37 ms·

The Most Dangerous Censorship

448 points by 0xedb 5y ago

nraynaud 5y ago
slight tangent, but as a teenager we had to read a Danilo Kis book: "Early Sorrows" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Sorrows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Sorrows ), that was quite a jolt.
strogonoff 5y ago
I wonder how Snowden reconciles his position on self-censorship with his current country of residence. Is it meta, in the sense that he too has to self-censor out of fear for own life? Does he consider it a necessary move, presuming any country with stronger freedom of speech is also a country that would extradite him to the US?
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  > I wonder how Snowden reconciles his position on self-censorship with his current country of residence. By remembering that he got only got stuck in Russia because the United States revoked his passport while he was on an international flight that was to make a connection in Moscow?
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    While it’s a good point, it doesn’t really explain anything here. I don’t have the details, but isn’t there a way to apply for an asylum, say, in neighbouring Georgia, Ukraine or Finland (by walking into an embassy or even straight to a land border)? Is he being held against his will? Does he not desire to move? Is it because he’s thinking those countries would be likely to deport him at the request of the US? Is it because he doesn’t believe living in a country which regime is closer to one’s own philosophy is worth the hassle of moving there? Or he doesn’t consider those countries any better than Russia in this regard? Etc.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      He applied to 27 countries including Finland. Apart from Russia, the ones he could actually reach turned him down. I have no doubt Russia is milking this for all it’s worth (wouldn’t you in their place?) but Snowden really didn’t have a totally free hand in where he ended up after his passport was cancelled — just America or Russia.
      - strogonoff 5y ago
        If he did apply for asylum and was refused, that explains the situation to me personally. I never thought all of the (admittedly, quite few) directly adjacent to Russia democratic countries would do that to him. I hope he continues to write on these topics from wherever he is.
        dane-pgp 5y ago
        > directly adjacent to Russia democratic countries I wonder how necessary the "directly adjacent" criteria is. Couldn't he sail from Russia to Iceland, for example? Perhaps if he was wanted by Interpol he would find it hard to travel through the territorial waters of European nations (assuming their coast guards would intercept a vessel carrying him). In practice, though, I assume that Putin's government has made it very clear to him that his safety relies on him remaining a useful propaganda piece for the regime, so he wouldn't even get as far as Russian waters.
        randompwd 5y ago
        American operatives cant move freely in Russia as they can in any other European/Western country.
        shadowgovt 5y ago
        The moment that ship sails into international waters, he's at risk of being spirited off it by a detachment of the FBI [https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/fawaz-younis https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/fawaz-younis]. ... and if he books passage on a ship that doesn't reach international waters, there's nothing to stop US operatives from bribing the captain to take a detour.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  It's not like he had a huge amount of choice in where he ended up. Putin allows it because he can point to Snowden and say "see, he uncovered programs in the American system that are doing things they accuse me of". And likely also because Putin sees Snowden as a potentially valuable bargaining chip.
- emsy 5y ago
  How do people reconcile that Snowden, who should be lauded as a hero finds refuge at a country where Vladimir Putin is president is frankly a much more interesting question.Btw: He doesn’t need to be a martyr to be a hero.
  - throwkeep 5y ago
    Because he didn't have much of a choice? I have a feeling he'd much prefer being back in the US or somewhere in Europe or any other number of places, but all of those lead to a jail cell.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      You misread that question.
- mdoms 5y ago
  Dude it's not like Snowden is stoked to be living the dream in Russia. He's an exile.
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    Not blaming him and not sure whether he had a choice. Just noting a certain dissonance in reality, which I’d assume he also experiences, and wondering how he frames it in his mind (e.g., does he think “yes, my writing is affected by the very thing I describe, but I currently have no other choice”, or “I’m not self-censoring since somehow I have a deal that I can write anything I want, as long as I’m not trying to disseminate it in Russia”, or “self-censorship is a thing happening everywhere now, so Russia or not there’s not much difference where to reside”, or something else entirely). It’s not quite an elephant in the room, but IMO if he went a bit meta on this it could make for an interesting read (maybe he does elsewhere—I’m not using Substack and not following his writing very closely).
- h2odragon 5y ago
  "with his country of residence" wtf? ... he prefers Russia to "suicide" in an American jail, and this is supposed to negatively impact his credibility? Or should he martyr himself to integrity and start calling Putin and the leaders of Russia out for their bad behaviors? I honor the man as a hero; but if I was him I'd STFU and try to live a quiet life in the woods somewhere, never attracting public attention again. Lest the end be messy and spectacular like Assange is being treated to.
- salynchnew 5y ago
  > I wonder how Snowden reconciles his position on self-censorship with his current country of residence. Is it meta, in the sense that he too has to self-censor out of fear for own life? Does he consider it a necessary move, presuming any country with stronger freedom of speech is also a country that would extradite him to the US? TFW your thought piece is a subtweet of itself.
gentleman11 5y ago
> For fear of losing a job, or of losing an admission to school, or of losing the right to live in the country of your birth, or merely of social ostracism, many of today's best minds in so-called free, democratic states have stopped trying to say what they think and feel and have fallen silent. There are a lot of topics I won’t touch any more, more every year. Accounts - can’t stay anonymous, ml systems working around the clock to identify posters. My social justice focused friends have it worse, their online “friends” attack them publicly over every single little thing. They go quiet or form a tiny invite only groups to hide after an attempt to do something good that backfired because their skin is the wrong colour or they aren’t trans. They have panic attacks over the guilt and stress
- ben_w 5y ago
  Likewise. A few weeks ago someone took enough of an exception to me writing here that (COVID) masks are trivial that they went to my blog and vented quite unpleasantly. I know others who have had it much worse than me.
  - rebelos 5y ago
    Masks are not yet "trivial" and it's stupid to argue otherwise. You don't need anything other than logic to see why: a great number of people in the US and elsewhere remain unvaccinated. And relying on the honor system to identify them (given the mentality one would expect of much of this group) is patently insane. So it's best, for now, to keep the masks on. This isn't about your freedom and it isn't even really about the direct mortality rate associated with COVID. It's about not flooding hospitals. You don't need to worry about being canceled. In this case, it's sufficient to apply just a tad of critical thinking.
    - TeeMassive 5y ago
      > Masks are not yet "trivial" and it's stupid to argue otherwise. Fauci disagrees with you.
    - ben_w 5y ago
tsegratis 5y ago
Powerful comment on how we cancel ourselves, before we let others do it to us -- Just observing today my favourited and most impactful (to me) articles on HN were all flagged Why do we do this to ourselves?
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  Because most people don't want to be tracked down, harassed, or forced out of their job because they said something someone took as offensive to the wrong people. People use twitter as their personal army and no one is worse than people who think they are morally just. C.S. Lewis articulates this well. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19967-of-all-tyrannies-a-tyranny-sincerely-exercised-for-the-good https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19967-of-all-tyrannies-a-ty...
  - RIMR 5y ago
    Free speech includes calling your employer and telling them what you said online. Your employer doesn't have to listen or do anything about it. Should they choose to fire you, it's because whatever you said online was deemed worth firing you for. If the things you want to say online could get you fired, find a new job before opening your mouth. If you like your job, don't do things that will get you fired. Free speech doesn't mean that people have to be forced to tolerate what you say. If your words make it to your employer's ears, and they decide to terminate your employment, that's because your employer no longer views your employment as worthwhile, which is entirely their choice to make. Most of America is at-will employment. If you want to establish the right to work, fight for that - otherwise, accept that your employment comes with certain terms.
    - type0 5y ago
      > Free speech includes calling your employer and telling them what you said online. Sure, and quoting things out of context is of course also free speech /s
    - lmm 5y ago
      > If you want to establish the right to work, fight for that I do, at every opportunity. But in the meantime we live in an imperfect world and should adjust our social norms accordingly.
haecceity 5y ago
Free Snowden. Free Hong Kong. Why do we care more about Hong Kong than Snowden? Snowden needs to work on his marketing.
- thekyle 5y ago
  > Why do we care more about Hong Kong than Snowden? Well, Hong Kong is an entire city of people, while Snowden is just one guy.
  - haecceity 5y ago
    Hong Kong got more coverage than Minneapolis protests as well. It was only after Hong Kong protests were proudly displaying their racism to Black people that we stopped covering them. Which is hilarious to say the least. But I guess you have a point because Minneapolis is a smaller city.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Are you seriously asking why we care about 7.5 million people more than we care about one person?
  - haecceity 5y ago
    Sorry Snowden your suffering is insignificant because you're just one guy. :(
manux 5y ago
What about the self-censorship of our neo-cortex telling us not to insult other people? Is that bad too? Expression, and respectful expression, is a very nuanced and complex topic. This dramatic post presents the far end of the spectrum where every word can lead one to be fired. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
- seaorg 5y ago
