5 ms·

There's a pretty bad bias problem here because the probe app scans domains that are frequently blocked in dictatorships, but doesn't scan domains that are frequ

by mitxela 25d ago

There's a pretty bad bias problem here because the probe app scans domains that are frequently blocked in dictatorships, but doesn't scan domains that are frequently blocked in "democracies", like Anna's Archive. Then it ends up looking like the dictatorship countries have all the censorship.

qerghnui 25d ago
I would only use the term "censorship" to refer to the prevention of speech based on its content. Content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions aren't censorship according to the way I use the word, and neither is copyright protection. Note that censorship isn't necessarily bad and restrictions on speech that aren't censorship aren't necessarily acceptable. The prohibition on child pornography is censorship but I support it, while I am opposed to IP law in its entirety.
- Gathering6678 25d ago
  Anna's Archive is prevented by some countries from visiting because of its (presumably illegal) content. All restrictions are based on its content.
  - qerghnui 25d ago
    Is that in fact the reason? I'm not familiar with what's happening outside the USA.
    - Gathering6678 25d ago
      See "Spotify lawsuit" in the wikipedia article. Also: "In January 2024, Italy's ... ordered major internet service providers (ISPs) in the country to block Anna's Archive due to a copyright complaint..." "In March 2024, ... ordered major ISPs in the Netherlands to block Anna's Archive and LibGen due to a request by advocacy group BREIN (which represents the interests of the Dutch entertainment industry)." "In December 2024, the UK Publishers Association won an order from the High Court of Justice requiring major ISPs to block Anna's Archive... under section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna%27s_Archive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna%27s_Archive
      - asdfaoeu 25d ago
        I don't think they are disputing it was blocked more the reason was copyright not other reasons.
        mitxela 25d ago
        Copyright is a content-based reason.
        Gathering6678 25d ago
        My point is - copyright is also a "content related" reason: some site is banned because the content of the site is infringing the copyright of someone else. In the end, all censorship is content related. One could definitely argue along the spectrum of "all" to "none" censorship is appropriate, but I would guess most people actually hold the belief that "some" censorship is okay, while disagreeing on "which" censorship is okay. If this is the case, then the bias problem is indeed relevant.
        Gathering6678 25d ago
        Plus, this sentence in the original post I replied to really struck me as absurd: "Content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions aren't censorship". Let's imagine a country bans the distribution of all writings by authors in another country/region disregard of the content. It would not be censorship according to the original post. The fact that a ban encompasses a wide variety of content could mean simply that it is difficult/undesirable to limit the scope of the ban, but the censorship always originates from the content.
        WillPostForFood 25d ago
        You are misunderstanding time/place/manner restrictions. The rule must apply equally to all speakers regardless of topic, opinion, or political stance. If you banned "the distribution of all writings by authors in another country/region" you aren't applying the restriction equally.
    - mitxela 25d ago
      Nobody is blocking it because the internet is only allowed on weekdays or because all pages must have a blue background...
kurthr 25d ago
It all depends on what you're censoring. Is it a bad sign if CSAM, Personal (medical, financial, etc) Records, Snuff, and Malware/Ransomeware are censored? What about manufacture of WMDs, terrorism, hate speech? Free software, and copyrighted music? Historical records of genocide?
- SV_BubbleTime 25d ago
  As an aside… the if there was a real system out there that was trustworthy, it would have all of this and it would be the evidence you actually need to trust it. If someone had a secure system for some of the worst stuff out there and it lasted more than a minute, pay attention because they might have actually solved some real problems.
  - fsflover 25d ago
    > if there was a real system out there that was trustworthy, it would have all of this and it would be the evidence you actually need to trust it. Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I2p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I2p
- nottorp 25d ago
  Is there any authority in any country in the world that can be trusted to censor just what it's supposed to censor? Doubt it. Besides malice there's also incompetence. See the article that's also on the front page right now about Spain blocking Cloudflare (i.e. half the internet) during football matches.
  - owisd 24d ago
    Trusted authority with democratic accountability is the least worst option. Too much censorship is authoritarian, but too little and authoritarianism can flood the public discourse with so much noise that free speech becomes impossible.
    - nottorp 24d ago
averysmallbird 25d ago
Scare quoting democracies is probably telling, but OONI absolutely does test content blocked in Western countries. https://explorer.ooni.org/domain/annas-archive.org https://explorer.ooni.org/domain/annas-archive.org
- vlyan 25d ago
  scare quoting """""""""democracies""""""""" is perfectly acceptable when it couldn't be more obvious that those so-called democracies do anything but represent the will of their peoples. do you know anyone who'd voted for having to scan their face to access verboten webseites? to have encryption backdoors in their messengers? to have state-mandated spyware preinstalled on their phones?
  - armchairhacker 25d ago
    They don’t represent the people’s will, but unfortunately many people believe in censorship, so even if they were true direct democracies we may still see some.
    - troupo 25d ago
      > if they were true direct democracies we may still see some. I think we would see more.
      - pennomi 25d ago
        With modern technology, we might be in the first era where direct democracy is truly viable. Frankly I think the people should have direct veto power on any legislation.
        troupo 25d ago
        > Frankly I think the people should have direct veto power on any legislation. Counterpoint: see any NIMBY meetings where they shut down any and all proposals and legislations, even the obviously beneficial common sense ones. Rule by mob has rarely been productive.
orbital-decay 25d ago
Internet blocking is a last resort for regimes that can't do anything against the source of the information or intermediaries, but it's a red herring in regimes that can. Anna's Archive has a political position and is one of the very few voices that survived the immense pressure. How many didn't? How many attempts were not performed at all because of it? This suppression is really hard to measure, OONI can't do anything here, it measures blocking. It's very simple to understand.
- mitxela 25d ago
  It measures blocking in dictatorships, as I just said.
dijit 25d ago
"democracies" have a separate problem, even if we had true direct democracy (and not representative democracy)- people often conflate what is popular with what is true. You can see this directly in online forums (including this one), unpopular truths are routinely flagged to the point where it doesn't matter that discussion could have happened, it effectively can't- and not because the points don't make sense or can't be reasoned with... but because it doesn't feel good that it's true. So, unfortunately, I think censorship is inevitable.. I guess it's better to have censorship from a small group of people for a small group of people instead of having censorship from a small group of people to a nation-wide group of people though.
sellmesoap 24d ago
Here's my personal benchmark on this public site. Anecdote of 1. Does posting links to these two videos related to health care decisions that were officially approved or denied to people. Get this post... Unalived? https://youtube.com/watch?v=YmOeKahtmdQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=YmOeKahtmdQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=FRRX0J_TDXY https://youtube.com/watch?v=FRRX0J_TDXY
8organicbits 24d ago
The platform is quite open, so you can build whichever tests you want. Personally I run a dockerized ooni via scheduled GitHub actions, which shows blocks impacting GitHub runners. You should be able to see logs from that here, which shows three blocked websites https://github.com/robalexdev/ooni-unattended-action/actions/runs/33824187064/job/100873202754 https://github.com/robalexdev/ooni-unattended-action/actions... You can build your own lists and share them using ooni run: https://run.ooni.org/ https://run.ooni.org/
ciupicri 24d ago
Just today someone complained that he can't use Google to search inside Rutracker thanks to EU.

