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>I DO NOT WISH TO MAKE THIS A POLITICAL DEBATE I agree this is an interesting topic and a real issue, but with words like "oppressive regimes", and "Big Tech a

by La1n 6y ago

>I DO NOT WISH TO MAKE THIS A POLITICAL DEBATE I agree this is an interesting topic and a real issue, but with words like "oppressive regimes", and "Big Tech all too easily puts commerce over conscience.", I don't see how this can be approached from a non-political angle. edit: Not to throw it on the words that were used, but I think this is an inherently political issue.

fire7000 6y ago
It's really simple, stop being arrogant. Stop assuming you will understand something while "others" aren't smart enough. Stop Censoring Period. If your whole basis of winning an argument is to have no debate, then that says more about the strength of your argument than it does about theirs.
hprotagonist 6y ago
"i want to talk about governments but not politics" is a fairly incoherent position.
Psychlist 6y ago
Perhaps they mean "I don't want to get into the specific politics, I'd prefer to discuss the generic position from big tech that they help governments suppress news of human rights violations". In other words, "should big tech do things like this" Rather than "{thing X} is wrong and big tech is suppressing news of that exact thing. Let's talk about whether thing X is really wrong, or whether it's really newsworthy"
- loveistheanswer 6y ago
  >"should big tech do things like this" If they want more money, the answer is yes. If they have a moral and ethical code which values freedom of expression as a human right, then the answer is no.
aparsons 6y ago
HN has not been welcoming of political discussion and for good reason. US politics over the last 3 months was noticeably absent from the front page. That being said I do think there is a finer tech ethics issue here: If a government asks you to censor or remove content, do you do it? Looking at Google in China and Australia, answer seems to be “yes, in that government’s jurisdiction”. Examples OP cited are different in that Google and Facebook seem to have censored the content wholesale, across the world.
excelthrow 6y ago
It's a fine line to toe. I agree the latter statement is perhaps too accusatory, but I don't want to edit the post (for the sake of context in the comments). As far as the "oppressive regimes" statement, it is political - but also the actions of these governments towards their respective minority group have been well studied, and for a lack of better words, oppressive. There are other words, like genocidal, that have also been used to describe these actions, but I hesitated to use them on this forum. My post should have been clearer in that I do not wish to break Hacker News tradition in discussing the underlying political issues that don't relate to technology, but only the pressuring-tech-companies-into-censorship issue. It's still political, but I think it invites much fewer flame wars.

by La1n 6y ago

fire7000 6y ago

It's really simple, stop being arrogant. Stop assuming you will understand something while "others" aren't smart enough. Stop Censoring Period. If your whole basis of winning an argument is to have no debate, then that says more about the strength of your argument than it does about theirs.

hprotagonist 6y ago

"i want to talk about governments but not politics" is a fairly incoherent position.

Psychlist 6y ago

Perhaps they mean "I don't want to get into the specific politics, I'd prefer to discuss the generic position from big tech that they help governments suppress news of human rights violations". In other words, "should big tech do things like this" Rather than "{thing X} is wrong and big tech is suppressing news of that exact thing. Let's talk about whether thing X is really wrong, or whether it's really newsworthy"

loveistheanswer 6y ago
>"should big tech do things like this" If they want more money, the answer is yes. If they have a moral and ethical code which values freedom of expression as a human right, then the answer is no.

aparsons 6y ago

HN has not been welcoming of political discussion and for good reason. US politics over the last 3 months was noticeably absent from the front page. That being said I do think there is a finer tech ethics issue here: If a government asks you to censor or remove content, do you do it? Looking at Google in China and Australia, answer seems to be “yes, in that government’s jurisdiction”. Examples OP cited are different in that Google and Facebook seem to have censored the content wholesale, across the world.

excelthrow 6y ago

It's a fine line to toe. I agree the latter statement is perhaps too accusatory, but I don't want to edit the post (for the sake of context in the comments). As far as the "oppressive regimes" statement, it is political - but also the actions of these governments towards their respective minority group have been well studied, and for a lack of better words, oppressive. There are other words, like genocidal, that have also been used to describe these actions, but I hesitated to use them on this forum. My post should have been clearer in that I do not wish to break Hacker News tradition in discussing the underlying political issues that don't relate to technology, but only the pressuring-tech-companies-into-censorship issue. It's still political, but I think it invites much fewer flame wars.