  Yes, it is bad. Cultures that discourage “rude” comments invariably have more corruption than cultures that encourage frankness. Take the Netherlands for example. People say they are rude. But really, it’s just that Americans can’t tell the difference between objective honesty and malicious insults. People who say what they mean and call it like they see it are brave. They don’t cash in tomorrow for a little convenience today.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    Are you actually arguing that we should always communicate every thought that comes to our head? That we should never choose to keep a thought to ourselves? This does not seem like a good idea in practice. There are lots of thoughts we should keep to ourselves. If you see a friend with a new haircut, and you think it looks ugly, should you immediately just blurt out “hey, your new haircut looks awful”? Why? Just because it is how you feel doesn’t mean you need to tell everyone. I find the people who insist on “telling it like it is” and who are “just being honest” are often just being assholes.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      For what it’s worth, “radical honesty” does exactly that. Best done with the consent of those you’re being radically honest with, because without that one definitely comes across as a dick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_honesty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_honesty
    - seaorg 5y ago
      Yeah except that countries that lean closer to what you’re talking about are universally better than countries that lean in the direction of politeness. Lower corruption, happier by all metrics and so on. Should you let your friend walk around town and become a laughing stock of the community just because you were too afraid to tell him the guy at Supercuts must have had a hangover? Like I said, you’re trading in tomorrow for today. Trading in the big picture for short term gain or convenience. Ultimately it’s a net loss and it’s societal poison that, if left unchecked, leads to corruption and stagnation. The emotional reaction to harmless words is not an intrinsic aspect of human biology. If someone says mean things in a malicious attempt to hurt you, it is natural to be emotionally disturbed or upset at the fact that someone has malicious intent toward you. But in some cultures you can tell someone their haircut is messed up and they understand that you don’t have malicious intent. It’s a cultural artifact, albeit a widespread one. It tripped me up for a long time too because I was born in a country that doesn’t know any better.
quaunaut 5y ago
What happened to the concept of being proud of your beliefs and ensuring they align with the lifestyle you lead? The nebulous fear so many have seems rooted either in not thinking through the problem of so-called "cancel culture", or in people thinking they shouldn't suffer the consequences of their decisions.
- syshum 5y ago
  What happened is that any minor offense, misunderstanding, obtuse comment or joke is taken to nth degree by a permanent victim culture that is looking to be offended at everything to highlight how oppressed they are by society. as to "Suffer the consequences", when a single tweet results in your complete ostracization from society, your lively hood terminated, your safety put in danger, etc well I think the punishment does not fit the crime. I dont care how offensive that tweet was. Doubly for those that have had this happen for comments made 10, 20, or even 30 years in the past. Neither proportionality of punishment nor forgiveness seem to be concepts that are entertained in cancel culture. As I was told many times growing up, Sticks and Stones can break my bones but words can never harm me. It seems today we have replaced that valid and correct axiom with "Words are violence" which is a most dangerous precedent indeed. Further here lately I have begun to see an even more dangerous one that is being put forth "Silence is Violence"..
  - breuleux 5y ago
    I would be careful about accusing anyone of indulging in a victim culture, because it's a very easy script to flip. The common "leftist" perspective is that "cancelling" is a rare occurrence, mainly targets the rich and is not particularly effective in the grand scheme of things given that politically incorrect speakers routinely reach hundreds of millions of people. They would also argue that it can be tricky to tell whether someone is "cancelled" because primarily because of their views, or because they are insufferable and people were already looking for excuses to get rid of them. In other words, they don't think it's a big deal. Now, if the leftist is correct (I'm not saying they are), then your post ironically becomes a textbook example of victim culture: you're blowing up a relatively minor phenomenon out of proportion, painting yourself as being oppressed. The only reason you don't see it that way is because you think you're right and that the problem you see is truly serious. But obviously the people you think indulge in a "victim culture" also believe that the problem they see is serious. You should be more understanding of their mindset. Otherwise, all I'm seeing here are victims screaming past each other.
reggieband 5y ago
I very often type out comments on HN and then delete them. As Snowden alludes to, everything we submit to public forums is logged and stored. There is no doubt in my mind these comments are easily associated to my real identity with very little effort. Another side of censorship I consider often is signal to noise. There is no reason to prevent people from saying whatever they want if no one will ever see it. I recall a stat I heard that YouTube receives ~400 hours of content uploaded every minute to their site. Or the long-tail of Twitch streamers with 0 viewers. Finally, there is a threat of violence. We all know what happens to high-profile journalists because of their high profile. I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs.
- slver 5y ago
  > I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs. Maybe a bit conspiratorial. Even dictators need to prioritize their actions. And they'd go for speech that has impact (like said high-profile journalists), and less so for random noise on no-traffic forums with anonymous authors. A lot gets lost in the internet noise. Nobody cares about it.
  - Cyph0n 5y ago
    > Even dictators need to prioritize their actions. A bastardization of Andy Grove's famous words: "Only the paranoid [dictators] survive". You'd be surprised at how paranoid dictators get. Every little sign of disobedience is magnified into a "threat". This is the reason why almost all autocratic systems end up devolving into police states with (usually) multiple large intelligence agencies keeping each other in check.
    - teddyh 5y ago
      Obligatory link to CGP Grey’s “The Rules for Rulers”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
  - reggieband 5y ago
dooglius 5y ago
Snowden's publisher was sued and prevented from paying him for the work. What's the deal with the paid subscription option then? Will substack end up just pocketing the money, or is there some legal workaround? For that matter, could the government try and go after any paying subscribers?
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  Not sure about substack, but usually the Fed won't chase small time subscribers. They are more likely to yank the money at the payment processor.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  Stripe probably has better lawyers with more experience dealing with payments than the publisher. They might even be the same lawyers Substack has since they're both YC companies.
ckemere 5y ago
When I think back to the me of my teenage years or early twenties, I recognize that I had many strong beliefs that were probably wrong. I think that modern requirements of self-censorship have at least one really valuable outcome. They force people (with jobs, reputations, etc) to think carefully before posting online. I suspect that many people may be like me - they are hesitant to click "add comment" not out of fear of having a mob come after them, but rather because (a) they have realized that their own current opinions may be wrong, and recognize that there is harm that comes from an abundance of wrong opinions or (b) the cost in time of careful self-editing is too high. Maybe the author of this piece would argue that this is a bad thing, but my impression is that it's almost universally the case that if you can't be careful in speaking/writing there will usually be less harm from silence than from blurting out whatever comes to mind immediately.
- overgard 5y ago
  Conversely though, if you're afraid to express an opinion that may be incorrect, then you're likely to hold that opinion much longer because nobody will be there to tell you you're wrong.
- waterhouse 5y ago
  There are plenty of people that cheerfully post extreme opinions, even under their own names on Facebook. I get the impression that these people are some combination of: reckless/impulsive, in a social bubble, "got nothing to lose", or not very careful thinkers. I think that the effect of more careful and cautious thinkers self-selecting out of the conversation is often just to make the conversation dominated by the above sorts of people, and I don't think that's an improvement.
- jollybean 5y ago
  " think that modern requirements of self-censorship have at least one really valuable outcome. They force people (with jobs, reputations, etc) to think carefully before posting online. " There's nothing wrong with being wrong. Especially in hindsight. We all regret things we've once said - that's the point of being human. This has nothing to do with 'getting people to think before they act' - in oppressive regimes with all of the power, it's about control. In open societies with competing ideologies it's a 'nation-sized knife-fight where certain groups are cutting down even their own in the name of antagonizing glory.
runbathtime 5y ago
We can't say the truth/opinion about certain topics because it will offend certain people and the mob will exert its power to take something from you by threatening you or an employer. Could it be considered blackmail to get someone fired from their job for outing something they said to an employer?
- captainoats 5y ago
  Blackmail as a crime requires the blackmailer trying to get money or something of value out of their victim to prevent them from exposing some sensitive information. Would be interesting if someone could argue the outcome of cancelling someone fell within that definition.
goat_whisperer 5y ago
This is pretty rich. I'd argue the worst kind of censorship is getting murdered/disappeared by a totalitarian government for speaking out against them. Kind of like what happens to critics of Putin, Snowden's current patron. But hey, I guess getting some mean tweets directed at you is pretty bad too. Anyone appreciate the irony that Snowden's posts are probably monitored/vetted by the KGB?
- type0 5y ago
  > Anyone appreciate the irony that Snowden's posts are probably monitored/vetted by the KGB? FSB, that's news to me, are they vetting his posts?
overgard 5y ago
I think we need to let go of the idea that offending people is harmful. It's fine to take offense, we are all free to do that, but I don't think there should be any expectation that people do anything to avoid offending you other than practicing basic civility. You are likely not harmed just because I believe something different from you. Frankly, if you feel like you need a safe space to hide from ideas that you disagree with, the world is too sharp for you to handle.
- RIMR 5y ago
  On that same note, if you decide to express offensive views, you should be willing to accept the social backlash for doing so. Your right to speak isn't infringed by allowing others to exercise their own right to speak against you. Letting go of the idea that offending people is harmful is probably a good thing, but you will also need to let go of the idea that people aren't permitted to be offended by what you say. If you cannot accept the consequence of offending others, you should keep your mouth shut. Free speech doesn't mean you get to say whatever you want and hear nothing in return.
  - gordian-mind 5y ago
    "We should encourage people to express their views, but also normalize lynching them if we disagree with those."
    - knownjorbist 5y ago
      Can you conceive of any views one can express that deserve social backlash?
