5 ms·

Chinese censorship policy is considered fair game but American censorship policy isn't? Strange perspective.

nailer 17y ago
This isn't censorship. You're welcome to submit the article to any site you want. I think it's a good article, and deserves to be read. But this is forum for discussing technology, startups, and hacker-relevant topics. Edit: if the article itself contains something about technology, it's clearly not the main subject, which is prisoner abuse.
- trevelyan 17y ago
  "It was important, he said, that servicemen make no comments or suggestions that in any way undermined the official report. He reminded the soldiers and sailors that their phone and email communications were being monitored. The meeting lasted no more than twenty minutes." ------- There is more, but you have to read the article.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  I find this disintegration of moral standards a very hacker-worthy issue. Hackers have been on the forefront of the defense of civil rights in a moment when technology advances much faster than the law can react to it or society can absorb it. A guy was arrested a couple days back because he jokingly vented his frustration on Twitter. Another had his face stamped on a most wanted criminals list seen around the planet because a technician found using his face would save him some work. We understand this changing technologies better than most. We can help.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Eric Raymond finds gun control to be a very hacker-worthy issue, and firmly believes that true hackers are all libertarians. Many people clearly believe that atheism is a hacker-worthy issue, because creationists are disrupting science classes. Where does it end? Nowhere. It never ends. You let one of these stories through, you let them all through, and bang, we're Reddit.
    - trevelyan 17y ago
      I see that this article is off the front page despite having around sixty up-votes. It has been replaced by an essay informing us that Bill Gates is on Twitter. I didn't submit this article, but I'm posting this in case you personally catch it tptacek, because I'm disappointed you've succeeded in shutting down discussion. And I'm also disappointed that a third of all comments made on this thread to date are by you and are focused on preempting discussion and accusing others of being off-topic. In most online environments that would count as trollish behavior. Downvoting and flagging is one thing and I think you're certainly in your rights to use those tools to sculpt the sorts of discussions you want to take place here. Coopting interesting and informative threads by launching trollish attacks on the relevance of the material is another. Most of the replies to your post were perfectly civil. As someone who is personally running a startup outside of the United States, I find that US policy on the War on Terror has a much stronger effect on my business (particularly through regulations affecting international money transfers, credit card processing and air travel) than a host of other issues including things like start-up visas or security vulnerabilities and other subjects you presumably consider much more on-topic given your own business. Articles that touch on these topics are on-topic to me. So even disregarding the most interesting and relevant thing about this article - the fact that military censorship of communications technologies and then FOIA blackouts apparently kept this story away from the popular media for four years - it is not irrelevant as a policy issue for a lot of people who are not you. In the future, if you want to shut down a discussion by all means flag it, but don't ruin the discussion space for those who are actually curious what others think.
      - tptacek 17y ago
        The military has censored communications since time immemorial. I've been a factor in a lot of discussion on Hacker News that I haven't managed to "shut down". What's shutting down this "discussion" is that there isn't anything to discuss productively. We could continue trying to provoke a fruitless discussion by extrapolating further and further from the story; "the US is evil", etc. That might pick a pointless fight. Thankfully, I think Hacker News is largely innoculated from discussions like that. The fact of the matter is that this isn't an article about how the War On Terror affects startups, and it isn't an article about censorship. If you want to have a discussion about those topics, write a blog post. It will be relevant to Hacker News, and I will vote it up.
rbanffy 17y ago
A couple months ago I had a conversation with an experienced diplomat. He kindly reminded me not all cultures value democracy, freedom of speech and rule of law equally. And it saddens me a lot to know I disagree with most of my fellow citizens about those values.
- andreyf 17y ago
  And it saddens me a lot to know I disagree with most of my fellow citizens about those values. Most people's opinions about foreign policy are more or less identical to their opinions about sports: "our team yeah, their team boooo!"
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    The difference is that supporting soccer teams seldom becomes law.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      That wasn't a value judgement about the topic, it was a value judgement about the quality of the discussion the topic produces.
rbanffy 17y ago
The scope is different. China censors all its population and is very aggressive in doing so. This is more on the lines of "Here we do lots of bad things in order to protect the freedom of our country. Tell nobody about it. And, BTW, we will be watching you". It's despicable either way.
- tptacek 17y ago
  I submit this comment as evidence for why articles like this are toxic to Hacker News. Note that we're now arguing about whether military censorship --- and, don't you people watch WW2 movies or M.A.S.H.? --- is evidence of some startling new trend.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    I am not arguing about military censorship. It's understandable when they don't want their folks to blog about troop deployment or operational details of new weapons. I am arguing about using it to cover up crimes. And there is the part about China. I am not sure I understood the comment and its motivations. I would like to explore why trevelian made the comparison. We can learn a lot about ourselves by entering difficult discussions.

