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Nine years of censorship
- alex20 10y agoI had friends who supported the muzzling. "They are just trying to spark propaganda and brainwash our society" was what one in particular said. I just dropped the subject from there on out :|
- bcpermafrost 10y agoIts crazy that people think that throwing out documented statistics and facts is brainwashing. I hate tinfoil hat conspiracies. Its starting to plague society and get people disconnected from problems that need immediate attention. Its good you dropped the subject, there's just no reasoning with them.
- philovivero 10y agoIt would be good to remember that a vast majority of people don't respond to reason. They respond to emotion. If you make someone feel good about your argument, they will agree with your argument. It seem the more likely one is to want to help society, the less likely that person understands this fundamental aspect of human nature. And so somehow the ones who really GET IT are the ones in power, and the ones who don't want to make anything better. It's so refreshing when you find a persuader in charge of everything who also wants to make everything better, like say Duterte in the Philippines, for example.
- intended 10y agoThe ones who get it are also the ones who stick with the concept of doing good long enough, to learn the facts you mentioned.
- snowwindwaves 10y agoIt seems papers were still published, but government scientists were not allowed to say whatever they wanted to the media outside of what they said in their scientific papers. I don't presume to speak for the organization I work for or the industry I work in.
- bduerst 10y agoIt seems the internet is rewarding more and more those who can manufacture outrage, with clicks, likes, karma, affirmation, etc. It's no wonder then that it pervades into peoples lives, shaping their world view and even their presidential candidate selection.
- striking 10y agoDropping the subject isn't always the best idea. It's only a good idea if they're unreasonable individuals. You can often have very interesting conversations with well-reasoned but poorly-informed people.
- blue_dinner 10y agowell, the same thing happens when people would like to discuss alternative theories to the causes of climate change. The BBC, for instance, outright bans anyone that talks about it (and so do many other forums), which is outright censorship. We should be fighting for the freedom to discuss any topic, not just a select few that matches up with the current narrative.
- mediumdeviation 10y agoThat's funny, because in 2014 the BBC was admonished by independent reviewers for giving too much airtime to climate change deniers under their 'too rigid' impartiality guidelines [1]. From the Telegraph [2] > The BBC’s determination to give a balanced view has seen it pit scientists arguing for climate change against far less qualified opponents such as Lord Lawson who heads a campaign group lobbying against the government’s climate change policies. Andrew Montford, who runs the Bishop Hill climate sceptic blog, former children’s television presenter Johnny Ball and Bob Carter, a retired Australian geologist, are among the other climate sceptics that have appeared on the BBC. I think I agree with the BBC's own comedian's take on this, which is to give each side time proportional to the amount of support they have from experts in the field. In other words, for every ten minutes of airtime for climate experts on climate change caused by humans, we can have 18 seconds, or 3% of climate skeptics speaking. [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/07/bbc-admonished-for-giving-climate-change-deniers-equal-air-time/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/0... [2]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10944629/BBC-staff-told-to-stop-inviting-cranks-on-to-science-programmes.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10944629/B...
- intrasight 10y agoHopefully some day US scientists will be granted the same freedom to discuss their research.
- adventured 10y agoThe US Government, directly or indirectly via funding, publishes more open scientific research than nearly the entire rest of the planet combined. That spans segments ranging from space to medical to habitat to energy.
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoUh what is Obama suppressing exactly here? If anything, the US has one of the most, if not the most open and prolific science publishing in history. Does every HN political post need a highly upvoted 'But the US is worse' cite-less snarking?
- Retric 10y agoMuch of this stuff is not visible. Back in the No Child left behind days some people relatively high up in the administration where harassing a researcher based on her research. I found this out from one of her graduate students not the news. I don't recall all the details, but a large part of the push was centered around a politically connected company selling some education materials. And the research suggested that approach was not useful. Now extend that to issues people actually care about and I suspect a lot of this stays under the radar.
- intrasight 10y agoIt's no Obama or any one person. It is an institutional thing. Certainly people, especially presidents, can change the institutions. That's what we're witnessing in Canada. I'm not snarking nor saying the US is worse. But it's a fact that unless your title includes "spokesperson" then you are not fully at liberty to speak.
- intrasight 10y agoHere the "cite" you were looking for http://www.ucsusa.org/center-science-and-democracy/promoting-public-access-science/grading-government-transparency-2015 http://www.ucsusa.org/center-science-and-democracy/promoting...
- 6stringmerc 10y agoPersonally when I read about this kind of censorship it reminds me that these types of people - those craving power, and willing to go to great lengths to achieve it as an ends unto itself, with apparently little regard for the notion of serving the general public - also want access to every citizen's communications, whereabouts, and under the auspices of security, safety...peace... Well, in a world where information wants to be free - good information and exposes, and even bad information like debunked anti-vaccine hoopla - those who seek to control it should be viewed suspiciously. In the case of the Harper government actions, suspicion can easily be revised to "clear agenda and manipulation to those ends" which, you know, sounds a lot worse on paper. What a horrible way to treat scientists, really, just a terribly pig-headed and shamlessly pandering approach by the Harper government to please who they felt needed pleasing.
