7 ms·

This is the canary in the cage for those of who still live in something resembling a democracy. This kind of censorship, whether from governments or tech giants

This is the canary in the cage for those of who still live in something resembling a democracy. This kind of censorship, whether from governments or tech giants, is already starting to take hold in the US and Europe.

gridlockd 7y ago
It's not censorship, it's "alternative facts" - far more effective!
nickthegreek 7y ago
Where is this happening in US & Europe?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bhk 7y ago
  Yesterday I did a search for "drunk pelosi" videos on duckduckgo and it reported "Sorry, no results here!" (Replacing "pelosi" any other name yields a page full.) Today they have results -- properly vetted, I presume.
- chx 7y ago
  In Hungary almost all media is now owned by (effectively) the government. https://rsf.org/en/hungary https://rsf.org/en/hungary The alternative facts are rather thick on the ground due to this.
- kangnkodos 7y ago
  1) Build public support against hate speech. 2) Create laws to ban hate speech. This puts the government in charge of defining exactly what is and what is not hate speech. 3) The government tweaks the definition of hate speech slowly over the years. Eventually, hate speech includes anything which is against the official government line. 4) Profit. Err... Control of the country, which could be very profitable.
  - Zak 7y ago
    A bigger concern in the US is probably attempts to regulate "fake news". The US Constitution has strong protections for expressing opinions, even hateful ones so long as they don't promote imminent lawless action. Knowingly making false statements of fact has not been given anywhere near the same level of protection. Any such regulation would be enforced by a part of the government that answers to the president. The current president has a habit of calling mainstream media outlets that are critical of him "fake news". Having to prove the truth of a large portion of the news stories published in a newspaper in court would be prohibitively expensive.
  - Shivetya 7y ago
    It isn't hate speech that should be the most concerning category. It is what they manage to brand as fake news or political in nature where they can then quash the message through campaign finance laws. When in office politicians have near unequaled ability to get their message out extreme care must be taken to insure they cannot prevent others from getting their own messages out The one fact you can always accept is that if politicians are offering to protect the sanctity of the election system from influence, foreign or domestic, their true goal is to protect themselves from any message not approved by them or their supporters. While some need to feel that the result is because of nefarious reasons we must always accept our views do not necessarily equal those of others and what we accept as truth and falsehoods can just as likely be incorrect as well if not just our bias seeking only confirmation in stories or others.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      Unlimited lobbying bleeds into corruption. I really don't think clamping down on campaign finance makes things worse.
  - notahacker 7y ago
    Even in a very pro "freedom of speech" country like the US, an executive-appointed Supreme Court is already responsible for ruling on existing laws against speech which is integral to illegal conduct, speech which incites imminent lawless action, and there exists a tort system which enables individuals to be financially penalised for certain types of speech. Have no idea why people suspect that interpretations of hate speech laws are any more prone to being revised to be used to silence anything which is against the official government line than any other type of speech restriction.
- sneakernets 7y ago
  I think a smaller list would be where it isn't happening. mostly in small towns where independent journalism in independent newspapers still has an impact due to trusted local people working in them, although the death of print is rapidly quelling it.
- CodiePetersen 7y ago
  Well for one off the top of my head the terms climate change and global warming being scrubbed from government sites and reports politically altered or suppressed. Subtle but real. Steps in the wrong direction.
  - WillPostForFood 7y ago