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    'Offense' - its definition changes based on person's emotional state, their ideology, their background, how much sleep they had last night, or simply they're trolls, or get offended because they want to play a victim, etc. So, if we follow your template of society, it would be impossible to not offend someone. Society would come to a complete halt. A society where expression is nulled by people that follow this ideology would have no art, no expression, no culture and a single authoritarian mindset of following the line and never deviating from it. The ministry of emotional well-being will be keeping an eye on you. At best it would be a boring stagnant society, at worst it will be dangerous and impossible to protest against it. It's a destructive concept and I'd like to question who determines the line that you walk on. I hope you can reflect a little bit and it should be easy how this can be problematic.
username91 5y ago
"Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter" are not moral highgrounds for free speech - they're engagement-driven platforms that thrive on drama and conflict. Posting on these platforms is not real human communication. If you can't calm down and remove yourself from an online argument before posting something that is almost guaranteed to be misunderstood, you're not evading self-censorship, you're feeding an addiction. I'm probably doing it right now.
jfengel 5y ago
The most dangerous censorship is the one that is happening to you. We used to have a policy literally called "Don't Tell" in the US. People who "told" (or were outed) were fired... assuming they weren't killed for it, by somebody who would claim that they "panicked" (a defense still legal in 38 states[1]). That wasn't the most dangerous censorship. Women are commonly told that if they wear the wrong thing, then they deserve to be raped. Clothes are a form of self-expression -- but shutting that up isn't the most dangerous censorship. A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist was denied tenure because one donor didn't like what she said. But that's not the most dangerous censorship. We all watched a videotaped murder last year, and when the police were sent in to beat up peaceful protesters -- including journalists -- that wasn't the most dangerous censorship. A lot of censorship goes on, and has gone on. As far as I can tell, this one rises to the level of "most dangerous censorship" because he thinks it's the one that's happening to him. I hear not a peep about any of the others. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/virginia-becomes-12th-state-ban-gay-trans-panic-defense-n1262933 https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/virginia-becomes-12t...
- type0 5y ago
  You are dangerously close to the truth here, but it isn't what the thread is about.
kradeelav 5y ago
This is possibly a unique angle, but by being in taboo art circles (erotic art specifically), I'm struck at how much I see this topic resonating with my fellow artists. I know so many, too many, far more than I can count on my hands who have simply given up posting kink art because they keep getting mobbed, doxxed, slandered, and harassed simply by posting art (or seeing their friends getting shredded as well). I know so many that have forced to bounce from platform to platform from instagram to tumblr to twitter because either the algorithm censors you or the mob abuses the "report user" button if they simply don't care for your art. I know so many who have had to host on friend's servers because big-name hosts ban erotic art and kinks in tiny print in the TOS and it's just not worth it to fucking bounce from host to host unless if it's an actual friend who supports true artistic freedom. I know so many who are winding up in making zines as a last resort, because zines can be printed at the home computer, so they're one of the last truly uncensored artistic mediums in comparison to the internet. And yet - how many trailblazing artists have we lost from that crushing top-down censorship even with that one meager avenue open? So yes, this is relevant and urgent, and in more ways than it appears.
- pram 5y ago
  Have you tried Pixiv ;P It's a gallery, not a social platform. It's pretty effortless too, I just hit 5k followers and I started in 2019 after Tumblr exploded. Just post your art, tag it, and the horny people will come
  - _carbyau_ 5y ago
    I know not this platform, and with the context as given I am not about to visit it at work. I am amused at this given the article talks about social chilling. :-P But your description seems at odds with itself. Who is following you if it isn't a social platform?
    - pram 5y ago
      A gallery site like Pixiv and Deviantart has users, and they can comment and you can reply etc, but the primary purpose isn’t to chat. You can’t post anything other than content. It’s not for blogging or shower thoughts. The followers are people who typically just make collections of pictures they like.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
neonate 5y ago
https://outline.com/TeXdAx https://outline.com/TeXdAx
theshrike79 5y ago
This is why I delete all my old tweets, posts and comments on all sites with a passing link to my actual profile. Nothing good has ever become of people's old tweets popping up years later. Ever. I think HN has the longest history of my comments, just because it's not possible to delete or anonymize comments without creating a bunch of throwaway accounts.
zuminator 5y ago
In one sense, I'd argue that the feeling of censorship is misguided. People are more free to communicate now with a larger audience than ever before in history. Before if you had something controversial to say, unless you were an extremely well-known academic or politician, it didn't get any further than your barstool or bridge club. Now your thoughts can be instantly transmitted to an audience of literally millions. Ideas are being hyper-amplified, not hyper-suppressed. However, it comes with a catch. In pre-Internet days, when your verbal blurts potentially reached dozens, you felt fairly free and unimpeded to reach the limits of your communication bubble, tiny as it was. Even if you were roundly condemned, the area of effect was likely small and the duration transitory. Now that your verbal blurts can reach millions, so many more people can take issue with your words, and they remain part of your dreaded "permanent record" forever. Consequently the stakes have become much higher. Speech doesn't feel free and unimpeded, even though in practice structural impediments have been greatly reduced. It seems to me unfortunately that the lowering of structural impediments to communication ineluctably goes hand in hand with the raising of social impediments. People are becoming cautious because we simply can't take for granted that any speech we generate will stay safely within its intended audience. Private emails can be dredged up years later. Screenshots can be taken without our knowledge. Phones can record videos of us saying and doing things we thought were personal and confidential. Information just wanted to be free, and got its wish, but it's turned people into prisoners in a panopticon. My point being, these are two sides of the same coin. Blaming "Marxism" or "cancel culture" and the like isn't going to change that fact.
- raclage 5y ago
  I think this is a good analysis and I think too few people consider it this way. I'm not convinced that changes in culture are driving this as much as changes in how information is shared and spread and I'm disappointed how few people, even on Hacker News, seem interested in this angle.
- zeouter 5y ago
  This makes a lot of sense to me, thank you.
- schoen 5y ago
type0 5y ago
Here's a good and poignant clip about "mail snooping" from Little Murders (1971): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g16InStip5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g16InStip5k
11thEarlOfMar 5y ago
"I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't believe anything." - David St. Hubbins
longtimegoogler 5y ago
The question is who is the mob. I fear the crazies much more who stormed the capital and tried to overthrow our democracy than some online SJWs who are going to try and cancel someone for having an unpopular opinion. Not that either are great, for instance I didn't find Damore's opinions outlandish although expressed poorly.
- neartheplain 5y ago
  Personally, I fear mob violence commited with the sanction and cooperation of the state and news media. That's the sort of violence which starts, keeps going, and doesn't stop until it literally burns itself out. In general, organized violence ends when 1) law enforcement takes decisive action to detain the perpetrators, and 2) organizers think the violence no longer serves their political goals. Both 1) and 2) were true of the Capitol insurrection, which was universally condemned and whose perpetrators were swiftly rounded up. Neither were especially true of the far-left anarchist uprisings, particularly in cities like Portland where permissive DAs let the same rioters out literally within hours of their arrest, while NPR and the Washington Post praised those who threw firebombs at courthouses and police stations. So, I expect less of the former and more of the latter.
  - mint2 5y ago
    > 1) law enforcement takes decisive action to detain the perpetrators, and 2) organizers think the violence no longer serves their political goals. Both 1) and 2) were true of the Capitol insurrection, which was universally condemned 1) The law enforcement has a track record of glad handling the far right. 2) many prominent right wing media and political figures tried blaming the insurrection on antifa, are blocking any investigations, and are justifying the event and the big lie that created it. I don’t think most people who aren’t supporters of right wing viewpoints will agree with your assessments.
    - neartheplain 5y ago
      (Considered not replying, but then looked again at the link title...) The view of law enforcement as going easy on the far-right may have been true in 1970s America, but it does not appear so 2021. Far-right militia movements have been subject to intense scrutiny and violence (and some allege, entrapment) since their growth in the 1990s [0][1]. In the case of the Capitol riot, 525 people have now been federally charged [2]. Arrested rioters have been "savagely beaten" in jail by prison guards, to the point of skull fractures and permanent blindness [3]. It's true that fringe Congressional Republicans such as Josh Hawley or Marjorie Taylor Greene have tried to blame antifa for the Capitol insurrection. They hold no powerful Senate or House positions, and appear "prominent" mainly due to the attention the the press gives them. The actual Republican Congressional leadership swiftly denounced the insurrection, and placed blame for the attack on President Trump [4][5]. In contrast, President Biden and prominent Senators such as Jerry Nadler have repeatedly denied the existence of organized far-left violence at all [6][7], describing events such as the month-long nightly siege of the federal courthouse in Portland "a myth" and "imaginary." Speaker Nancy Pelosi has acknowledged antifa gangs' existence in the past, after they vandalized her house and sprayed it with pig blood. As rioters threw Molotov cocktails and firebombs at the federal courthouse in Portland, attacked federal agents with hammers, lasers, and bricks, beat and stabbed journalists, set fire to the Mayor's condo building, and were arrested carrying illegal firearms, the Washington Post gave them a glowing photo shoot [8]. They were praised as morally virtuous freedom-fighters. In Seattle, anarchists occupied several city blocks for weeks with assault rifles, and shot dead an unarmed black child [9] before destroying the evidence and concealing the killer's identity. These stories disappeared from the Washington Post, NPR, and even Fox News within days, yet we still get frequent updates on the Capitol insurrection. Finally, it makes no difference whether cops arrest more left-wing rioters if the local DA and US Attorney decide to release them and dismiss all charges [10][11]. There's been little such leniency applied to violent actors in the Capitol insurrection. This has not gone unnoticed by either the far-right or far-left. The exasperation I feel watching this unfold as someone on the center-left is a shadow of what I sense from the actual right wing. I think anger at the leniency given to far-left violence last summer is what propelled a lot of people to attack the Capitol, in a "if they can get away with it, why can't we?" sort of tantrum. This emotional potential still remains. The risk of an eventual organized right-wing backlash, which so far has not reached the level of burning down buildings, executing people in the street, or occupying city blocks with armed militants, is what worries me most about the chance of more far-left violence. The extreme right is watching the extreme left get away with it, and they are taking notes. