11 ms·

This is not an original idea/thought that I have, but feel repeating it is vital: This whole censorship crusade that the Facebook, twitter & now reddit is on i

This is not an original idea/thought that I have, but feel repeating it is vital: This whole censorship crusade that the Facebook, twitter & now reddit is on is a dangerous precedence we are setting for our society. Whatever they call it, this is censorship. Already due to AI suggesting similar contents on services like Facebook & Youtube and the design of sub-reddits on reddit, we have living inside echo chambers. Atleast users have an option of searching for different contents on the platform. It's a bit easier to come out of the echo chamber. Now, by pushing people off the platform, echo chamber platforms are coming up like parler & rumble. The divide is widening. I am not sure what other options are there, but censorship is the worst option.

zionic 6y ago
-Don't like it? Make your own subreddit/group/discord! X -Don't like it? Make your own image host! X -Don't like it? Make your own social media! X -Don't like it? Make your own aggregator! X -Don't like it? Make your own cloudfare/hosting provider (you are here) -Don't like it? Make your own ISP! -Don't like it? Make your own banking/payment infrastructure! Edit: TIL HN doesn't support emoji
- d1zzy 6y ago
  Like you listed above there are lots of options still available, that's not really the limiting factor here. I believe a more subtle and harder barrier to overcome for posting controversial Internet content is going to be the credit card companies or payment processors. They are much fewer and if they refuse to do business with you you'd have no means to pay for any service you might need. Except, of course, for cryptocurrency... EDIT: One option I think you forgot is using one of the existing hosting providers but hide the web service under a TOR hidden service. That way people can't track it back to your hosting provider to complain about the hosted content (and you can use encryption of the content that is decrypted on the fly when being served by the web server) if you worry about the hosting provider doing some scans of customer content tho that seems very unlikely to me.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  I feel like 2-4 are all on the same level? Make your own group: valid Make your own site: valid Make your own hosting provider: this one is tricky Make your own ISP: shouldn't be needed Make your own payment infrastructure: shouldn't be needed
  - thatsnotmepls 6y ago
    Sure, making your own social media and inviting your friends to use it is gonna work out well bud, sure.
  - SolarNet 6y ago
    I mean net neutrality prevents the ISP one from being an issue, which means making the hosting provider should be the end of that. The payment infrastructure doesn't really have a good solution. Visa/MasterCard are famously quite puritan, most sex workers (e.g. OnlyFans, porn actors) get paid in direct deposit (form the websites) and are paid (by clients) using bank details (not cards, nor in most cases paypal like processors, it's one reason Patreon toned down the sex work they allowed). So yes, one would have to do that, create your own bank and stuff. But banks, like Tier 1 networks, seem to generally "peer" with anyone, but I am not clear if that's a requirement of legislation or not.
2020swillbelit 6y ago
It's further fanning flames as well. Censorship is a coarse option and bound to inflict the collateral damage of instilling in the reasonable a sense of voicelessness. Beyond setting a precedent and creating something that can be used against us, we're creating more people we seek to deplatform.
Traster 6y ago
You're not sure what the other options are? You've seen it. Which is worse, censorship of people calling for the violent otherthrow of the democratically elected government. OR what we've seen this week - people literally overthrowing the democratically elected government of the US. Oh and by the way- when the MAGA hat wearers have taken over, sure as hell they aren't going to be defending your right to equivocate between the people violently overthrowing democracy and the people not allowing a violent overhtrow of democracy.
- 0x1F8B 6y ago
  > people literally overthrowing the democratically elected government of the US. The hysterics in this thread are pretty rich.
  - Traster 6y ago
    I don't know how many people need to storm the capitol under the instructions of the loser of a recent election before you stop thinking the people commenting on it are "hysterical".
    - umvi 6y ago
      > I don't know how many people need to storm the capitol under the instructions of the loser of a recent election Not OP, but I will stop thinking people are hysterical if they can provide a single shred of evidence that the people who stormed congress were "under the instructions of [Trump]". A tweet, a video, anything that proves the storming of congress was a pre-meditated move by Trump to stop the electoral count. Saying "oh, well Trump didn't come out and say it, but he chose dog-whistle terms that activated his sleeper agents" isn't going to cut it. Also the part that is rich is the implication that a rag tag handful of protestors have the ability to overthrow the government just because they broke into a building for a few hours.
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        He consistently encourages violence and when his followers do something bad he usually refuses to say it was bad. So sure he only specifically said to march on the capitol while the election was being stolen inside, but his response to the storming was not "this was bad, go home" but "we love you, go home". The man knows how to guide a crowd. He has responsibility here.
neogodless 6y ago
It certainly fits the definition of censorship. Now, not that this magically justifies it, but it is censorship made by large companies on information that is viewed by a large number of U.S. citizens. The content being targeted is important and relevant. The content is misinformation about the integrity of the federal government, the election process, the thousands of individuals involved in maintaining the integrity of the election, the merit of every individual's vote and every eligible voter having their right to vote, the election representing the will of the people rather than being overridden by courts and legislators and so on. This information is coming from a propaganda machine, a disinformation machine. And that machine includes President Donald Trump, complicit members of the Senate and Congress, various state and local legislators... that is to say powers of government with a vested interest in maintaining and expanding their power over people through means of manipulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_censorship > Political censorship exists when a government attempts to conceal, fake, distort, or falsify information that its citizens receive by suppressing or crowding out political news that the public might receive through news outlets. In the absence of neutral and objective information, people will be unable to dissent with the government or political party in charge.
de6u99er 6y ago
What's also censorship is banning users from commenting in those subreddits. That being said, I think serious tech companies should not be an enabler of fascists.
gremlinsinc 6y ago
Question, can I go into /r/conservative on reddit and post anything I want? Or do the mods limit what can or cannot be said there? Curious your take on that? Maybe we should just end moderation altogether. I'm curious what dang would have to say about that.
jedberg 6y ago
> Whatever they call it, this is censorship. By definition it is not. Only governments can censor. This is just a private entity making a decision. You have the right to say what you want, but I don't have to let you into my living room to say it.
- umvi 6y ago
  > By definition it is not. Only governments can censor What if we live in a WALL-E type world where corporations are so large and powerful they effectively govern society?
  - Tokkemon 6y ago
    But they don't.
    - umvi 6y ago
      Powerful lobbies shape our laws according to the interests of corporations. "Public Squares" have largely moved to privately-owned internet platforms. And there's no way to have a "voice" on the internet protected by the first amendment because no matter what you have to go through a private corporation that can decide to cut you off at some layer in the stack, even if you self host.
    - himujjal 6y ago
      Heard of the patriot act?
- FalconSensei 6y ago
  Specially if: 1 - The community was repeatedly infringing the TOS. 2 - Reddit has liability to what's being posted on it
- null0pointer 6y ago
  Not true at all. Censorship is any type of redaction or restriction, no matter who performs it. You are confusing censorship with a breach of the first amendment.
triceratops 6y ago
> I am not sure what other options are there, but censorship is the worst option. Really. That's the "worst" option? You can't think of worse things than that?
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago
People crying out loud: Facebook made us stupid! - is a bit disconcerting to me.