    It is not really happening though. The most egregious case was the EPA "removing" some references. But bad as it was, they were only removing links from the home page, making the data less prominent. Reports and information on global warming were, and still are available on the EPA website. https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-01-30-scott-pruitt-epa-climate-data-emails https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-01-30-scot...
    - tempguy9999 7y ago
      That's suppressing it, exactly as the parent said. Why do you think it acceptable? Anyway <http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/silencing-science-tracker/references-to-climate-change-removed-from-epa-document-2/> http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/silencing-science-tracker/refe... "In or around March 2019, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) removed several references to “climate change” from a guidance document on “planning for natural disaster debris.” The document was drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency and submitted to OIRA for review. During review, OIRA staff deleted several references to “climate change,” [snip]" It's happening.
      - WillPostForFood 7y ago
        The EPA is a political office, run by a political appointee, so there will always be a political bias in what they choose to emphasize, and that's all that happened. Nothing was removed from public access, just moved from featured on the home page. If one admin put carbon tax on the home page, and the next replaced it with solar panels, is that suppressing the carbon tax? The document you reference simply strikes out a single reference to there being a causal relationship between climate change and specific extreme weather events. The document is all about climate change, so it seems like a minor and likely accurate correction. http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/files/2019/04/Oira.png http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/files/2019/04/Oira.png
kypro 7y ago
Maybe or 6-7 years ago now Reddit decided to remove some extremely objectionable subreddits such as those that sexualise minors, then shortly after that it took action to remove subreddits which had been deemed extremely offensive by some higher ups at the company. During these times I remember people both on here and on Reddit were extremely concerned. I remember that although most people didn't like these subreddits they felt these actions might spell the beginning of further restrictions to their speech on the platform - a platform which once believed strongly in the principles of freedom of speech. If I remember correctly there was even significant media attention and many Reddit users were so upset they attempted to boycott Reddit. However now Reddit bans subreddits all the time. Twitter and Facebook delete the accounts of individuals at a whim, even they're publicly relevant or political candidates. And the sad thing is no one really cares any more. We just accept it as the new normal. Now if the media reports on it they often celebrate it. It was deserved they say, based of course solely on their subjective moral objections. It's really quite worrying. Edit: Found the thread if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3585997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3585997 It's quite a balanced perspective, especially given the subreddit being banned in this case is /r/jailbait. I can't imagine anyone arguing that Reddit should allow that subreddit to exist today. I suppose it surprises me how quickly perspectives have changed given we all now seem to accept private companies have the right to censor our legal speech online.
- wavefunction 7y ago
  If anyone was too put out by Reddit's actions they could always start up their own site where they could sexualize minors or whatever else was dropped by Reddit.
- belltaco 7y ago
  >However now Reddit bans subreddits all the time. Can you name some subreddits whose ban you object to?
  - kypro 7y ago
    I personally don't like swearing, yet I don't believe others should be banned from swearing. I don't like offensive subreddits like fatpeoplehate, but I don't think offensiveness should be banned. However, I understand that today I'm in a minority of individuals who believe people have the right to offend. I'm just not sure what changed, I know it wasn't always like this.