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25839889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25839889 [1] https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/06/07/whitmer-kidnapping-plot-suspect-pete-musico-fbi-agents-informant-entrapment/7590816002/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/06/07/w... [2] https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1 https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-ar... [3] https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/06/capitol-riot-defendant-beating-guards-479413 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/06/capitol-riot-defend... [4] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell-blames-trump-for-deadly-capitol-riot/ar-BB1cTsVA https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell-blam... [5] https://www.newsweek.com/kevin-mccarthy-tells-gop-stop-claiming-antifa-caused-riot-says-trump-bears-responsibility-1561317 https://www.newsweek.com/kevin-mccarthy-tells-gop-stop-claim... [6] https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/07/27/nadler-still-thinks-antifa-is-a-myth-n2573164 https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/07/27/nadle... [7] https://news.yahoo.com/biden-says-antifa-idea-not-025049929.html https://news.yahoo.com/biden-says-antifa-idea-not-025049929.... [8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/08/trump-sent-agents-quell-unrest-protest-is-what-portland-does-best/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/08/trump-sent-... [9] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25671284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25671284 [10] https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2020/08/11/district-attorney-mike-schmidt-will-drop-the-majority-of-current-charges-again-portland-protesters/ https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2020/08/11/district-attorn... [11] https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/portland-protest-cases-dismissed-feds/283-002f01d2-3217-4b12-8725-3fda2cad119f https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/portland-pro...
ratel 5y ago
Sorry, I respectfully disagree. Censorship is someone else preventing you from saying something you want to say. Self censorship (as something you want to say but do not because of fear of the consequences) is not a thing, simply because you cannot distinguish between the want to utter and the want not to utter and which is eventually winning in your head and the fact that you did or did not utter something. It is a process we call thinking. We choose our words or the absence of them and that makes them worth while. There is also no opposite to self-censorship: I want to be able to say everything I want without consequence. You say something because you want it to have and audience and thus consequences. Saying you want the consequences, just not the negative ones is saying you want everyone to confirm you are right. Well join the other 7 billion. The idea of self-censorship is also not innocent because you are robbing people of agency. You actually deny them to choose their own words. The idea of self-censorship requires an external party to declare someone wanted to say something, but he or she is self-censoring, That implies that you know what they think and the absence or presence of words gets filled in with whatever that third party thinks that person wanted to say.
ipython 5y ago
Perhaps an unpopular opinion on this thread, but this is just a convenient distraction while republican state houses and Secretaries of State across the country erode our real voice - access to the ballot box. Republicans are suing Twitter to unmask fake cows that post unflattering things about them because, feelings? Death threats and plans to kidnap elected officials? A goddamn noose erected on the steps of the capitol amid the first incursion on that building in something like 200 years? And I’m supposed to empathize? The whole thing is a mess. Nobody talks to each other. There was another thread I came across - don’t forget where I found it - but people who had put some tough guy face online suddenly weren’t so aggressive once they were face to face. There is a lot of division but there is common ground to find. It’s hard when the right paints you as literal child eating demons and the left says you are a racist xenophobic asshole, but damnit we need to come together - what’s the alternative???? When there are topics we should truly come together on - enfranchisement comes to mind - we are too busy infighting that we lose sight of the real goal. And that’s how democracies die.
- umvi 5y ago
  Another unpopular opinion (that I don't strongly hold but often think about) - but isn't a little voter friction a good thing? Voting friction (a little, not a lot) acts like a filter. It filters for voters who want to participate in democracy and make an effort to do so. In other words, I question the assumption that the more frictionless the voting, the healthier the democracy. For example, if commenting on a website were truly frictionless (i.e. anonymous users could post without an account), the quality of the discussion would go to pot and the signal-to-noise ratio would dramatically deteriorate. A small barrier to entry (sign-in required) increases the quality/signal-to-noise by a large factor even if it "disenfranchises" some people that would have otherwise commented but couldn't because they didn't have time to create an account. In that same vein, I think that if you make voting too easy you'll increase "noise" of the ballots, since lots of people that otherwise wouldn't have voted are now submitting low-effort ballots with essentially random bubbles filled in (other than perhaps the most prominent candidate). If it's not unreasonable to require users of websites to create an account before they can participate, why is it unreasonable to essentially require the same thing before contributing to the government of a nation?
knownjorbist 5y ago
Cancel culture can go to far. But tolerance of intolerance is also a problem. The US has a dark & dirty history and it seems the reason this has become a subject of debate again is because a certain element of people seem to want to pretend none of that ever happened, or worse, that it did but has no effect on our society today.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  Unless you define "intolerance", your argument is just a meaningless assertion. I wouldn't call wanting to pretend something didn't happen as intolerance. You do?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - knownjorbist 5y ago
    Ideologically pure "free speech" leads to infringement on the rights of others, including their own free speech. There is a line to be drawn here.
  - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
    The people repeating that axiom are generally the ones who are defining the term, which seems...convenient.
failwhaleshark 5y ago
Why I carry weapons for defensive purposes but speak facts and reality even if other may wish to impugn or murder me for it. Tribal ideologies are intellectual dishonesty cults incarnate. Saying you're a "D," "R," "communist," etc. puts your mind and your positions in a camp to defend. Why not weigh each issue, policy, and scenario standing-alone with consistent common-sense? If you don't have a weapon, others with weapons with different beliefs can and will eventually silence you permanently. This is what happens in Mexico to reporters and civil society activists. They don't carry guns and so they make themselves easy targets to eliminate.
swayvil 5y ago
And at the bottom they invite you to submit your email. Yeah, if you want to be on a list.
shadowgovt 5y ago
As a general, open question: How do we distinguish self-censorship (justifiably bad connotations and all) from "Choosing to not say things that would piss people off for no gain?" The latter just seems like prudent behavior when one lives in a society, because one's words have material impact on other people's mental state. Unmeasured words wide-cast can easily do more harm than good.
- logicchains 5y ago
  >How do we distinguish self-censorship (justifiably bad connotations and all) from "Choosing to not say things that would piss people off for no gain?" The key thing is that there's a mentally unstable subset of people that will get pissed off by pretty much anything. Letting their feelings control your discourse basically leaves no room for discourse.
syngrog66 5y ago
The pattern of evidence to date is that Ed Snowden is a traitor working for Russian foreign intelligence and now fled to exile in Russia, living there only under Putin's protection. He's been a key part of their effort to smear and undermine the US and their alliance partners for many years. He has no honor or moral authority or credibility.
romesmoke 5y ago
> Self-censorship means reading your own text with the eyes of another person, a situation where you become your own judge, stricter and more suspicious than anyone else. That's how many people write novels! All humor aside, Snowden has once again managed to convince me that he is one of the most articulate--yet horror-inducing--thinkers of our age. The fact that, were he to talk to a podcast, the discussion's transcript would be close to pure text quality is what I love about the guy. BTW Freud goes pretty deep on the matter of internalized surveillance in his book 'Civilization & its Discontents', written in 1929. It's supposedly one of the mechanisms that keep society functioning: you don't need cops if citizens are copping themselves.
robomartin 5y ago
Today's reality in the US is one where <snip> ... <snip> ... <snip> ... <snip> ... <snip> ... <snip>. Yeah. No comment.
tempodox 5y ago
Even if censorship / canceling / doxing were out of the picture, there is still another source of danger: The combination of surveillance and persistence. I often cringe when I read things I wrote several years ago. I have evolved, my views have changed. Had I posted that somewhere on the Internet it would be out there “forever”. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that someone (or worse, some shitty “AI”) would be able to pick that up years later and mis-interpret it into biased conclusions, with real-world consequences. The Internet has become a huge Petri dish for social dynamics, power struggles, and human psychology. I'm sure we have only just scratched the surface of what effects that will have on society and individuals.
deleted 5y ago
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mariojv 5y ago
Ironically, when I finished reading this article, I found myself skeptical to subscribe to Snowden's mailing list when presented with a prompt to do so at the bottom of the article. I didn't want to be put on some list. Aware of this after the article, I'm subscribing anyway. :)
amazingman 5y ago
As usual Snowden, America’s Freedom Laureate in exile, gets right to the heart of things. I do worry that his laser focus on the philosophy of things —and concomitant lack of specific (contemporary) detail/examples— will result in readers simply affirming their own dogmas rather than searching themselves for complicity. I hold out hope that, in the aggregate, the deeply subversive undercurrent of his writing pulls those dogmas under and drowns them to death.

