear that censoring those things would make them very happy.

Re: An illustrated guide to post-Orwellian censorship (2021)

#20

Post by BLKNSLVR »

kmeisthax wrote: post #11
throw0101d wrote: post #4

With regards to the section on Flooding: > We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”[2] > Contempora…

Reminds me of what the Church of Scientology did to USENET's alt.religion.scientology newsgroup[0]. More generally, I think the Internet is unusually useful for this kind of attack. The netheads that built it had a very specific political view - namely, that censorship is network interference with a political motive. "The Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it", and all that. Ergo, all we have to do…

Meta comment: this is the second comment within a couple of weeks that's critical of Scientology that's fairly quickly attracted down votes.

Ironic?

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