This isn't censorship. You're welcome to submit the article to any site you want. I think it's a good article, and deserves to be read. But this is forum for discussing technology, startups, and hacker-relevant topics. Edit: if the article itself contains something about technology, it's clearly not the main subject, which is prisoner abuse.

trevelyan 17y ago
"It was important, he said, that servicemen make no comments or suggestions that in any way undermined the official report. He reminded the soldiers and sailors that their phone and email communications were being monitored. The meeting lasted no more than twenty minutes." ------- There is more, but you have to read the article.
rbanffy 17y ago
I find this disintegration of moral standards a very hacker-worthy issue. Hackers have been on the forefront of the defense of civil rights in a moment when technology advances much faster than the law can react to it or society can absorb it. A guy was arrested a couple days back because he jokingly vented his frustration on Twitter. Another had his face stamped on a most wanted criminals list seen around the planet because a technician found using his face would save him some work. We understand this changing technologies better than most. We can help.
- tptacek 17y ago
  Eric Raymond finds gun control to be a very hacker-worthy issue, and firmly believes that true hackers are all libertarians. Many people clearly believe that atheism is a hacker-worthy issue, because creationists are disrupting science classes. Where does it end? Nowhere. It never ends. You let one of these stories through, you let them all through, and bang, we're Reddit.
  - trevelyan 17y ago
    I see that this article is off the front page despite having around sixty up-votes. It has been replaced by an essay informing us that Bill Gates is on Twitter. I didn't submit this article, but I'm posting this in case you personally catch it tptacek, because I'm disappointed you've succeeded in shutting down discussion. And I'm also disappointed that a third of all comments made on this thread to date are by you and are focused on preempting discussion and accusing others of being off-topic. In most online environments that would count as trollish behavior. Downvoting and flagging is one thing and I think you're certainly in your rights to use those tools to sculpt the sorts of discussions you want to take place here. Coopting interesting and informative threads by launching trollish attacks on the relevance of the material is another. Most of the replies to your post were perfectly civil. As someone who is personally running a startup outside of the United States, I find that US policy on the War on Terror has a much stronger effect on my business (particularly through regulations affecting international money transfers, credit card processing and air travel) than a host of other issues including things like start-up visas or security vulnerabilities and other subjects you presumably consider much more on-topic given your own business. Articles that touch on these topics are on-topic to me. So even disregarding the most interesting and relevant thing about this article - the fact that military censorship of communications technologies and then FOIA blackouts apparently kept this story away from the popular media for four years - it is not irrelevant as a policy issue for a lot of people who are not you. In the future, if you want to shut down a discussion by all means flag it, but don't ruin the discussion space for those who are actually curious what others think.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      The military has censored communications since time immemorial. I've been a factor in a lot of discussion on Hacker News that I haven't managed to "shut down". What's shutting down this "discussion" is that there isn't anything to discuss productively. We could continue trying to provoke a fruitless discussion by extrapolating further and further from the story; "the US is evil", etc. That might pick a pointless fight. Thankfully, I think Hacker News is largely innoculated from discussions like that. The fact of the matter is that this isn't an article about how the War On Terror affects startups, and it isn't an article about censorship. If you want to have a discussion about those topics, write a blog post. It will be relevant to Hacker News, and I will vote it up.

rbanffy 17y ago

A couple months ago I had a conversation with an experienced diplomat. He kindly reminded me not all cultures value democracy, freedom of speech and rule of law equally. And it saddens me a lot to know I disagree with most of my fellow citizens about those values.

andreyf 17y ago
And it saddens me a lot to know I disagree with most of my fellow citizens about those values. Most people's opinions about foreign policy are more or less identical to their opinions about sports: "our team yeah, their team boooo!"
- rbanffy 17y ago
  The difference is that supporting soccer teams seldom becomes law.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    That wasn't a value judgement about the topic, it was a value judgement about the quality of the discussion the topic produces.

rbanffy 17y ago

The scope is different. China censors all its population and is very aggressive in doing so. This is more on the lines of "Here we do lots of bad things in order to protect the freedom of our country. Tell nobody about it. And, BTW, we will be watching you". It's despicable either way.

tptacek 17y ago
I submit this comment as evidence for why articles like this are toxic to Hacker News. Note that we're now arguing about whether military censorship --- and, don't you people watch WW2 movies or M.A.S.H.? --- is evidence of some startling new trend.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  I am not arguing about military censorship. It's understandable when they don't want their folks to blog about troop deployment or operational details of new weapons. I am arguing about using it to cover up crimes. And there is the part about China. I am not sure I understood the comment and its motivations. I would like to explore why trevelian made the comparison. We can learn a lot about ourselves by entering difficult discussions.