448 points by 0xedb 5y ago

slight tangent, but as a teenager we had to read a Danilo Kis book: "Early Sorrows" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Sorrows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Sorrows ), that was quite a jolt.

strogonoff 5y ago

I wonder how Snowden reconciles his position on self-censorship with his current country of residence. Is it meta, in the sense that he too has to self-censor out of fear for own life? Does he consider it a necessary move, presuming any country with stronger freedom of speech is also a country that would extradite him to the US?

GeekyBear 5y ago
> I wonder how Snowden reconciles his position on self-censorship with his current country of residence. By remembering that he got only got stuck in Russia because the United States revoked his passport while he was on an international flight that was to make a connection in Moscow?
- strogonoff 5y ago
  While it’s a good point, it doesn’t really explain anything here. I don’t have the details, but isn’t there a way to apply for an asylum, say, in neighbouring Georgia, Ukraine or Finland (by walking into an embassy or even straight to a land border)? Is he being held against his will? Does he not desire to move? Is it because he’s thinking those countries would be likely to deport him at the request of the US? Is it because he doesn’t believe living in a country which regime is closer to one’s own philosophy is worth the hassle of moving there? Or he doesn’t consider those countries any better than Russia in this regard? Etc.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    He applied to 27 countries including Finland. Apart from Russia, the ones he could actually reach turned him down. I have no doubt Russia is milking this for all it’s worth (wouldn’t you in their place?) but Snowden really didn’t have a totally free hand in where he ended up after his passport was cancelled — just America or Russia.
    - strogonoff 5y ago
      If he did apply for asylum and was refused, that explains the situation to me personally. I never thought all of the (admittedly, quite few) directly adjacent to Russia democratic countries would do that to him. I hope he continues to write on these topics from wherever he is.
      - dane-pgp 5y ago
        > directly adjacent to Russia democratic countries I wonder how necessary the "directly adjacent" criteria is. Couldn't he sail from Russia to Iceland, for example? Perhaps if he was wanted by Interpol he would find it hard to travel through the territorial waters of European nations (assuming their coast guards would intercept a vessel carrying him). In practice, though, I assume that Putin's government has made it very clear to him that his safety relies on him remaining a useful propaganda piece for the regime, so he wouldn't even get as far as Russian waters.
        randompwd 5y ago
        American operatives cant move freely in Russia as they can in any other European/Western country.
        shadowgovt 5y ago
        The moment that ship sails into international waters, he's at risk of being spirited off it by a detachment of the FBI [https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/fawaz-younis https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/fawaz-younis]. ... and if he books passage on a ship that doesn't reach international waters, there's nothing to stop US operatives from bribing the captain to take a detour.
UncleOxidant 5y ago
It's not like he had a huge amount of choice in where he ended up. Putin allows it because he can point to Snowden and say "see, he uncovered programs in the American system that are doing things they accuse me of". And likely also because Putin sees Snowden as a potentially valuable bargaining chip.
emsy 5y ago
How do people reconcile that Snowden, who should be lauded as a hero finds refuge at a country where Vladimir Putin is president is frankly a much more interesting question.Btw: He doesn’t need to be a martyr to be a hero.
- throwkeep 5y ago
  Because he didn't have much of a choice? I have a feeling he'd much prefer being back in the US or somewhere in Europe or any other number of places, but all of those lead to a jail cell.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    You misread that question.
mdoms 5y ago
Dude it's not like Snowden is stoked to be living the dream in Russia. He's an exile.
- strogonoff 5y ago
  Not blaming him and not sure whether he had a choice. Just noting a certain dissonance in reality, which I’d assume he also experiences, and wondering how he frames it in his mind (e.g., does he think “yes, my writing is affected by the very thing I describe, but I currently have no other choice”, or “I’m not self-censoring since somehow I have a deal that I can write anything I want, as long as I’m not trying to disseminate it in Russia”, or “self-censorship is a thing happening everywhere now, so Russia or not there’s not much difference where to reside”, or something else entirely). It’s not quite an elephant in the room, but IMO if he went a bit meta on this it could make for an interesting read (maybe he does elsewhere—I’m not using Substack and not following his writing very closely).
h2odragon 5y ago
"with his country of residence" wtf? ... he prefers Russia to "suicide" in an American jail, and this is supposed to negatively impact his credibility? Or should he martyr himself to integrity and start calling Putin and the leaders of Russia out for their bad behaviors? I honor the man as a hero; but if I was him I'd STFU and try to live a quiet life in the woods somewhere, never attracting public attention again. Lest the end be messy and spectacular like Assange is being treated to.
salynchnew 5y ago
> I wonder how Snowden reconciles his position on self-censorship with his current country of residence. Is it meta, in the sense that he too has to self-censor out of fear for own life? Does he consider it a necessary move, presuming any country with stronger freedom of speech is also a country that would extradite him to the US? TFW your thought piece is a subtweet of itself.

gentleman11 5y ago

> For fear of losing a job, or of losing an admission to school, or of losing the right to live in the country of your birth, or merely of social ostracism, many of today's best minds in so-called free, democratic states have stopped trying to say what they think and feel and have fallen silent. There are a lot of topics I won’t touch any more, more every year. Accounts - can’t stay anonymous, ml systems working around the clock to identify posters. My social justice focused friends have it worse, their online “friends” attack them publicly over every single little thing. They go quiet or form a tiny invite only groups to hide after an attempt to do something good that backfired because their skin is the wrong colour or they aren’t trans. They have panic attacks over the guilt and stress

ben_w 5y ago
Likewise. A few weeks ago someone took enough of an exception to me writing here that (COVID) masks are trivial that they went to my blog and vented quite unpleasantly. I know others who have had it much worse than me.
- rebelos 5y ago
  Masks are not yet "trivial" and it's stupid to argue otherwise. You don't need anything other than logic to see why: a great number of people in the US and elsewhere remain unvaccinated. And relying on the honor system to identify them (given the mentality one would expect of much of this group) is patently insane. So it's best, for now, to keep the masks on. This isn't about your freedom and it isn't even really about the direct mortality rate associated with COVID. It's about not flooding hospitals. You don't need to worry about being canceled. In this case, it's sufficient to apply just a tad of critical thinking.
  - TeeMassive 5y ago
    > Masks are not yet "trivial" and it's stupid to argue otherwise. Fauci disagrees with you.
  - ben_w 5y ago

tsegratis 5y ago

Powerful comment on how we cancel ourselves, before we let others do it to us -- Just observing today my favourited and most impactful (to me) articles on HN were all flagged Why do we do this to ourselves?

tick_tock_tick 5y ago
Because most people don't want to be tracked down, harassed, or forced out of their job because they said something someone took as offensive to the wrong people. People use twitter as their personal army and no one is worse than people who think they are morally just. C.S. Lewis articulates this well. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19967-of-all-tyrannies-a-tyranny-sincerely-exercised-for-the-good https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19967-of-all-tyrannies-a-ty...
- RIMR 5y ago
  Free speech includes calling your employer and telling them what you said online. Your employer doesn't have to listen or do anything about it. Should they choose to fire you, it's because whatever you said online was deemed worth firing you for. If the things you want to say online could get you fired, find a new job before opening your mouth. If you like your job, don't do things that will get you fired. Free speech doesn't mean that people have to be forced to tolerate what you say. If your words make it to your employer's ears, and they decide to terminate your employment, that's because your employer no longer views your employment as worthwhile, which is entirely their choice to make. Most of America is at-will employment. If you want to establish the right to work, fight for that - otherwise, accept that your employment comes with certain terms.
  - type0 5y ago
    > Free speech includes calling your employer and telling them what you said online. Sure, and quoting things out of context is of course also free speech /s
  - lmm 5y ago
    > If you want to establish the right to work, fight for that I do, at every opportunity. But in the meantime we live in an imperfect world and should adjust our social norms accordingly.

haecceity 5y ago

Free Snowden. Free Hong Kong. Why do we care more about Hong Kong than Snowden? Snowden needs to work on his marketing.

