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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

#161

Post by Fauntleroy »

war1025 wrote: post #51
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.

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.

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

#162

Post by shripadk »

This is fine to analyze (and I am sure there are thousands of research papers on internet censorship) but what about big tech censorship? Will that ever be included in all these research papers? What about big tech violating their own policies vis-à-vis content moderation, shadow banning and banning accounts without a proper reason? I feel censorship is more layered that it doesn't make sense to only hold Governments responsible. Hold everyone accountable. Not just the Government.

I find it funny that we crib about Government or ISP censorship while completely ignoring big tech censorship. When it comes to big tech, we give them a shield of "oh they are private companies and can do what they want". The nature of the organization has nothing to do with censorship (which is more a moral issue than a legal issue).

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

#163

Post by jml7c5 »

naringas wrote: post #141
AussieWog93 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is that we didn't teach people about manipulation techniques I don't know where you're from, but it's part of the Victorian (possibly Australian) curriculum for all year 12 students. And we still ended up with Rupert Murdoch.

just because it's in the curriculum doesn't mean it will be taught well. consider (for example) k-12 mathematics pretty much anywhere...

Ah, but that was intentional! We didn't want people to really understand statistics, because that was governments' favourite tool to control the masses. ;-)

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

#164

Post by war1025 »

paxys wrote: post #134
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.

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…

Since my experience is the complete political reverse of what you describe (liberals getting away with things that conservatives assume they never could), I think the real answer is that probably there is less censorship in general than people assume.

And I suppose that's probably a good thing.

> And all this still isn't relevant because we are talking about government censorship.

Agreed that the article is about government censorship, and I commented before I read the article.

However, given that the US government at least has shown very little backbone in its threats to regulate social media companies, their tendency toward more censorship also seems concerning.

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

#165

Post by EasyTiger_ »

paxys wrote: post #134
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.

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…

Are you intentionally trying to gaslight people? This is just straight up false. See Kathy Griffin holding a bloody Trump - a tweet which she’s retweeted multiple times.

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

#166

Post by john_moscow »

>While the United States saw a small uptick in blocking, mostly driven by individual companies or internet service providers filtering content, the study did not uncover widespread censorship.

Am I the only one that finds this hypocritical? So, a handful of individual companies controlling what most of the people in the U.S. will see online is no problem. These companies being funded by a small group of SV investors and not serving the interest of its users (since users don't pay for Google, Facebook or Twitter) is OK. These companies having a very strong incentive to help a certain political party, due to its lenience in antitrust and bailout matters is OK. These companies filtering ideas and conversations that could reduce the popularity of that party, where the country is already very divided, is also OK.

But India blocking a site relevant to a small fraction of its population is major threat to the Democracy.

Well, maybe that's because had the authors published any other outcome, they would never find another job in Academia anymore, due to pressure from numerous activists. But the problem is Poland, of course.

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

#167

Post by war1025 »

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.

Facebook is taking a much more hands-off approach than Twitter.

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

#168

Post by zozbot234 »

scottlocklin wrote: post #133
AntiImperialist wrote: post #63

As great as free press and democracies are, they also come with huge weaknesses. Those make it easy for foreign propaganda to influence the public and hence run the countries from outside. Thanks to The Great Firewall and the CCP rule, China is mostly immune to foreign propaganda. At the same time, China is using a lot of effort to affect countries with democracy and free speech, like India and the U.S. China is obvi…

Anyone who actually use the excuse of "foreign interference" for totalitarian censorship basically basically doesn't believe in the concept of democracy. "Foreign interference" has been going on from day 0 in the United States. It very obviously got us into WW-1 (the British -a largely untold but very obvious info ops campaign for something that served no US national interest), it got us into the middle east (nothing…

> to the point we can't make enough surgical masks in the US to protect our people

Fake News. The U.S. used to have a huge stockpile of surgical and N95 masks as part of their pandemic preparedness plans. The stockpile was gradually depleted and not replenished adequately. It was pure complacency on the part of government; please let's not blame trade openness for this.

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

#169

Post by busterarm »

tptacek wrote: post #76
busterarm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

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.

You know that Mike Wallace interviewed an Imperial Wizard of the KKK on his show in 1957, right?

And Ayatollah Khomeini.

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

#170

Post by slg »

paxys wrote: post #119
slg wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> A free and open internet also allows propaganda and hate to flourish I disagree. Sure there will always be some amount of misinformation on the internet, but a fully state-controlled media and internet (see - China) is far, far more effective at spreading propaganda and controlling the narrative.

This isn't a binary choice between a fully state controlled internet and a fully free and open internet. There is a spectrum. I believe the ideal internet rests much closer to the free and open side than the state controlled side, but existing at the extreme of free and open would be come with its own set of problems. Just look at all the most popular places on the web that champion their lack of censorship or moderation. Most of them end up as cesspools.
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