gridlockd 7y ago

It's not censorship, it's "alternative facts" - far more effective!

nickthegreek 7y ago

Where is this happening in US & Europe?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bhk 7y ago
Yesterday I did a search for "drunk pelosi" videos on duckduckgo and it reported "Sorry, no results here!" (Replacing "pelosi" any other name yields a page full.) Today they have results -- properly vetted, I presume.
chx 7y ago
In Hungary almost all media is now owned by (effectively) the government. https://rsf.org/en/hungary https://rsf.org/en/hungary The alternative facts are rather thick on the ground due to this.
kangnkodos 7y ago
1) Build public support against hate speech. 2) Create laws to ban hate speech. This puts the government in charge of defining exactly what is and what is not hate speech. 3) The government tweaks the definition of hate speech slowly over the years. Eventually, hate speech includes anything which is against the official government line. 4) Profit. Err... Control of the country, which could be very profitable.
- Zak 7y ago
  A bigger concern in the US is probably attempts to regulate "fake news". The US Constitution has strong protections for expressing opinions, even hateful ones so long as they don't promote imminent lawless action. Knowingly making false statements of fact has not been given anywhere near the same level of protection. Any such regulation would be enforced by a part of the government that answers to the president. The current president has a habit of calling mainstream media outlets that are critical of him "fake news". Having to prove the truth of a large portion of the news stories published in a newspaper in court would be prohibitively expensive.
- Shivetya 7y ago
  It isn't hate speech that should be the most concerning category. It is what they manage to brand as fake news or political in nature where they can then quash the message through campaign finance laws. When in office politicians have near unequaled ability to get their message out extreme care must be taken to insure they cannot prevent others from getting their own messages out The one fact you can always accept is that if politicians are offering to protect the sanctity of the election system from influence, foreign or domestic, their true goal is to protect themselves from any message not approved by them or their supporters. While some need to feel that the result is because of nefarious reasons we must always accept our views do not necessarily equal those of others and what we accept as truth and falsehoods can just as likely be incorrect as well if not just our bias seeking only confirmation in stories or others.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Unlimited lobbying bleeds into corruption. I really don't think clamping down on campaign finance makes things worse.
- notahacker 7y ago
  Even in a very pro "freedom of speech" country like the US, an executive-appointed Supreme Court is already responsible for ruling on existing laws against speech which is integral to illegal conduct, speech which incites imminent lawless action, and there exists a tort system which enables individuals to be financially penalised for certain types of speech. Have no idea why people suspect that interpretations of hate speech laws are any more prone to being revised to be used to silence anything which is against the official government line than any other type of speech restriction.
sneakernets 7y ago
I think a smaller list would be where it isn't happening. mostly in small towns where independent journalism in independent newspapers still has an impact due to trusted local people working in them, although the death of print is rapidly quelling it.
CodiePetersen 7y ago
Well for one off the top of my head the terms climate change and global warming being scrubbed from government sites and reports politically altered or suppressed. Subtle but real. Steps in the wrong direction.
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  It is not really happening though. The most egregious case was the EPA "removing" some references. But bad as it was, they were only removing links from the home page, making the data less prominent. Reports and information on global warming were, and still are available on the EPA website. https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-01-30-scott-pruitt-epa-climate-data-emails https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-01-30-scot...
  - tempguy9999 7y ago
    That's suppressing it, exactly as the parent said. Why do you think it acceptable? Anyway <http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/silencing-science-tracker/references-to-climate-change-removed-from-epa-document-2/> http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/silencing-science-tracker/refe... "In or around March 2019, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) removed several references to “climate change” from a guidance document on “planning for natural disaster debris.” The document was drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency and submitted to OIRA for review. During review, OIRA staff deleted several references to “climate change,” [snip]" It's happening.
    - WillPostForFood 7y ago
      The EPA is a political office, run by a political appointee, so there will always be a political bias in what they choose to emphasize, and that's all that happened. Nothing was removed from public access, just moved from featured on the home page. If one admin put carbon tax on the home page, and the next replaced it with solar panels, is that suppressing the carbon tax? The document you reference simply strikes out a single reference to there being a causal relationship between climate change and specific extreme weather events. The document is all about climate change, so it seems like a minor and likely accurate correction. http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/files/2019/04/Oira.png http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/files/2019/04/Oira.png

kypro 7y ago

Maybe or 6-7 years ago now Reddit decided to remove some extremely objectionable subreddits such as those that sexualise minors, then shortly after that it took action to remove subreddits which had been deemed extremely offensive by some higher ups at the company. During these times I remember people both on here and on Reddit were extremely concerned. I remember that although most people didn't like these subreddits they felt these actions might spell the beginning of further restrictions to their speech on the platform - a platform which once believed strongly in the principles of freedom of speech. If I remember correctly there was even significant media attention and many Reddit users were so upset they attempted to boycott Reddit. However now Reddit bans subreddits all the time. Twitter and Facebook delete the accounts of individuals at a whim, even they're publicly relevant or political candidates. And the sad thing is no one really cares any more. We just accept it as the new normal. Now if the media reports on it they often celebrate it. It was deserved they say, based of course solely on their subjective moral objections. It's really quite worrying. Edit: Found the thread if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3585997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3585997 It's quite a balanced perspective, especially given the subreddit being banned in this case is /r/jailbait. I can't imagine anyone arguing that Reddit should allow that subreddit to exist today. I suppose it surprises me how quickly perspectives have changed given we all now seem to accept private companies have the right to censor our legal speech online.

wavefunction 7y ago
If anyone was too put out by Reddit's actions they could always start up their own site where they could sexualize minors or whatever else was dropped by Reddit.
belltaco 7y ago
>However now Reddit bans subreddits all the time. Can you name some subreddits whose ban you object to?
- kypro 7y ago
  I personally don't like swearing, yet I don't believe others should be banned from swearing. I don't like offensive subreddits like fatpeoplehate, but I don't think offensiveness should be banned. However, I understand that today I'm in a minority of individuals who believe people have the right to offend. I'm just not sure what changed, I know it wasn't always like this.