thekyle 5y ago
> Why do we care more about Hong Kong than Snowden? Well, Hong Kong is an entire city of people, while Snowden is just one guy.
- haecceity 5y ago
  Hong Kong got more coverage than Minneapolis protests as well. It was only after Hong Kong protests were proudly displaying their racism to Black people that we stopped covering them. Which is hilarious to say the least. But I guess you have a point because Minneapolis is a smaller city.
cortesoft 5y ago
Are you seriously asking why we care about 7.5 million people more than we care about one person?
- haecceity 5y ago
  Sorry Snowden your suffering is insignificant because you're just one guy. :(

manux 5y ago

What about the self-censorship of our neo-cortex telling us not to insult other people? Is that bad too? Expression, and respectful expression, is a very nuanced and complex topic. This dramatic post presents the far end of the spectrum where every word can lead one to be fired. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

seaorg 5y ago
Yes, it is bad. Cultures that discourage “rude” comments invariably have more corruption than cultures that encourage frankness. Take the Netherlands for example. People say they are rude. But really, it’s just that Americans can’t tell the difference between objective honesty and malicious insults. People who say what they mean and call it like they see it are brave. They don’t cash in tomorrow for a little convenience today.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Are you actually arguing that we should always communicate every thought that comes to our head? That we should never choose to keep a thought to ourselves? This does not seem like a good idea in practice. There are lots of thoughts we should keep to ourselves. If you see a friend with a new haircut, and you think it looks ugly, should you immediately just blurt out “hey, your new haircut looks awful”? Why? Just because it is how you feel doesn’t mean you need to tell everyone. I find the people who insist on “telling it like it is” and who are “just being honest” are often just being assholes.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    For what it’s worth, “radical honesty” does exactly that. Best done with the consent of those you’re being radically honest with, because without that one definitely comes across as a dick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_honesty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_honesty
  - seaorg 5y ago
    Yeah except that countries that lean closer to what you’re talking about are universally better than countries that lean in the direction of politeness. Lower corruption, happier by all metrics and so on. Should you let your friend walk around town and become a laughing stock of the community just because you were too afraid to tell him the guy at Supercuts must have had a hangover? Like I said, you’re trading in tomorrow for today. Trading in the big picture for short term gain or convenience. Ultimately it’s a net loss and it’s societal poison that, if left unchecked, leads to corruption and stagnation. The emotional reaction to harmless words is not an intrinsic aspect of human biology. If someone says mean things in a malicious attempt to hurt you, it is natural to be emotionally disturbed or upset at the fact that someone has malicious intent toward you. But in some cultures you can tell someone their haircut is messed up and they understand that you don’t have malicious intent. It’s a cultural artifact, albeit a widespread one. It tripped me up for a long time too because I was born in a country that doesn’t know any better.

quaunaut 5y ago

What happened to the concept of being proud of your beliefs and ensuring they align with the lifestyle you lead? The nebulous fear so many have seems rooted either in not thinking through the problem of so-called "cancel culture", or in people thinking they shouldn't suffer the consequences of their decisions.

syshum 5y ago
What happened is that any minor offense, misunderstanding, obtuse comment or joke is taken to nth degree by a permanent victim culture that is looking to be offended at everything to highlight how oppressed they are by society. as to "Suffer the consequences", when a single tweet results in your complete ostracization from society, your lively hood terminated, your safety put in danger, etc well I think the punishment does not fit the crime. I dont care how offensive that tweet was. Doubly for those that have had this happen for comments made 10, 20, or even 30 years in the past. Neither proportionality of punishment nor forgiveness seem to be concepts that are entertained in cancel culture. As I was told many times growing up, Sticks and Stones can break my bones but words can never harm me. It seems today we have replaced that valid and correct axiom with "Words are violence" which is a most dangerous precedent indeed. Further here lately I have begun to see an even more dangerous one that is being put forth "Silence is Violence"..
- breuleux 5y ago
  I would be careful about accusing anyone of indulging in a victim culture, because it's a very easy script to flip. The common "leftist" perspective is that "cancelling" is a rare occurrence, mainly targets the rich and is not particularly effective in the grand scheme of things given that politically incorrect speakers routinely reach hundreds of millions of people. They would also argue that it can be tricky to tell whether someone is "cancelled" because primarily because of their views, or because they are insufferable and people were already looking for excuses to get rid of them. In other words, they don't think it's a big deal. Now, if the leftist is correct (I'm not saying they are), then your post ironically becomes a textbook example of victim culture: you're blowing up a relatively minor phenomenon out of proportion, painting yourself as being oppressed. The only reason you don't see it that way is because you think you're right and that the problem you see is truly serious. But obviously the people you think indulge in a "victim culture" also believe that the problem they see is serious. You should be more understanding of their mindset. Otherwise, all I'm seeing here are victims screaming past each other.

reggieband 5y ago

I very often type out comments on HN and then delete them. As Snowden alludes to, everything we submit to public forums is logged and stored. There is no doubt in my mind these comments are easily associated to my real identity with very little effort. Another side of censorship I consider often is signal to noise. There is no reason to prevent people from saying whatever they want if no one will ever see it. I recall a stat I heard that YouTube receives ~400 hours of content uploaded every minute to their site. Or the long-tail of Twitch streamers with 0 viewers. Finally, there is a threat of violence. We all know what happens to high-profile journalists because of their high profile. I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs.

slver 5y ago
> I often wonder how many nobodies disappear for some string of comments on some no-traffic forums/blogs. Maybe a bit conspiratorial. Even dictators need to prioritize their actions. And they'd go for speech that has impact (like said high-profile journalists), and less so for random noise on no-traffic forums with anonymous authors. A lot gets lost in the internet noise. Nobody cares about it.
- Cyph0n 5y ago
  > Even dictators need to prioritize their actions. A bastardization of Andy Grove's famous words: "Only the paranoid [dictators] survive". You'd be surprised at how paranoid dictators get. Every little sign of disobedience is magnified into a "threat". This is the reason why almost all autocratic systems end up devolving into police states with (usually) multiple large intelligence agencies keeping each other in check.
  - teddyh 5y ago
    Obligatory link to CGP Grey’s “The Rules for Rulers”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
- reggieband 5y ago

dooglius 5y ago

Snowden's publisher was sued and prevented from paying him for the work. What's the deal with the paid subscription option then? Will substack end up just pocketing the money, or is there some legal workaround? For that matter, could the government try and go after any paying subscribers?

vorpalhex 5y ago
Not sure about substack, but usually the Fed won't chase small time subscribers. They are more likely to yank the money at the payment processor.
mkr-hn 5y ago
Stripe probably has better lawyers with more experience dealing with payments than the publisher. They might even be the same lawyers Substack has since they're both YC companies.

ckemere 5y ago

When I think back to the me of my teenage years or early twenties, I recognize that I had many strong beliefs that were probably wrong. I think that modern requirements of self-censorship have at least one really valuable outcome. They force people (with jobs, reputations, etc) to think carefully before posting online. I suspect that many people may be like me - they are hesitant to click "add comment" not out of fear of having a mob come after them, but rather because (a) they have realized that their own current opinions may be wrong, and recognize that there is harm that comes from an abundance of wrong opinions or (b) the cost in time of careful self-editing is too high. Maybe the author of this piece would argue that this is a bad thing, but my impression is that it's almost universally the case that if you can't be careful in speaking/writing there will usually be less harm from silence than from blurting out whatever comes to mind immediately.

overgard 5y ago
Conversely though, if you're afraid to express an opinion that may be incorrect, then you're likely to hold that opinion much longer because nobody will be there to tell you you're wrong.
waterhouse 5y ago
There are plenty of people that cheerfully post extreme opinions, even under their own names on Facebook. I get the impression that these people are some combination of: reckless/impulsive, in a social bubble, "got nothing to lose", or not very careful thinkers. I think that the effect of more careful and cautious thinkers self-selecting out of the conversation is often just to make the conversation dominated by the above sorts of people, and I don't think that's an improvement.
jollybean 5y ago
" think that modern requirements of self-censorship have at least one really valuable outcome. They force people (with jobs, reputations, etc) to think carefully before posting online. " There's nothing wrong with being wrong. Especially in hindsight. We all regret things we've once said - that's the point of being human. This has nothing to do with 'getting people to think before they act' - in oppressive regimes with all of the power, it's about control. In open societies with competing ideologies it's a 'nation-sized knife-fight where certain groups are cutting down even their own in the name of antagonizing glory.

runbathtime 5y ago

We can't say the truth/opinion about certain topics because it will offend certain people and the mob will exert its power to take something from you by threatening you or an employer. Could it be considered blackmail to get someone fired from their job for outing something they said to an employer?

captainoats 5y ago
Blackmail as a crime requires the blackmailer trying to get money or something of value out of their victim to prevent them from exposing some sensitive information. Would be interesting if someone could argue the outcome of cancelling someone fell within that definition.

goat_whisperer 5y ago

This is pretty rich. I'd argue the worst kind of censorship is getting murdered/disappeared by a totalitarian government for speaking out against them. Kind of like what happens to critics of Putin, Snowden's current patron. But hey, I guess getting some mean tweets directed at you is pretty bad too. Anyone appreciate the irony that Snowden's posts are probably monitored/vetted by the KGB?

type0 5y ago
> Anyone appreciate the irony that Snowden's posts are probably monitored/vetted by the KGB? FSB, that's news to me, are they vetting his posts?

overgard 5y ago

I think we need to let go of the idea that offending people is harmful. It's fine to take offense, we are all free to do that, but I don't think there should be any expectation that people do anything to avoid offending you other than practicing basic civility. You are likely not harmed just because I believe something different from you. Frankly, if you feel like you need a safe space to hide from ideas that you disagree with, the world is too sharp for you to handle.

