4 ms·

The article in the OP covers this directly. A thousand entries with normal advertisement-filter-sounding terms were added, and then everything removed. I feel

by luma 5y ago

The article in the OP covers this directly. A thousand entries with normal advertisement-filter-sounding terms were added, and then everything removed. I feel compelled to point out that you would know this had you read the article.

pphysch 5y ago
This is false. The ad keyword blocklist in the original report had tons of unassuming keywords. The authors cherry-picked a few to support the incredibly boring "China bad" narrative that was probably their goal. That fell flat, so now there's a new rumor that the See See Pee got caught red-handed and disguised their Totally Real Evil Scary Censoring Algorithm Which Doesn't Work with unassuming keywords. Mental gymnastics.
- cookiengineer 5y ago
  > This is false. The ad keyword blocklist in the original report had tons of unassuming keywords. There is no statistical good/bad measurement if you, as a company, decide to block terminology of political nature. They blocked pro-Taiwan ads just as they blocked outdated Xiaomi ads. But this doesn't even out the odds anyhow. As long as pro Taiwan ads are blocked, it's effectively being used as a censorship mechanism, and it's nothing else. Doesn't matter if you sell it as an adblocker. Doesn't matter if you sell it as a filtering system for "security" reasons. Either block all ads and do the right thing, or block no ads at all. But not this. The point is that they realized that advertisements are used to organize democratic or revolutionary movements and they blocked it. And that is the censorship others are complaining about.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  From the article: > Would censor approximately 450 words and phrases, it said. The blocklist wasn’t active, but could be activated remotely. It was filled with political terms, including “Democratic Movement” and “Long live Taiwan’s independence.” > After the government published its findings, things got weird. The list swelled to more than 1,000 terms, including hundreds of non-political terms like “pornography,” seemingly to turn the political blocklist into something more generic. Then, it disappeared. “They reacted,” Margiris Abukevicius, Lithuania’s vice minister for defense, told me. “It wasn’t publicized from their side.” So it seems you're the one pulling some mental gymnastics.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  So what that it has unassuming keywords? If they thought the list might get out, then of course they would add a lot of keywords that don't matter. The computer doesn't get tired because it now has to check for 100x the number of keywords.

by luma 5y ago

pphysch 5y ago

This is false. The ad keyword blocklist in the original report had tons of unassuming keywords. The authors cherry-picked a few to support the incredibly boring "China bad" narrative that was probably their goal. That fell flat, so now there's a new rumor that the See See Pee got caught red-handed and disguised their Totally Real Evil Scary Censoring Algorithm Which Doesn't Work with unassuming keywords. Mental gymnastics.

cookiengineer 5y ago
> This is false. The ad keyword blocklist in the original report had tons of unassuming keywords. There is no statistical good/bad measurement if you, as a company, decide to block terminology of political nature. They blocked pro-Taiwan ads just as they blocked outdated Xiaomi ads. But this doesn't even out the odds anyhow. As long as pro Taiwan ads are blocked, it's effectively being used as a censorship mechanism, and it's nothing else. Doesn't matter if you sell it as an adblocker. Doesn't matter if you sell it as a filtering system for "security" reasons. Either block all ads and do the right thing, or block no ads at all. But not this. The point is that they realized that advertisements are used to organize democratic or revolutionary movements and they blocked it. And that is the censorship others are complaining about.
cycomanic 5y ago
From the article: > Would censor approximately 450 words and phrases, it said. The blocklist wasn’t active, but could be activated remotely. It was filled with political terms, including “Democratic Movement” and “Long live Taiwan’s independence.” > After the government published its findings, things got weird. The list swelled to more than 1,000 terms, including hundreds of non-political terms like “pornography,” seemingly to turn the political blocklist into something more generic. Then, it disappeared. “They reacted,” Margiris Abukevicius, Lithuania’s vice minister for defense, told me. “It wasn’t publicized from their side.” So it seems you're the one pulling some mental gymnastics.
selfhoster11 5y ago
So what that it has unassuming keywords? If they thought the list might get out, then of course they would add a lot of keywords that don't matter. The computer doesn't get tired because it now has to check for 100x the number of keywords.