by mitxela 25d ago

qerghnui 25d ago

I would only use the term "censorship" to refer to the prevention of speech based on its content. Content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions aren't censorship according to the way I use the word, and neither is copyright protection. Note that censorship isn't necessarily bad and restrictions on speech that aren't censorship aren't necessarily acceptable. The prohibition on child pornography is censorship but I support it, while I am opposed to IP law in its entirety.

Gathering6678 25d ago
Anna's Archive is prevented by some countries from visiting because of its (presumably illegal) content. All restrictions are based on its content.
- qerghnui 25d ago
  Is that in fact the reason? I'm not familiar with what's happening outside the USA.
  - Gathering6678 25d ago
    See "Spotify lawsuit" in the wikipedia article. Also: "In January 2024, Italy's ... ordered major internet service providers (ISPs) in the country to block Anna's Archive due to a copyright complaint..." "In March 2024, ... ordered major ISPs in the Netherlands to block Anna's Archive and LibGen due to a request by advocacy group BREIN (which represents the interests of the Dutch entertainment industry)." "In December 2024, the UK Publishers Association won an order from the High Court of Justice requiring major ISPs to block Anna's Archive... under section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna%27s_Archive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna%27s_Archive
    - asdfaoeu 25d ago
      I don't think they are disputing it was blocked more the reason was copyright not other reasons.
      - mitxela 25d ago
        Copyright is a content-based reason.
      - Gathering6678 25d ago
        My point is - copyright is also a "content related" reason: some site is banned because the content of the site is infringing the copyright of someone else. In the end, all censorship is content related. One could definitely argue along the spectrum of "all" to "none" censorship is appropriate, but I would guess most people actually hold the belief that "some" censorship is okay, while disagreeing on "which" censorship is okay. If this is the case, then the bias problem is indeed relevant.
        Gathering6678 25d ago
        Plus, this sentence in the original post I replied to really struck me as absurd: "Content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions aren't censorship". Let's imagine a country bans the distribution of all writings by authors in another country/region disregard of the content. It would not be censorship according to the original post. The fact that a ban encompasses a wide variety of content could mean simply that it is difficult/undesirable to limit the scope of the ban, but the censorship always originates from the content.
        WillPostForFood 25d ago
        You are misunderstanding time/place/manner restrictions. The rule must apply equally to all speakers regardless of topic, opinion, or political stance. If you banned "the distribution of all writings by authors in another country/region" you aren't applying the restriction equally.
  - mitxela 25d ago
    Nobody is blocking it because the internet is only allowed on weekdays or because all pages must have a blue background...

kurthr 25d ago

It all depends on what you're censoring. Is it a bad sign if CSAM, Personal (medical, financial, etc) Records, Snuff, and Malware/Ransomeware are censored? What about manufacture of WMDs, terrorism, hate speech? Free software, and copyrighted music? Historical records of genocide?