RIMR 5y ago
On that same note, if you decide to express offensive views, you should be willing to accept the social backlash for doing so. Your right to speak isn't infringed by allowing others to exercise their own right to speak against you. Letting go of the idea that offending people is harmful is probably a good thing, but you will also need to let go of the idea that people aren't permitted to be offended by what you say. If you cannot accept the consequence of offending others, you should keep your mouth shut. Free speech doesn't mean you get to say whatever you want and hear nothing in return.
- gordian-mind 5y ago
  "We should encourage people to express their views, but also normalize lynching them if we disagree with those."
  - knownjorbist 5y ago
    Can you conceive of any views one can express that deserve social backlash?
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  'Offense' - its definition changes based on person's emotional state, their ideology, their background, how much sleep they had last night, or simply they're trolls, or get offended because they want to play a victim, etc. So, if we follow your template of society, it would be impossible to not offend someone. Society would come to a complete halt. A society where expression is nulled by people that follow this ideology would have no art, no expression, no culture and a single authoritarian mindset of following the line and never deviating from it. The ministry of emotional well-being will be keeping an eye on you. At best it would be a boring stagnant society, at worst it will be dangerous and impossible to protest against it. It's a destructive concept and I'd like to question who determines the line that you walk on. I hope you can reflect a little bit and it should be easy how this can be problematic.

username91 5y ago

"Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter" are not moral highgrounds for free speech - they're engagement-driven platforms that thrive on drama and conflict. Posting on these platforms is not real human communication. If you can't calm down and remove yourself from an online argument before posting something that is almost guaranteed to be misunderstood, you're not evading self-censorship, you're feeding an addiction. I'm probably doing it right now.

jfengel 5y ago

The most dangerous censorship is the one that is happening to you. We used to have a policy literally called "Don't Tell" in the US. People who "told" (or were outed) were fired... assuming they weren't killed for it, by somebody who would claim that they "panicked" (a defense still legal in 38 states[1]). That wasn't the most dangerous censorship. Women are commonly told that if they wear the wrong thing, then they deserve to be raped. Clothes are a form of self-expression -- but shutting that up isn't the most dangerous censorship. A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist was denied tenure because one donor didn't like what she said. But that's not the most dangerous censorship. We all watched a videotaped murder last year, and when the police were sent in to beat up peaceful protesters -- including journalists -- that wasn't the most dangerous censorship. A lot of censorship goes on, and has gone on. As far as I can tell, this one rises to the level of "most dangerous censorship" because he thinks it's the one that's happening to him. I hear not a peep about any of the others. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/virginia-becomes-12th-state-ban-gay-trans-panic-defense-n1262933 https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/virginia-becomes-12t...

type0 5y ago
You are dangerously close to the truth here, but it isn't what the thread is about.

kradeelav 5y ago

This is possibly a unique angle, but by being in taboo art circles (erotic art specifically), I'm struck at how much I see this topic resonating with my fellow artists. I know so many, too many, far more than I can count on my hands who have simply given up posting kink art because they keep getting mobbed, doxxed, slandered, and harassed simply by posting art (or seeing their friends getting shredded as well). I know so many that have forced to bounce from platform to platform from instagram to tumblr to twitter because either the algorithm censors you or the mob abuses the "report user" button if they simply don't care for your art. I know so many who have had to host on friend's servers because big-name hosts ban erotic art and kinks in tiny print in the TOS and it's just not worth it to fucking bounce from host to host unless if it's an actual friend who supports true artistic freedom. I know so many who are winding up in making zines as a last resort, because zines can be printed at the home computer, so they're one of the last truly uncensored artistic mediums in comparison to the internet. And yet - how many trailblazing artists have we lost from that crushing top-down censorship even with that one meager avenue open? So yes, this is relevant and urgent, and in more ways than it appears.

pram 5y ago
Have you tried Pixiv ;P It's a gallery, not a social platform. It's pretty effortless too, I just hit 5k followers and I started in 2019 after Tumblr exploded. Just post your art, tag it, and the horny people will come
- _carbyau_ 5y ago
  I know not this platform, and with the context as given I am not about to visit it at work. I am amused at this given the article talks about social chilling. :-P But your description seems at odds with itself. Who is following you if it isn't a social platform?
  - pram 5y ago
    A gallery site like Pixiv and Deviantart has users, and they can comment and you can reply etc, but the primary purpose isn’t to chat. You can’t post anything other than content. It’s not for blogging or shower thoughts. The followers are people who typically just make collections of pictures they like.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

neonate 5y ago

https://outline.com/TeXdAx https://outline.com/TeXdAx

theshrike79 5y ago

This is why I delete all my old tweets, posts and comments on all sites with a passing link to my actual profile. Nothing good has ever become of people's old tweets popping up years later. Ever. I think HN has the longest history of my comments, just because it's not possible to delete or anonymize comments without creating a bunch of throwaway accounts.

zuminator 5y ago

In one sense, I'd argue that the feeling of censorship is misguided. People are more free to communicate now with a larger audience than ever before in history. Before if you had something controversial to say, unless you were an extremely well-known academic or politician, it didn't get any further than your barstool or bridge club. Now your thoughts can be instantly transmitted to an audience of literally millions. Ideas are being hyper-amplified, not hyper-suppressed. However, it comes with a catch. In pre-Internet days, when your verbal blurts potentially reached dozens, you felt fairly free and unimpeded to reach the limits of your communication bubble, tiny as it was. Even if you were roundly condemned, the area of effect was likely small and the duration transitory. Now that your verbal blurts can reach millions, so many more people can take issue with your words, and they remain part of your dreaded "permanent record" forever. Consequently the stakes have become much higher. Speech doesn't feel free and unimpeded, even though in practice structural impediments have been greatly reduced. It seems to me unfortunately that the lowering of structural impediments to communication ineluctably goes hand in hand with the raising of social impediments. People are becoming cautious because we simply can't take for granted that any speech we generate will stay safely within its intended audience. Private emails can be dredged up years later. Screenshots can be taken without our knowledge. Phones can record videos of us saying and doing things we thought were personal and confidential. Information just wanted to be free, and got its wish, but it's turned people into prisoners in a panopticon. My point being, these are two sides of the same coin. Blaming "Marxism" or "cancel culture" and the like isn't going to change that fact.

raclage 5y ago
I think this is a good analysis and I think too few people consider it this way. I'm not convinced that changes in culture are driving this as much as changes in how information is shared and spread and I'm disappointed how few people, even on Hacker News, seem interested in this angle.
zeouter 5y ago
This makes a lot of sense to me, thank you.
schoen 5y ago

type0 5y ago

Here's a good and poignant clip about "mail snooping" from Little Murders (1971): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g16InStip5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g16InStip5k

11thEarlOfMar 5y ago

"I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't believe anything." - David St. Hubbins

longtimegoogler 5y ago

The question is who is the mob. I fear the crazies much more who stormed the capital and tried to overthrow our democracy than some online SJWs who are going to try and cancel someone for having an unpopular opinion. Not that either are great, for instance I didn't find Damore's opinions outlandish although expressed poorly.

neartheplain 5y ago
Personally, I fear mob violence commited with the sanction and cooperation of the state and news media. That's the sort of violence which starts, keeps going, and doesn't stop until it literally burns itself out. In general, organized violence ends when 1) law enforcement takes decisive action to detain the perpetrators, and 2) organizers think the violence no longer serves their political goals. Both 1) and 2) were true of the Capitol insurrection, which was universally condemned and whose perpetrators were swiftly rounded up. Neither were especially true of the far-left anarchist uprisings, particularly in cities like Portland where permissive DAs let the same rioters out literally within hours of their arrest, while NPR and the Washington Post praised those who threw firebombs at courthouses and police stations. So, I expect less of the former and more of the latter.
- mint2 5y ago
  > 1) law enforcement takes decisive action to detain the perpetrators, and 2) organizers think the violence no longer serves their political goals. Both 1) and 2) were true of the Capitol insurrection, which was universally condemned 1) The law enforcement has a track record of glad handling the far right. 2) many prominent right wing media and political figures tried blaming the insurrection on antifa, are blocking any investigations, and are justifying the event and the big lie that created it. I don’t think most people who aren’t supporters of right wing viewpoints will agree with your assessments.
  - neartheplain 5y ago
    (Considered not replying, but then looked again at the link title...) The view of law enforcement as going easy on the far-right may have been true in 1970s America, but it does not appear so 2021. Far-right militia movements have been subject to intense scrutiny and violence (and some allege, entrapment) since their growth in the 1990s [0][1]. In the case of the Capitol riot, 525 people have now been federally charged [2]. Arrested rioters have been "savagely beaten" in jail by prison guards, to the point of skull fractures and permanent blindness [3]. It's true that fringe Congressional Republicans such as Josh Hawley or Marjorie Taylor Greene have tried to blame antifa for the Capitol insurrection. They hold no powerful Senate or House positions, and appear "prominent" mainly due to the attention the the press gives them. The actual Republican Congressional leadership swiftly denounced the insurrection, and placed blame for the attack on President Trump [4][5]. In contrast, President Biden and prominent Senators such as Jerry Nadler have repeatedly denied the existence of organized far-left violence at all [6][7], describing events such as the month-long nightly siege of the federal courthouse in Portland "a myth" and "imaginary." Speaker Nancy Pelosi has acknowledged antifa gangs' existence in the past, after they vandalized her house and sprayed it with pig blood. As rioters threw Molotov cocktails and firebombs at the federal courthouse in Portland, attacked federal agents with hammers, lasers, and bricks, beat and stabbed journalists, set fire to the Mayor's condo building, and were arrested carrying illegal firearms, the Washington Post gave them a glowing photo shoot [8]. They were praised as morally virtuous freedom-fighters. In Seattle, anarchists occupied several city blocks for weeks with assault rifles, and shot dead an unarmed black child [9] before destroying the evidence and concealing the killer's identity. These stories disappeared from the Washington Post, NPR, and even Fox News within days, yet we still get frequent updates on the Capitol insurrection. Finally, it makes no difference whether cops arrest more left-wing rioters if the local DA and US Attorney decide to release them and dismiss all charges [10][11]. There's been little such leniency applied to violent actors in the Capitol insurrection. This has not gone unnoticed by either the far-right or far-left. The exasperation I feel watching this unfold as someone on the center-left is a shadow of what I sense from the actual right wing. I think anger at the leniency given to far-left violence last summer is what propelled a lot of people to attack the Capitol, in a "if they can get away with it, why can't we?" sort of tantrum. This emotional potential still remains. The risk of an eventual organized right-wing backlash, which so far has not reached the level of burning down buildings, executing people in the street, or occupying city blocks with armed militants, is what worries me most about the chance of more far-left violence. The extreme right is watching the extreme left get away with it, and they are taking notes. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25839889 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25839889 [1] https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/06/07/whitmer-kidnapping-plot-suspect-pete-musico-fbi-agents-informant-entrapment/7590816002/ https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/06/07/w... [2] https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1 https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-ar... [3] https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/06/capitol-riot-defendant-beating-guards-479413 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/06/capitol-riot-defend... [4] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell-blames-trump-for-deadly-capitol-riot/ar-BB1cTsVA https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell-blam... [5] https://www.newsweek.com/kevin-mccarthy-tells-gop-stop-claiming-antifa-caused-riot-says-trump-bears-responsibility-1561317 https://www.newsweek.com/kevin-mccarthy-tells-gop-stop-claim... [6] https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/07/27/nadler-still-thinks-antifa-is-a-myth-n2573164 https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/07/27/nadle... [7] https://news.yahoo.com/biden-says-antifa-idea-not-025049929.html https://news.yahoo.com/biden-says-antifa-idea-not-025049929.... [8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/08/trump-sent-agents-quell-unrest-protest-is-what-portland-does-best/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/08/trump-sent-... [9] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25671284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25671284 [10] https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2020/08/11/district-attorney-mike-schmidt-will-drop-the-majority-of-current-charges-again-portland-protesters/ https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2020/08/11/district-attorn... [11] https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/portland-protest-cases-dismissed-feds/283-002f01d2-3217-4b12-8725-3fda2cad119f https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/portland-pro...

