Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Iran's government moves to criminalize VPNs (2021)

article19.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 52 posts

Re: Iran's government moves to criminalize VPNs (2021)

#21

Post by Gigachad »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #11
ta8645 wrote: post #4

There are similar moves to "make people accountable" for their online actions in the west as well; only the details differ, the motivation is the same -- structural control of online activities and content.

Quoted post unavailable.

This is probably not the worst idea. Would mean a lot of sites go invite only though. Which might be an improvement but it does lower accessibility though.

And I don’t think it would be enough for the modern wave of political censorship. It isn’t enough to just not look at content you don’t like, you have to ensure others can’t see it either.

Stuff like semi private discord servers for example are being targeted.

Re: Iran's government moves to criminalize VPNs (2021)

#23

Post by kornhole »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #11
ta8645 wrote: post #4

There are similar moves to "make people accountable" for their online actions in the west as well; only the details differ, the motivation is the same -- structural control of online activities and content.

Quoted post unavailable.

Then why are you on HN? HN is a great example of where people can speak honestly and respectfully without worry of recrimination from companies or governments.

Re: Iran's government moves to criminalize VPNs (2021)

#24

Post by bigDinosaur »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #11
ta8645 wrote: post #4

There are similar moves to "make people accountable" for their online actions in the west as well; only the details differ, the motivation is the same -- structural control of online activities and content.

Quoted post unavailable.

The greatest damage ever done by speech (i.e. motivation to start wars, genocides) has been done by fully identifiable people. Anonymous online speech is a total red herring. All current major threats are due to fully non-anonymous people doing bad things (e.g. Putin, heads of cartels, the current head of $terrorist_group), not anonymous online commenters.

Conversely, one of the greatest threat to authoritarians is speech that cannot be easily traced. Hard to put you in prison (or cross international borders to kill or capture or threaten you) if you're anonymous.

What if your online comment is discussing the latest example of police corruption you've seen in your local PD? That would be a very local example of where not being anonymous may easily threaten you, but being anonymous can still let others start investigating.

Re: Iran's government moves to criminalize VPNs (2021)

#25

Post by moviewatcher333 »

insightcheck wrote: post #17
jay_kyburz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Anonymous speech is important for anti-corruption. The Washington Post's Watergate investigation would not have taken place without the anonymous sourcing by "Deep Throat."

Opponents of anonymous speech are aware of this. That’s why they’re opposed to it.

Re: Iran's government moves to criminalize VPNs (2021)

#29

Post by lostcohort »

kornhole wrote: post #23
jay_kyburz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Then why are you on HN? HN is a great example of where people can speak honestly and respectfully without worry of recrimination from companies or governments.

To be fair, he's not hiding his name or anything, so he's upholding his end of the non-anonymity part.
Post reply on HN