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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

#461
post #434

I'm coming to the realization that misinformation has to be combatted at the ear and not the mouth. I feel the world needs to go through a learning period where everyone realizes that whatever they read on the Internet is default false and they need to verify before they believe anything. In the least they need to verify credibility of sources, if not individual articles or tweets. I suppose what we're experiencing n…

Trusting sources and verifying information is actually an incredibly hard game. Being too credulous leaves you open to misinformation, but on the other hand, being uncritically skeptical leads to the current "fake news" environment where (to those involved) no source is credible and we might as well all just believe whatever meets our preconceptions and dismiss the rest.

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

#462

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…

>NOTE: I make no real claims in there, simply state the counter argument to the main media narrative

You claim that, and you might be acting in good faith, but enough bad faith actors have used the "I'm just asking questions" excuse that any fringe/conspiratorial material is assumed to be bad faith, and therefore flagged.

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

#463
post #434

I'm coming to the realization that misinformation has to be combatted at the ear and not the mouth. I feel the world needs to go through a learning period where everyone realizes that whatever they read on the Internet is default false and they need to verify before they believe anything. In the least they need to verify credibility of sources, if not individual articles or tweets. I suppose what we're experiencing n…

How should we handle misinformation from official sources? It wasn't that long ago the New York Times told the world they had evidence of Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction, setting off a chain of events that literally killed hundreds of thousands of people. In today's political climate, the misinformation that led to the Iraq War could never have been exposed.

Edit: surely I'm not the only one who remembers how the NYT almost singlehandedly started a war based on false reporting?

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

#464
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, they even have a selection that is translated to english [1]. However I don't know what kind of terms I would search for. I tried "DNS", but it didn't give me anything. I also tried "internet blocking", no luck there either. [1]: https://lovdata.no/register/loverEngelsk

If I'm inferring correctly from the wiki page on Norwegian internet, the DNS blacklist is not made public as they mention it was posted to wikileaks back in 2009. At the time I believe this was exclusively a CP blacklist [1] The mandate to block torrent sites came about as a result of a court order following a lawsuit brought forth by Hollywood studios against Norwegian ISPs [2]. I tried to find the specific text on…

I believe it is the court case with ID TOSLO-2015-67093 [1]. Trough my old university account I still have access to lovdata pro so I was able to search for it and view it. I am to lazy to reupload it tonight, but if you are interested I could do it tomorrow.

[1]: https://lovdata.no/pro/#document/TRSIV/avgjorelse/toslo-2015...

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

#465

It is not surprising that this would happen in a democratic state. Democracy is not necessarily friendly to individual rights and freedoms. If the majority of citizens want to take your freedom away, you have no recourse in a democratic society. What we recognize as freedoms and human rights are more appropriately associated with limited government, separation of powers, and republics. We often associate democracies…

>What we recognize as freedoms and human rights are more appropriately associated with limited government, separation of powers, and republics.

There's a term for this, "liberal democracy".

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

#466

Interesting article. It doesn't look at corporate/social media censorship, but government and ISP censorship is still dangerous. I found quite surprising that Japan censored The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal for G20. What would be the reason for that? It's not like they would provoke disturbances. Also, ISP censorship on Norway. Corporate overreach, or unofficial cooperation between them and government?…

> Interesting article. It doesn't look at corporate/social media censorship, but government and ISP censorship is still dangerous. Is a company having policies about what users can store on the company owned servers actually censorship? I find it weird that you used “still dangerous” to describe government/ISP censorship. To me that is the most dangerous form a censorship.

Corporate/social media censorship is now the en vogue censorship and the one we are most problems with, at least in the western world. Or maybe it's the one with most publicity. In comparison, government/ISP censorship seems to have died out and be pretty mild. However, something like China's censorship is much worse than social media. I thought we luckily would be free of such, but I do consider Poland western, and Japan a reputable democracy. It is still dangerous because a threat we thought dead or dormant is still active.

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

#467
post #434

I'm coming to the realization that misinformation has to be combatted at the ear and not the mouth. I feel the world needs to go through a learning period where everyone realizes that whatever they read on the Internet is default false and they need to verify before they believe anything. In the least they need to verify credibility of sources, if not individual articles or tweets. I suppose what we're experiencing n…

> I feel the world needs to go through a learning period where everyone realizes that whatever they read on the Internet is default false The world had 50+ years to learn this about the TV, but didn't. Don't hold your breath.

The Parade https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles/XMinusO...

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

#468

The big problem in todays age is we can no longer assume the government is accountable to us, or even get straight answers from the right people there. Why can't I ask someone at the government directly exactly what their policy is on blocking websites, which sites are blocked, and what the legal basis for blocking is? And get a real, detailed, authoritative answer? And contest that answer if it does not meet legal s…

Completely agree with your sentiment. I think the only recourse is to aggressively use the legal system for any case of arbitrary censorship. If you are blocked, you must sue your ISP and/or the government. Articles like this make me happy that we at least have a few organizations to help with this (EFF). Hopefully, with a new administration net neutrality can be restored as well.

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

#469
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read that, I immediately dismissed the whole article. Both HRW and match.com are available on the 4/5 ISPs I have access to ATM. Home (Telenor), mobile (Telia), server host (domeneshop), my office (Telia, wired) and a customer network (Not sure about the downstream ISP). On the last one match.com is blocked by a firewall not the ISP. They should really check thier sources. My guess is that they tested on a net…

I agree from a Japanese point of view. I never heard any ISP censorship except child porn. Censoring news sites must be huge news but never heard.

Yeah, the article mentions some news sites being banned temporarily in Japan, but as someone who reads those sites near daily, I never noticed it happening.
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