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I used to live in China in the pre-Trump days when most westerners believed in free speech. Sometimes I would hear about "draconian" Chinese censorship. It seem

I used to live in China in the pre-Trump days when most westerners believed in free speech. Sometimes I would hear about "draconian" Chinese censorship. It seemed obviously bad by western standards. For example, they would prohibit industrial action in case it threatens some vital industry or prohibit protests in case it threatens the power of the government which could lead to unrest and violence. Or they prosecuted someone for spreading a rumor after Fukushima happened that iodized salt protects against cancer which led to supermarkets getting sold out of it. Or they would suppress anti-government talk like what Falun Gong and the Uyghurs were doing. In the case of the Uyghur, they did actually commit some terrorists acts because of the anti-government things they were telling each other. All that seemed like bad totalitarian censorship. But now American leftist believe similar censorship is OK for essentially the same reasons. "social harmony" was never seen as a valid reason for censorship by westerners before, but since Trump, they changed their mind. You example of accusations of child abuse as a way to insult somebody is actually fine as long as the society can recognize unfounded accusations from actual reality. This is still acceptable for many other insults, like "you're stupid", but somehow, people seem to have elevated sexual abuse accusations to the status of truth. I'd say the antidote to that is to allow more open unfounded accusations so we're all immunized against their effects. We do have the justice system to address real allegations.

JoshTriplett 6y ago
There's a huge difference between government censorship/suppression, and a private entity deciding what they will and won't host.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  Yes but the difference shrinks when all the private entities that dominate the communication between people impose the same censorship and competition is effectively prevented by network effects. It's more of an anti-trust problem. Nobody would be complaining if it was just some small internet forum doing it.
  - chillwaves 6y ago
    Can google imprison me? Can they seize my assets? Can Google execute me?
    - throwmehaweh 6y ago
      No, but they can use their enormous power and influence to get politicians into office that could write new rules allowing such.
    - rndgermandude 6y ago
      Can Google imprison you? Not in the US, unless their lawyers find a nice way to make a prosecutor go e.g. for some fancy computer espionage charges (see Aaron Schwartz for example), but companies in the past had regimes in their bag and made people go to prison or vanish entirely, or perform forced labor for them. Can they seize your assets? Not directly, but try getting sued by the legal department of a mega corp and see what you have left when it's all over. The end result is the same. As somebody else pointed out, we already had companies that effectively acted as unelected governments in the past, like the East India Company. They used to execute people.
    - treeman79 6y ago
      They have your search history. Or they could make it if inclined. So for a lot of people, yes. They could easily put people in Jail. More likely scenario would be exposing anyone That wants to be anonymous. Actually I think that happens in other countries all the time.
      - chillwaves 6y ago
        Google cannot put me in jail. What a low quality response. I'm done with you, please do not reply to me further, here or elsewhere.
    - defen 6y ago
      Google can do bad things to you. Significantly less-bad things to you than imprisonment/asset seizure/execution, BUT they are not required to follow due process and are not answerable to anyone but themselves if they do something bad to you. They can also provide substantial amounts of incriminating evidence to the government (the ones who can execute you) and technically a warrant is not required. If the cops go to Google and ask for info about you that is stored on Google's computers, and Google gives it to them without a warrant, your rights as a US citizen have not been violated.
- Const-me 6y ago
  We have large body of dystopian fiction in all media (books, movies, TV, videogames, comics, etc.) about what might happen if the private entities accumulate more money and power than democratically elect governments. I’m not saying we’re there just yet, but this Google’s stance is a step in that direction.
  - VBprogrammer 6y ago
    You don't even have reach as far as dystopian fiction. Look at the history of the Hudson Bay Company and the India Trading Company, private companies which were in effect defacto governments.
- rndgermandude 6y ago
  I fail to see how massive global wealthy companies with immense influence and who by now control a sizable chunk of the places where public life and moreso public discourse takes place are so much different from governments in this context. Other than that we actually elect governments, meaning the mega corps are even less accountable to the general public. The Googles and Facebooks have more power (money, influence, etc) than a lot of actual nation states and their governments already, and they are constantly increasing their influence by means of lobbying (including keeping competitors at arm's length with regulatory capture), directing public discourse and quite often just "doing things" and waiting if anything bad will happen to them - which usually won't.
  - stickfigure 6y ago
    This is patent nonsense. You can quit Google. You can quit Facebook. I know lots of people who have. Try quitting your government. I don't even need to fill in the rest of this story because you know exactly how well it will go.
    - rndgermandude 6y ago
      You cannot "quit" google when google is actively framing policy and the law for everybody. You may say that so far google wasn't too bad, and I would agree. Regardless, I still find it concerning that they are able to concentrate that much unchecked power. "Don't be evil" was yesterday, "Don't be evil unless it hurts our margins too badly" is today, I think there is a possibility - but not a certainty of course - that tomorrow it might gonna be "Evil is quite alright if it helps our margins". And that's just google. Other companies with massive influence, like the Murdoch or Koch empires, haven't been as nice as google.
      - JoshTriplett 6y ago
        > You cannot "quit" google Yes, you absolutely can. Switch from YouTube to a different site, or host video yourself. If you're complaining about lobbying, that's an entirely different matter, for an entirely different discussion. If you're complaining about monopolies or concentration of power, that's also an entirely different matter, for an entirely different discussion. Right now we're talking about whether the people running a site, who own the servers on which the data lives, can choose what they host, or whether they're forced to host things against their will. Do you believe that the government should be able to force people to host content against their will?
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  When that private entity achieves a near-monopoly on search, then it becomes the arbiter of what does and does not get heard. That's concerning enough in itself for free speech, but add in pressure from government to "self-regulate," and you arrive at effective government censorship/suppression. When Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey are brought before Congress to testify about what they're doing to stop the spread of "fake news," the implicit threat is that if they don't pro-actively do what Congress wants, then Congress will force them to do so (or punish them in other ways).
- d0100 6y ago
  When will this meme die?

