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Countries which have more censorship tend to end up being less desirable places to live than places with less censorship, and I dare say that a country with no

Countries which have more censorship tend to end up being less desirable places to live than places with less censorship, and I dare say that a country with no censorship at all would be better than a country where the government has complete control over all media (even if both of those scenarios would be worse than the average liberal democracy).

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I disagree, having lived in countries with pretty severe censorship (e.g. Australia), and countries without (e.g. Cambodia). I think this truism is actually false.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  I'm not sure how you are measuring censorship levels, but Freedom House ranks Australia as "Free" with a score of 76, and Cambodia as "Partly Free" with a score of 43, in their latest Internet Freedom Scores: https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-net/scores https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-net/scores
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    Well, Australia's Federal Police raided the state broadcaster [0] and has a whole bunch of laws against hate speech that get regularly used. While Cambodia really only cares about whether or not you say bad things about the ruling party on Facebook. It depends on what you consider "free speech" I guess. I think the larger picture here is that censorship really doesn't impact how pleasant a place is to live in. I currently live in Berlin, and there's a whole heap of sensitive history here, but that doesn't really affect you if you just want to live a normal life. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-48522729 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-48522729
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      I think it is misleading to cherry-pick an extreme example of the Australian government getting a search warrant to look for copies of leaked defence documents, while ignoring Cambodia's complete crackdown on independent newspapers[0] and radio stations[1]. Even more worrying is Cambodia's recently introduced internet censorship decree, which "requires all internet traffic in Cambodia to be routed through a regulatory body charged with monitoring online activity before it reaches users."[2] [0] https://freedomhouse.org/article/death-press-freedom-cambodia https://freedomhouse.org/article/death-press-freedom-cambodi... [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/9/22/cambodia-switching-off-independent-radio-stations https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/9/22/cambodia-switching-... [2] https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/18/cambodia-internet-censorship-control-expanded https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/18/cambodia-internet-censor...
      - marcus_holmes 5y ago
        Well, this was the radio interview I gave to the ABC when the Post was sold: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/mass-resignations-after-phnom-penh-post-sold-to-pr-man/9740318 https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/mass-resignations-a... As I said in that interview, there are a lot of cultural factors at play, and it's not nearly as clear-cut as it has been made out to be.

marcus_holmes 5y ago

I disagree, having lived in countries with pretty severe censorship (e.g. Australia), and countries without (e.g. Cambodia). I think this truism is actually false.

dane-pgp 5y ago
I'm not sure how you are measuring censorship levels, but Freedom House ranks Australia as "Free" with a score of 76, and Cambodia as "Partly Free" with a score of 43, in their latest Internet Freedom Scores: https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-net/scores https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-net/scores
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  Well, Australia's Federal Police raided the state broadcaster [0] and has a whole bunch of laws against hate speech that get regularly used. While Cambodia really only cares about whether or not you say bad things about the ruling party on Facebook. It depends on what you consider "free speech" I guess. I think the larger picture here is that censorship really doesn't impact how pleasant a place is to live in. I currently live in Berlin, and there's a whole heap of sensitive history here, but that doesn't really affect you if you just want to live a normal life. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-48522729 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-48522729
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    I think it is misleading to cherry-pick an extreme example of the Australian government getting a search warrant to look for copies of leaked defence documents, while ignoring Cambodia's complete crackdown on independent newspapers[0] and radio stations[1]. Even more worrying is Cambodia's recently introduced internet censorship decree, which "requires all internet traffic in Cambodia to be routed through a regulatory body charged with monitoring online activity before it reaches users."[2] [0] https://freedomhouse.org/article/death-press-freedom-cambodia https://freedomhouse.org/article/death-press-freedom-cambodi... [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/9/22/cambodia-switching-off-independent-radio-stations https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/9/22/cambodia-switching-... [2] https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/18/cambodia-internet-censorship-control-expanded https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/18/cambodia-internet-censor...
    - marcus_holmes 5y ago
      Well, this was the radio interview I gave to the ABC when the Post was sold: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/mass-resignations-after-phnom-penh-post-sold-to-pr-man/9740318 https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/mass-resignations-a... As I said in that interview, there are a lot of cultural factors at play, and it's not nearly as clear-cut as it has been made out to be.