zionic 6y ago

-Don't like it? Make your own subreddit/group/discord! X -Don't like it? Make your own image host! X -Don't like it? Make your own social media! X -Don't like it? Make your own aggregator! X -Don't like it? Make your own cloudfare/hosting provider (you are here) -Don't like it? Make your own ISP! -Don't like it? Make your own banking/payment infrastructure! Edit: TIL HN doesn't support emoji

d1zzy 6y ago
Like you listed above there are lots of options still available, that's not really the limiting factor here. I believe a more subtle and harder barrier to overcome for posting controversial Internet content is going to be the credit card companies or payment processors. They are much fewer and if they refuse to do business with you you'd have no means to pay for any service you might need. Except, of course, for cryptocurrency... EDIT: One option I think you forgot is using one of the existing hosting providers but hide the web service under a TOR hidden service. That way people can't track it back to your hosting provider to complain about the hosted content (and you can use encryption of the content that is decrypted on the fly when being served by the web server) if you worry about the hosting provider doing some scans of customer content tho that seems very unlikely to me.
Dylan16807 6y ago
I feel like 2-4 are all on the same level? Make your own group: valid Make your own site: valid Make your own hosting provider: this one is tricky Make your own ISP: shouldn't be needed Make your own payment infrastructure: shouldn't be needed
- thatsnotmepls 6y ago
  Sure, making your own social media and inviting your friends to use it is gonna work out well bud, sure.
- SolarNet 6y ago
  I mean net neutrality prevents the ISP one from being an issue, which means making the hosting provider should be the end of that. The payment infrastructure doesn't really have a good solution. Visa/MasterCard are famously quite puritan, most sex workers (e.g. OnlyFans, porn actors) get paid in direct deposit (form the websites) and are paid (by clients) using bank details (not cards, nor in most cases paypal like processors, it's one reason Patreon toned down the sex work they allowed). So yes, one would have to do that, create your own bank and stuff. But banks, like Tier 1 networks, seem to generally "peer" with anyone, but I am not clear if that's a requirement of legislation or not.

