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I know everyone is going to say "but Nazis", but I think this incident should really drive home just how quickly dissenting opinion can effectively be purged fr

by xienze 9y ago

I know everyone is going to say "but Nazis", but I think this incident should really drive home just how quickly dissenting opinion can effectively be purged from the Internet and just how much power tech companies truly wield over us. Yeah yeah I know, it's great because they stood up to Nazis but next time it won't just be them. It's very easy to label just about anything as "hate speech". And yeah yeah, "private companies can't censor, only the government can", but has anyone stopped to consider that Google et al have very obvious political affiliations and can exert their control over the Internet in order to further their agendas? If you're not concerned with the implications of this you're not paying attention.

purple-again 9y ago
It's been part sad and part fun to watch. Usually they use pedophiles to convince us to give up our freedoms but nazis are working just as well this time around.
bilbo0s 9y ago
"...but has anyone stopped to consider that Google et al have very obvious political affiliations and can exert their control over the Internet in order to further their agendas?..." Have you, yourself, stopped to consider the possibility that large corporations have had very obvious political affiliations, and have been exerting their control to further their agendas since long before Google existed?
- xienze 9y ago
  Have you considered that Google, Facebook, etc. can control public discourse and what information people can see in ways never before thought possible?
  - bilbo0s 9y ago
    Have you considered that advisers for Nixon's first Presidential campaign made the same complaint about network television? My only point here is that many, many companies have been exerting their control for many, many years to further the varied agendas of their principal shareholders. This really is nothing new.
    - reaperducer 9y ago
      Not new. But better. More effective. Which is worse.
      - stefs 9y ago
        more effective than the kronen-zeitung? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronen_Zeitung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronen_Zeitung
- laretluval 9y ago
  > have been exerting their control to further their agendas since long before Google existed? It's an old idea that corporations control discourse to further their political agendas, but previously those agendas were hard to discern. The new information that has become clear in the last few months, at least to me, is that their political agendas tend to be that of the Democratic party.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
dragonwriter 9y ago
> I know everyone is going to say "but Nazis", but I think this incident should really drive home just how quickly dissenting opinion can effectively be purged from the Internet Nazi/White Supremacist opinion is still all over the internet, so it doesn't seem to “effectively be purged”.
mirimir 9y ago
You can't expect any platform to provide free speech unless it's designed to make censorship impossible. Such as Freenet, or Tor onion services. Edit: Here's the juicy quote: > The recent rise of all-encompassing internet platforms promised something unprecedented and invigorating: venues that unite all manner of actors — politicians, media, lobbyists, citizens, experts, corporations — under one roof. These companies promised something that no previous vision of the public sphere could offer: real, billion-strong mass participation; a means for affinity groups to find one another and mobilize, gain visibility and influence. This felt and functioned like freedom, but it was always a commercial simulation.
- xienze 9y ago
  Didn't the Tor guys say they were going to do something about hate speech?
  - mirimir 9y ago
    If they can, Tor is total bullshit. So no, I seriously doubt that they can. And that's, in my opinion, a very good thing.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Edit: OK, so Tor exits could filter on URLs, and even MitM TLS to filter on keywords. But that has always been forbidden, and grounds for the bad exit flag. Exits are allowed, and indeed encouraged, to block ports that are commonly abused. And unfortunately, more and more that includes port 22 :(
yongjik 9y ago
> ...just how quickly dissenting opinion can effectively be purged from the Internet... But not quick enough to keep them from electing a US president who they embrace as their own. Really, there was nothing quick about it. It's more like watching the straw that finally broke the camel's back.
tim333 9y ago
>how quickly dissenting opinion can effectively be purged from the Internet I'm not sure it can be purged from the internet at all. It can be purged from some US companies but will pop up elsewhere. To illustrate - ISIS site http://jihadology.net/ http://jihadology.net/ Buy illegal drugs online https://www.reddit.com/r/Dream_Market/comments/6v5ghq/whos_best_mdma_vendor_in_dream_market/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Dream_Market/comments/6v5ghq/whos_b... etc. The internet is very hard to censor.
- Anon1096 9y ago
  It can be done. Child porn (I'm in no way endorsing the viewing of it obviously) is extinct from the internet as we all know it. And when talking about smaller instances like the Daily Stormer it becomes clear that internet censorship is very real and very possible.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Freenet is part of the Internet, and it's full of child porn. Indeed, it's rather a honeypot for authorities to exploit. So much for plausible deniability.
    - tim333 9y ago
      Yeah, I was thinking with drugs, ISIS and child porn while the internet is almost impossible to censor, it's also not that great at protecting privacy with the result that the bad guys often get arrested or killed eventually.
      - mirimir 9y ago
        Indeed. And that's Freenet's problem. It does a great job of obscuring locally stored content. The majority of data on your box may be child porn, but nobody can tell. However, Freenet relies on randomized request and data forwarding for deniability. That seemed reasonable, a decade ago. But investigators have figured out how to determine that a particular node has handled pieces of a particular file. Not that the user loaded or requested the file. Just that their node handled part of it. And of course, IP addresses aren't obscured. So investigators run nodes, and serve child porn. And then they accumulate IPs of peers that handle pieces of said child porn. And get subpoenas for those in their jurisdictions, and raid users. And have experts that bullshit juries about how Freenet works. Understandably, most defendants settle. Except, for example, that guy who's rotting in a Philadelphia jail.
0x4f3759df 9y ago
Plus the definition of "hate speech" is broad enough to include people who hold Biblical views on social issues which is not an insignificant portion of the American population.