SV_BubbleTime 25d ago
As an aside… the if there was a real system out there that was trustworthy, it would have all of this and it would be the evidence you actually need to trust it. If someone had a secure system for some of the worst stuff out there and it lasted more than a minute, pay attention because they might have actually solved some real problems.
- fsflover 25d ago
  > if there was a real system out there that was trustworthy, it would have all of this and it would be the evidence you actually need to trust it. Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I2p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I2p
nottorp 25d ago
Is there any authority in any country in the world that can be trusted to censor just what it's supposed to censor? Doubt it. Besides malice there's also incompetence. See the article that's also on the front page right now about Spain blocking Cloudflare (i.e. half the internet) during football matches.
- owisd 24d ago
  Trusted authority with democratic accountability is the least worst option. Too much censorship is authoritarian, but too little and authoritarianism can flood the public discourse with so much noise that free speech becomes impossible.
  - nottorp 24d ago

averysmallbird 25d ago

Scare quoting democracies is probably telling, but OONI absolutely does test content blocked in Western countries. https://explorer.ooni.org/domain/annas-archive.org https://explorer.ooni.org/domain/annas-archive.org

vlyan 25d ago
scare quoting """""""""democracies""""""""" is perfectly acceptable when it couldn't be more obvious that those so-called democracies do anything but represent the will of their peoples. do you know anyone who'd voted for having to scan their face to access verboten webseites? to have encryption backdoors in their messengers? to have state-mandated spyware preinstalled on their phones?
- armchairhacker 25d ago
  They don’t represent the people’s will, but unfortunately many people believe in censorship, so even if they were true direct democracies we may still see some.
  - troupo 25d ago
    > if they were true direct democracies we may still see some. I think we would see more.
    - pennomi 25d ago
      With modern technology, we might be in the first era where direct democracy is truly viable. Frankly I think the people should have direct veto power on any legislation.
      - troupo 25d ago
        > Frankly I think the people should have direct veto power on any legislation. Counterpoint: see any NIMBY meetings where they shut down any and all proposals and legislations, even the obviously beneficial common sense ones. Rule by mob has rarely been productive.

orbital-decay 25d ago

Internet blocking is a last resort for regimes that can't do anything against the source of the information or intermediaries, but it's a red herring in regimes that can. Anna's Archive has a political position and is one of the very few voices that survived the immense pressure. How many didn't? How many attempts were not performed at all because of it? This suppression is really hard to measure, OONI can't do anything here, it measures blocking. It's very simple to understand.

mitxela 25d ago
It measures blocking in dictatorships, as I just said.

dijit 25d ago

"democracies" have a separate problem, even if we had true direct democracy (and not representative democracy)- people often conflate what is popular with what is true. You can see this directly in online forums (including this one), unpopular truths are routinely flagged to the point where it doesn't matter that discussion could have happened, it effectively can't- and not because the points don't make sense or can't be reasoned with... but because it doesn't feel good that it's true. So, unfortunately, I think censorship is inevitable.. I guess it's better to have censorship from a small group of people for a small group of people instead of having censorship from a small group of people to a nation-wide group of people though.

sellmesoap 24d ago

Here's my personal benchmark on this public site. Anecdote of 1. Does posting links to these two videos related to health care decisions that were officially approved or denied to people. Get this post... Unalived? https://youtube.com/watch?v=YmOeKahtmdQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=YmOeKahtmdQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=FRRX0J_TDXY https://youtube.com/watch?v=FRRX0J_TDXY

8organicbits 24d ago

The platform is quite open, so you can build whichever tests you want. Personally I run a dockerized ooni via scheduled GitHub actions, which shows blocks impacting GitHub runners. You should be able to see logs from that here, which shows three blocked websites https://github.com/robalexdev/ooni-unattended-action/actions/runs/33824187064/job/100873202754 https://github.com/robalexdev/ooni-unattended-action/actions... You can build your own lists and share them using ooni run: https://run.ooni.org/ https://run.ooni.org/

ciupicri 24d ago

Just today someone complained that he can't use Google to search inside Rutracker thanks to EU.