JoshTriplett 6y ago

There's a huge difference between government censorship/suppression, and a private entity deciding what they will and won't host.

lopmotr 6y ago
Yes but the difference shrinks when all the private entities that dominate the communication between people impose the same censorship and competition is effectively prevented by network effects. It's more of an anti-trust problem. Nobody would be complaining if it was just some small internet forum doing it.
- chillwaves 6y ago
  Can google imprison me? Can they seize my assets? Can Google execute me?
  - throwmehaweh 6y ago
    No, but they can use their enormous power and influence to get politicians into office that could write new rules allowing such.
  - rndgermandude 6y ago
    Can Google imprison you? Not in the US, unless their lawyers find a nice way to make a prosecutor go e.g. for some fancy computer espionage charges (see Aaron Schwartz for example), but companies in the past had regimes in their bag and made people go to prison or vanish entirely, or perform forced labor for them. Can they seize your assets? Not directly, but try getting sued by the legal department of a mega corp and see what you have left when it's all over. The end result is the same. As somebody else pointed out, we already had companies that effectively acted as unelected governments in the past, like the East India Company. They used to execute people.
  - treeman79 6y ago
    They have your search history. Or they could make it if inclined. So for a lot of people, yes. They could easily put people in Jail. More likely scenario would be exposing anyone That wants to be anonymous. Actually I think that happens in other countries all the time.
    - chillwaves 6y ago
      Google cannot put me in jail. What a low quality response. I'm done with you, please do not reply to me further, here or elsewhere.
  - defen 6y ago
    Google can do bad things to you. Significantly less-bad things to you than imprisonment/asset seizure/execution, BUT they are not required to follow due process and are not answerable to anyone but themselves if they do something bad to you. They can also provide substantial amounts of incriminating evidence to the government (the ones who can execute you) and technically a warrant is not required. If the cops go to Google and ask for info about you that is stored on Google's computers, and Google gives it to them without a warrant, your rights as a US citizen have not been violated.
Const-me 6y ago
We have large body of dystopian fiction in all media (books, movies, TV, videogames, comics, etc.) about what might happen if the private entities accumulate more money and power than democratically elect governments. I’m not saying we’re there just yet, but this Google’s stance is a step in that direction.
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  You don't even have reach as far as dystopian fiction. Look at the history of the Hudson Bay Company and the India Trading Company, private companies which were in effect defacto governments.
rndgermandude 6y ago
I fail to see how massive global wealthy companies with immense influence and who by now control a sizable chunk of the places where public life and moreso public discourse takes place are so much different from governments in this context. Other than that we actually elect governments, meaning the mega corps are even less accountable to the general public. The Googles and Facebooks have more power (money, influence, etc) than a lot of actual nation states and their governments already, and they are constantly increasing their influence by means of lobbying (including keeping competitors at arm's length with regulatory capture), directing public discourse and quite often just "doing things" and waiting if anything bad will happen to them - which usually won't.
- stickfigure 6y ago
  This is patent nonsense. You can quit Google. You can quit Facebook. I know lots of people who have. Try quitting your government. I don't even need to fill in the rest of this story because you know exactly how well it will go.
  - rndgermandude 6y ago
    You cannot "quit" google when google is actively framing policy and the law for everybody. You may say that so far google wasn't too bad, and I would agree. Regardless, I still find it concerning that they are able to concentrate that much unchecked power. "Don't be evil" was yesterday, "Don't be evil unless it hurts our margins too badly" is today, I think there is a possibility - but not a certainty of course - that tomorrow it might gonna be "Evil is quite alright if it helps our margins". And that's just google. Other companies with massive influence, like the Murdoch or Koch empires, haven't been as nice as google.
    - JoshTriplett 6y ago
      > You cannot "quit" google Yes, you absolutely can. Switch from YouTube to a different site, or host video yourself. If you're complaining about lobbying, that's an entirely different matter, for an entirely different discussion. If you're complaining about monopolies or concentration of power, that's also an entirely different matter, for an entirely different discussion. Right now we're talking about whether the people running a site, who own the servers on which the data lives, can choose what they host, or whether they're forced to host things against their will. Do you believe that the government should be able to force people to host content against their will?
DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
When that private entity achieves a near-monopoly on search, then it becomes the arbiter of what does and does not get heard. That's concerning enough in itself for free speech, but add in pressure from government to "self-regulate," and you arrive at effective government censorship/suppression. When Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey are brought before Congress to testify about what they're doing to stop the spread of "fake news," the implicit threat is that if they don't pro-actively do what Congress wants, then Congress will force them to do so (or punish them in other ways).
d0100 6y ago
When will this meme die?