by xienze 9y ago

purple-again 9y ago

It's been part sad and part fun to watch. Usually they use pedophiles to convince us to give up our freedoms but nazis are working just as well this time around.

bilbo0s 9y ago

"...but has anyone stopped to consider that Google et al have very obvious political affiliations and can exert their control over the Internet in order to further their agendas?..." Have you, yourself, stopped to consider the possibility that large corporations have had very obvious political affiliations, and have been exerting their control to further their agendas since long before Google existed?

xienze 9y ago
Have you considered that Google, Facebook, etc. can control public discourse and what information people can see in ways never before thought possible?
- bilbo0s 9y ago
  Have you considered that advisers for Nixon's first Presidential campaign made the same complaint about network television? My only point here is that many, many companies have been exerting their control for many, many years to further the varied agendas of their principal shareholders. This really is nothing new.
  - reaperducer 9y ago
    Not new. But better. More effective. Which is worse.
    - stefs 9y ago
      more effective than the kronen-zeitung? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronen_Zeitung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronen_Zeitung
laretluval 9y ago
> have been exerting their control to further their agendas since long before Google existed? It's an old idea that corporations control discourse to further their political agendas, but previously those agendas were hard to discern. The new information that has become clear in the last few months, at least to me, is that their political agendas tend to be that of the Democratic party.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

dragonwriter 9y ago

> I know everyone is going to say "but Nazis", but I think this incident should really drive home just how quickly dissenting opinion can effectively be purged from the Internet Nazi/White Supremacist opinion is still all over the internet, so it doesn't seem to “effectively be purged”.

mirimir 9y ago

You can't expect any platform to provide free speech unless it's designed to make censorship impossible. Such as Freenet, or Tor onion services. Edit: Here's the juicy quote: > The recent rise of all-encompassing internet platforms promised something unprecedented and invigorating: venues that unite all manner of actors — politicians, media, lobbyists, citizens, experts, corporations — under one roof. These companies promised something that no previous vision of the public sphere could offer: real, billion-strong mass participation; a means for affinity groups to find one another and mobilize, gain visibility and influence. This felt and functioned like freedom, but it was always a commercial simulation.

xienze 9y ago
Didn't the Tor guys say they were going to do something about hate speech?
- mirimir 9y ago
  If they can, Tor is total bullshit. So no, I seriously doubt that they can. And that's, in my opinion, a very good thing.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Edit: OK, so Tor exits could filter on URLs, and even MitM TLS to filter on keywords. But that has always been forbidden, and grounds for the bad exit flag. Exits are allowed, and indeed encouraged, to block ports that are commonly abused. And unfortunately, more and more that includes port 22 :(

yongjik 9y ago

> ...just how quickly dissenting opinion can effectively be purged from the Internet... But not quick enough to keep them from electing a US president who they embrace as their own. Really, there was nothing quick about it. It's more like watching the straw that finally broke the camel's back.

tim333 9y ago

>how quickly dissenting opinion can effectively be purged from the Internet I'm not sure it can be purged from the internet at all. It can be purged from some US companies but will pop up elsewhere. To illustrate - ISIS site http://jihadology.net/ http://jihadology.net/ Buy illegal drugs online https://www.reddit.com/r/Dream_Market/comments/6v5ghq/whos_best_mdma_vendor_in_dream_market/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Dream_Market/comments/6v5ghq/whos_b... etc. The internet is very hard to censor.

Anon1096 9y ago
It can be done. Child porn (I'm in no way endorsing the viewing of it obviously) is extinct from the internet as we all know it. And when talking about smaller instances like the Daily Stormer it becomes clear that internet censorship is very real and very possible.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Freenet is part of the Internet, and it's full of child porn. Indeed, it's rather a honeypot for authorities to exploit. So much for plausible deniability.
  - tim333 9y ago
    Yeah, I was thinking with drugs, ISIS and child porn while the internet is almost impossible to censor, it's also not that great at protecting privacy with the result that the bad guys often get arrested or killed eventually.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Indeed. And that's Freenet's problem. It does a great job of obscuring locally stored content. The majority of data on your box may be child porn, but nobody can tell. However, Freenet relies on randomized request and data forwarding for deniability. That seemed reasonable, a decade ago. But investigators have figured out how to determine that a particular node has handled pieces of a particular file. Not that the user loaded or requested the file. Just that their node handled part of it. And of course, IP addresses aren't obscured. So investigators run nodes, and serve child porn. And then they accumulate IPs of peers that handle pieces of said child porn. And get subpoenas for those in their jurisdictions, and raid users. And have experts that bullshit juries about how Freenet works. Understandably, most defendants settle. Except, for example, that guy who's rotting in a Philadelphia jail.

0x4f3759df 9y ago

Plus the definition of "hate speech" is broad enough to include people who hold Biblical views on social issues which is not an insignificant portion of the American population.