- osweiller 10y agoThis was a government worker's union issue that got absurdly bent out of proportion. The government demanded that government employees get approval for any direct communications with media, etc. This all began when a researcher seriously impacted the salmon industry by releasing extremely preliminary results (that turned out to be wrong), making a name for herself and setting up a PR circuit. The media loves apocalyptic outcomes ("So would you say this means that we're all going to die?"), so of course it made headlines with the most dire of predictions. This was not an independent researcher. This was not the private sector. This was someone directly employed by the government. It's like a Microsoft employee wrote about vulnerabilities in Windows on their private blog, offering to sell solutions. So the government put a process in place not unlike much of the Western world, doing nothing to control the science (papers were published, research was released, etc. The scientific world understands that preliminary results are preliminary), but having everything to do with the message relayed to the media. Of course this was met with a conspiratorial narrative that continues to this day: That they were hiding dire greenhouse gas/global warming information, for instance. But the shackles have come off. Where are all of these dramatic scientific findings that were suppressed? ...crickets... The single example constantly floated is about a guy who got called by a reporter about a paper he released about ~~slime mold~~ rock snot (the exampled floated in literally hundreds of articles about the muzzling of scientists). This government scientist was outraged that he couldn't get approval within 24 hours, and the reporter lost interest. Apparently rock snot is a real timely issue in media circles. There was a lot wrong with the prior government. An enormous amount. By this particular story is about some freelancing employees who don't want anyone telling them what to do.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y agoThat's an extremely heterodox spin. I notice you don't cite a single article, but here's one: http://www.salon.com/2014/08/19/canadas_despicable_climate_censorship_government_scientists_need_permission_to_tweet_basic_facts/ http://www.salon.com/2014/08/19/canadas_despicable_climate_c... "In 2010, three years after Harper first introduced the new communications policy, Environment Canada reported that media coverage of climate change had dropped by more than 80 percent. Meanwhile, the Canadian government’s continued to wage war on science, often at the expense of the environment. In 2013, when NSIDC again reported that summer sea ice was melting, Leona Aglukkaq, Harper’s environment minister, downplayed the findings, explaining in a follow-up conversation that it was “debatable” whether the Arctic was warming. Without free access to the facts, one could argue, that’s a pretty difficult debate to have." And here's a University of Victoria report: http://www.elc.uvic.ca/2013-muzzlingscientists/ http://www.elc.uvic.ca/2013-muzzlingscientists/ "Yet research done by ELC student Clayton Greenwood demonstrates that the federal government is preventing the media and the Canadian public from speaking to government scientists for news stories especially when the scientists’ research or point of view runs counter to current Government policies on matters such as environmental protection, oil sands development, and climate change. In sharp contrast to past Canadian practice and current US government practice, the federal government has recently made concerted efforts to prevent the media and through them, the general public from speaking to government scientists, and this, in turn, impoverishes the public debate on issues of significant national concern. " I did some googling and couldn't find a slime mold story, but surely you have a link handy?
- kamran20 10y agoAt one point, a brawny ‘minder’ had actually accompanied her to a public hearing to make sure that she didn’t break the rules This kind of thing should NEVER be allowed to happen. The scientists are paid from public funds. That information is our right. This should upset anyone reading it.
- InclinedPlane 10y agoSigh. Always someone willing to be the mouthpiece of evil. There's really no defending Harper's actions here, in my opinion. The idea that there wasn't a massive suppression of government scientists runs counter to a considerable amount of evidence and the opinions of none too few government scientists as well. It also fits in with the over the top policies of the administration, which went so far as to cancel the census and eliminate the position of national science advisor entirely. Your narrative is laughable, you want examples? Just use google. There are dozens of examples cited. This isn't a controversial topic.
- dang 10y ago> Sigh. Always someone willing to be the mouthpiece of evil. Whoa. That's a personal attack and you can't do it here. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all. Calling someone a "mouthpiece of evil" is obviously uncivil no matter how wrong they are, and the rest of the comment calls names ("Your narrative is laughable") and adds little of substance. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11629209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11629209 and marked it off-topic.
- Raphmedia 10y agoI find it sad that from the title alone "Nine years of censorship", I was able to say to myself "oh, that's my country they are talking about! Canada!"
- tdaltonc 10y agoMaybe one day Springer, the publisher who owns Nature, will also stop suppressing scientific research.
- duncan_bayne 10y agoThose who live by the sword, die by the sword. In this case, the sword is State power. Researchers are perfectly happy for the might of the State to underpin coercive taxation, because it directly funds their jobs. But they complain loudly enough when a fraction of that might is used to constrain their freedom of expression. I think the move to un-muzzle State scientists is a good thing. But I have little sympathy for their complaints, either, given the way they're funded.
- thesimpsons1022 10y agohow does something like this happen in a "free" western country like Canada? And why isn't there more outrage about it? This is appalling to say the least. I knew I didn't like Harper but I didn't realize he was so totalitarian.
- vkou 10y agoThere was plenty of outrage - alas, the Conservatives could secure a majority government with only 38% of the vote. That 38% of the population doesn't care, or endorse this kind of behavior.
- hackuser 10y agoI read about it in the news at the time. I think the question is, how did so many overlook the story?
- vacri 10y agoBecause 'free' is not a binary state in the real world. It's a multipolar concept with a great variety of greys in it.