ratel 5y ago

Sorry, I respectfully disagree. Censorship is someone else preventing you from saying something you want to say. Self censorship (as something you want to say but do not because of fear of the consequences) is not a thing, simply because you cannot distinguish between the want to utter and the want not to utter and which is eventually winning in your head and the fact that you did or did not utter something. It is a process we call thinking. We choose our words or the absence of them and that makes them worth while. There is also no opposite to self-censorship: I want to be able to say everything I want without consequence. You say something because you want it to have and audience and thus consequences. Saying you want the consequences, just not the negative ones is saying you want everyone to confirm you are right. Well join the other 7 billion. The idea of self-censorship is also not innocent because you are robbing people of agency. You actually deny them to choose their own words. The idea of self-censorship requires an external party to declare someone wanted to say something, but he or she is self-censoring, That implies that you know what they think and the absence or presence of words gets filled in with whatever that third party thinks that person wanted to say.

ipython 5y ago

Perhaps an unpopular opinion on this thread, but this is just a convenient distraction while republican state houses and Secretaries of State across the country erode our real voice - access to the ballot box. Republicans are suing Twitter to unmask fake cows that post unflattering things about them because, feelings? Death threats and plans to kidnap elected officials? A goddamn noose erected on the steps of the capitol amid the first incursion on that building in something like 200 years? And I’m supposed to empathize? The whole thing is a mess. Nobody talks to each other. There was another thread I came across - don’t forget where I found it - but people who had put some tough guy face online suddenly weren’t so aggressive once they were face to face. There is a lot of division but there is common ground to find. It’s hard when the right paints you as literal child eating demons and the left says you are a racist xenophobic asshole, but damnit we need to come together - what’s the alternative???? When there are topics we should truly come together on - enfranchisement comes to mind - we are too busy infighting that we lose sight of the real goal. And that’s how democracies die.

umvi 5y ago
Another unpopular opinion (that I don't strongly hold but often think about) - but isn't a little voter friction a good thing? Voting friction (a little, not a lot) acts like a filter. It filters for voters who want to participate in democracy and make an effort to do so. In other words, I question the assumption that the more frictionless the voting, the healthier the democracy. For example, if commenting on a website were truly frictionless (i.e. anonymous users could post without an account), the quality of the discussion would go to pot and the signal-to-noise ratio would dramatically deteriorate. A small barrier to entry (sign-in required) increases the quality/signal-to-noise by a large factor even if it "disenfranchises" some people that would have otherwise commented but couldn't because they didn't have time to create an account. In that same vein, I think that if you make voting too easy you'll increase "noise" of the ballots, since lots of people that otherwise wouldn't have voted are now submitting low-effort ballots with essentially random bubbles filled in (other than perhaps the most prominent candidate). If it's not unreasonable to require users of websites to create an account before they can participate, why is it unreasonable to essentially require the same thing before contributing to the government of a nation?

knownjorbist 5y ago

Cancel culture can go to far. But tolerance of intolerance is also a problem. The US has a dark & dirty history and it seems the reason this has become a subject of debate again is because a certain element of people seem to want to pretend none of that ever happened, or worse, that it did but has no effect on our society today.

exporectomy 5y ago
Unless you define "intolerance", your argument is just a meaningless assertion. I wouldn't call wanting to pretend something didn't happen as intolerance. You do?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- knownjorbist 5y ago
  Ideologically pure "free speech" leads to infringement on the rights of others, including their own free speech. There is a line to be drawn here.
- lp0_on_fire 5y ago
  The people repeating that axiom are generally the ones who are defining the term, which seems...convenient.

failwhaleshark 5y ago

Why I carry weapons for defensive purposes but speak facts and reality even if other may wish to impugn or murder me for it. Tribal ideologies are intellectual dishonesty cults incarnate. Saying you're a "D," "R," "communist," etc. puts your mind and your positions in a camp to defend. Why not weigh each issue, policy, and scenario standing-alone with consistent common-sense? If you don't have a weapon, others with weapons with different beliefs can and will eventually silence you permanently. This is what happens in Mexico to reporters and civil society activists. They don't carry guns and so they make themselves easy targets to eliminate.

swayvil 5y ago

And at the bottom they invite you to submit your email. Yeah, if you want to be on a list.

shadowgovt 5y ago

As a general, open question: How do we distinguish self-censorship (justifiably bad connotations and all) from "Choosing to not say things that would piss people off for no gain?" The latter just seems like prudent behavior when one lives in a society, because one's words have material impact on other people's mental state. Unmeasured words wide-cast can easily do more harm than good.

logicchains 5y ago
>How do we distinguish self-censorship (justifiably bad connotations and all) from "Choosing to not say things that would piss people off for no gain?" The key thing is that there's a mentally unstable subset of people that will get pissed off by pretty much anything. Letting their feelings control your discourse basically leaves no room for discourse.

syngrog66 5y ago

The pattern of evidence to date is that Ed Snowden is a traitor working for Russian foreign intelligence and now fled to exile in Russia, living there only under Putin's protection. He's been a key part of their effort to smear and undermine the US and their alliance partners for many years. He has no honor or moral authority or credibility.

romesmoke 5y ago

> Self-censorship means reading your own text with the eyes of another person, a situation where you become your own judge, stricter and more suspicious than anyone else. That's how many people write novels! All humor aside, Snowden has once again managed to convince me that he is one of the most articulate--yet horror-inducing--thinkers of our age. The fact that, were he to talk to a podcast, the discussion's transcript would be close to pure text quality is what I love about the guy. BTW Freud goes pretty deep on the matter of internalized surveillance in his book 'Civilization & its Discontents', written in 1929. It's supposedly one of the mechanisms that keep society functioning: you don't need cops if citizens are copping themselves.

robomartin 5y ago

Today's reality in the US is one where <snip> ... <snip> ... <snip> ... <snip> ... <snip> ... <snip>. Yeah. No comment.

tempodox 5y ago

Even if censorship / canceling / doxing were out of the picture, there is still another source of danger: The combination of surveillance and persistence. I often cringe when I read things I wrote several years ago. I have evolved, my views have changed. Had I posted that somewhere on the Internet it would be out there “forever”. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that someone (or worse, some shitty “AI”) would be able to pick that up years later and mis-interpret it into biased conclusions, with real-world consequences. The Internet has become a huge Petri dish for social dynamics, power struggles, and human psychology. I'm sure we have only just scratched the surface of what effects that will have on society and individuals.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mariojv 5y ago

Ironically, when I finished reading this article, I found myself skeptical to subscribe to Snowden's mailing list when presented with a prompt to do so at the bottom of the article. I didn't want to be put on some list. Aware of this after the article, I'm subscribing anyway. :)

amazingman 5y ago

As usual Snowden, America’s Freedom Laureate in exile, gets right to the heart of things. I do worry that his laser focus on the philosophy of things —and concomitant lack of specific (contemporary) detail/examples— will result in readers simply affirming their own dogmas rather than searching themselves for complicity. I hold out hope that, in the aggregate, the deeply subversive undercurrent of his writing pulls those dogmas under and drowns them to death.