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

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

news.umich.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 645 posts

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

#231

Post by muyuu »

the Internet golden age of freedom won't be back for the mainstream, it was an artefact of its rapid explosion and the inability of large State players to react in time. We've seen the window between the period when it was below the radar and the period when its threat was recognised but counter-measures were not developed - but that is pretty much over

of course there will always be spaces of freedom but they won't be so easily accessible for the average person - or else there will be draconian measures to "correct" that situation

the big revelation is that the majority of the people in the "free world" (also euphemistically called "the West") are clamouring for these freedoms to be ended, which is a societal phenomenon one wouldn't have expected 10, 20 years ago... but these changes were coming regardless

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

#232

Post by tehjoker »

andrekandre wrote: post #100
tehjoker wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing free speech as an impediment to nationalist competition is rich. Nationalist competition appears to corrode every civil liberty and thing that makes life worth living that we have. What if we had international cooperation instead of a death match? I guess certain business people would not make as much money.

> What if we had international cooperation instead of a death match? competition is at the heart of our economies at a deep level, both within and without... i suspect this wont change until internally our economies are more cooperative than competitive (im not holding my breath)

This is why I am not a philosophical adherent to capitalism.

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

#233

Post by rbanffy »

lettergram wrote: post #188

Of my past 10 posts on HN 6 have been flagged and removed by users. Of those, many made it to the front page with 10+ votes. I contacted Dang and he was clear it was users censoring it, further that some users were also "vouching" for my posts. It's to the point, people don't want to know. I feel I'm fairly even handed in my discussion. Here's a couple of my posts (who knows if I'll get flagged): - Public Safety Anno…

> both sides of the political spectrum have no idea what the other is claiming.

I'm not sure that's true. As your post about Michigan voter database points out, one side is making up facts they themselves don't believe in order to push the perception the results are invalid. The objective is not to reverse the results, which it's very unlikely they'll be able to do, but to use the perception to justify moves you allude to on the first post.

All in all, this is dangerous territory here in HN, as most of the debates around these end up in shouting matches.

Presenting multiple sides of an argument is only productive if all sides are engaging the debate honestly.

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

#234

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

ketzo wrote: post #130
nprz wrote: post #54

Remember how the usefulness of the internet and social media was championed by media during the Arab Spring movement? Now it's suddenly a threat to our democracy. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/16/21570072/obama-interne...

I mean, in that article, he makes a pretty coherent point: > Obama: If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work. And by definition our democracy doesn’t work. We are entering into an epistemological crisis. I don't think that's out of place in a conversation about today's internet/media landscape. He's not saying "the internet i…

Disinformation assumes the average person is stupid though. Whose to say the inherent undisputable (because you can't prove or deny) conspiracy theory someone believes is true? Why is the onus on media companies to police how we want to live our lives and believe in whatever nonsense we want to? I play videogames and watch tv shows, because it inspires me to think a particular way outside of the norm, should it be banned? This is literally the same argument about banning and burning books.

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

#235

Post by Der_Einzige »

d23 wrote: post #182
varispeed wrote: post #40

The problem is that we didn't teach people about manipulation techniques because that was governments' favourite tool to control the masses. Now that anybody can reach anyone with any information, bad actors use these techniques to control people to their advantage. Governments' are now in an awkward position - ramp up education in these areas and forever give up a tool that worked for ages, or censor the information…

Did you or the responders read the article? This reads like an assumption that the article is about tech companies in the United States and their effects to combat election misinformation. It's not. The part about the United States says this: > 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 widesp…

HN really needs a way to force people to have at least clicked on the article before posting. Maybe something where the article has to be clicked on, and then a X minute timer is started so that people will be strongly incentivized to read the article before commenting.

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

#236

Post by rbanffy »

twotimeonly wrote: post #197

If the rest of the content in this article is as misleading as the part about Norway it is useless. The allegations about Norwegian ISPs blocking human rights websites and match.com are demonstrably false. As part of a wider European effort there is an DNS-based block (The Child Sexual Abuse Anti-Distribution Filter (CSAADF) is part of the COSPOL Internet Related Child Abusive Material Project (CIRCAMP))run by the IS…

A while back it was not possible to get to the Pirate Bay from Ireland. Not sure how it is now.

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

#237

Post by skocznymroczny »

ed_balls wrote: post #211
natoliniak wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is unclear from the article what sites were censored in Poland and by whom (and i couldn't figure it out in the sourced paper). However, if in fact the Polish govt has censored any human rights websites, I feel like that should be bigger news there. AFAIK Poland only blocks access to certain gambling sites, which are publicly listed here: https://hazard.mf.gov.pl/

so is it fake news then?

I'm Polish and I am not aware of any website blocking. While censorship on government website may occur, and the pro-government media may omit certain facts, I don't think any websites were actually blocked.

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

#238

Post by tsimionescu »

AntiImperialist wrote: post #221
scottlocklin wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Foreign interference" has been going on from day 0 in the United States Agree. Not as effective as today. But yes. Anyone who actually use the excuse of "foreign interference" for totalitarian censorship basically basically doesn't believe in the concept of democracy. Agree. I think Democracy has failed because the tools of propaganda have become very effective. Democracy died in the U.S. a long time ago... the Deep…

You're mostly right in everything, except that 'the Deep State' is not that deep and is not that much part of the state - most US propaganda is actually pretty transparently done by the corporate sector. We call it PR and marketing now, but it is exactly propaganda, used to great effectiveness everywhere in the world. Teb other major leg of US propaganda is the entertainment industry, which is also extremely effective at selling grand narratives, and has a very favorable lens from which it always presents the US and its allies, whether it be in gaming, mass market films, or even critical darlings (see the fawning reception the extremely pro-American, pro-militaristic 'The Hurt Locker' got everywhere in the critical press).

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

#239

Post by bitwize »

varispeed wrote: post #40

The problem is that we didn't teach people about manipulation techniques because that was governments' favourite tool to control the masses. Now that anybody can reach anyone with any information, bad actors use these techniques to control people to their advantage. Governments' are now in an awkward position - ramp up education in these areas and forever give up a tool that worked for ages, or censor the information…

ⓘ Claims about censorship in the United States are disputed. Click here for more info: https://xkcd.com/1357/

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

#240

Post by rbanffy »

walrus01 wrote: post #44
cbozeman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posts like these are dangerous because there's simply not enough people that realize you're being facetious.

"dripping with sarcasm" in audible speech works fine, in text, not so much

My deadpan delivery always gets me here. I can't use it with sarcasm.
Post reply on HN