2020swillbelit 6y ago

It's further fanning flames as well. Censorship is a coarse option and bound to inflict the collateral damage of instilling in the reasonable a sense of voicelessness. Beyond setting a precedent and creating something that can be used against us, we're creating more people we seek to deplatform.

Traster 6y ago

You're not sure what the other options are? You've seen it. Which is worse, censorship of people calling for the violent otherthrow of the democratically elected government. OR what we've seen this week - people literally overthrowing the democratically elected government of the US. Oh and by the way- when the MAGA hat wearers have taken over, sure as hell they aren't going to be defending your right to equivocate between the people violently overthrowing democracy and the people not allowing a violent overhtrow of democracy.

0x1F8B 6y ago
> people literally overthrowing the democratically elected government of the US. The hysterics in this thread are pretty rich.
- Traster 6y ago
  I don't know how many people need to storm the capitol under the instructions of the loser of a recent election before you stop thinking the people commenting on it are "hysterical".
  - umvi 6y ago
    > I don't know how many people need to storm the capitol under the instructions of the loser of a recent election Not OP, but I will stop thinking people are hysterical if they can provide a single shred of evidence that the people who stormed congress were "under the instructions of [Trump]". A tweet, a video, anything that proves the storming of congress was a pre-meditated move by Trump to stop the electoral count. Saying "oh, well Trump didn't come out and say it, but he chose dog-whistle terms that activated his sleeper agents" isn't going to cut it. Also the part that is rich is the implication that a rag tag handful of protestors have the ability to overthrow the government just because they broke into a building for a few hours.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      He consistently encourages violence and when his followers do something bad he usually refuses to say it was bad. So sure he only specifically said to march on the capitol while the election was being stolen inside, but his response to the storming was not "this was bad, go home" but "we love you, go home". The man knows how to guide a crowd. He has responsibility here.

neogodless 6y ago

It certainly fits the definition of censorship. Now, not that this magically justifies it, but it is censorship made by large companies on information that is viewed by a large number of U.S. citizens. The content being targeted is important and relevant. The content is misinformation about the integrity of the federal government, the election process, the thousands of individuals involved in maintaining the integrity of the election, the merit of every individual's vote and every eligible voter having their right to vote, the election representing the will of the people rather than being overridden by courts and legislators and so on. This information is coming from a propaganda machine, a disinformation machine. And that machine includes President Donald Trump, complicit members of the Senate and Congress, various state and local legislators... that is to say powers of government with a vested interest in maintaining and expanding their power over people through means of manipulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_censorship > Political censorship exists when a government attempts to conceal, fake, distort, or falsify information that its citizens receive by suppressing or crowding out political news that the public might receive through news outlets. In the absence of neutral and objective information, people will be unable to dissent with the government or political party in charge.

de6u99er 6y ago

What's also censorship is banning users from commenting in those subreddits. That being said, I think serious tech companies should not be an enabler of fascists.

gremlinsinc 6y ago

Question, can I go into /r/conservative on reddit and post anything I want? Or do the mods limit what can or cannot be said there? Curious your take on that? Maybe we should just end moderation altogether. I'm curious what dang would have to say about that.

jedberg 6y ago

> Whatever they call it, this is censorship. By definition it is not. Only governments can censor. This is just a private entity making a decision. You have the right to say what you want, but I don't have to let you into my living room to say it.

umvi 6y ago
> By definition it is not. Only governments can censor What if we live in a WALL-E type world where corporations are so large and powerful they effectively govern society?
- Tokkemon 6y ago
  But they don't.
  - umvi 6y ago
    Powerful lobbies shape our laws according to the interests of corporations. "Public Squares" have largely moved to privately-owned internet platforms. And there's no way to have a "voice" on the internet protected by the first amendment because no matter what you have to go through a private corporation that can decide to cut you off at some layer in the stack, even if you self host.
  - himujjal 6y ago
    Heard of the patriot act?
FalconSensei 6y ago
Specially if: 1 - The community was repeatedly infringing the TOS. 2 - Reddit has liability to what's being posted on it
null0pointer 6y ago
Not true at all. Censorship is any type of redaction or restriction, no matter who performs it. You are confusing censorship with a breach of the first amendment.

triceratops 6y ago

> I am not sure what other options are there, but censorship is the worst option. Really. That's the "worst" option? You can't think of worse things than that?

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago

People crying out loud: Facebook made us stupid! - is a bit disconcerting to me.