4 ms·

The article is factual. There are only a few sentences of opinion at the end. Banning the article _was_ censorship. It should not have been banned. The article

The article is factual. There are only a few sentences of opinion at the end. Banning the article _was_ censorship. It should not have been banned. The article states that "... these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself." Is that opinion? No, unfortunately. The documents reveal the above is only part of what the agencies are trying to do. They also speak of "ruining businesses", "leaking confidential information", etc. It instructs how to damage someone's reputation and even their psyche on the Internet. This is the worst of human deceptive behavior. This is a public relations disaster for GCHQ/NSA. Very, very bad stuff.

SeanLuke 13y ago
> The article is factual. There are only a few sentences of opinion at the end. Are you aware of the contradiction inherent in your two sentences here?
- giardini 13y ago
  "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  - mwfunk 13y ago
    When I was younger this quote didn't even make sense to me- I had no idea what Emerson was trying to express. As I've gotten older, not only did it start to make sense, but I honestly think this quote is one of the few examples of true wisdom that humanity has acquired. I think of this whenever I see the (many, many, many) examples of people who latch onto an abstract philosophy, then proceed to drive it into the ground without a hint of skepticism or devil's advocacy as they try to apply it every aspect of the world around them. People can become so enamored of an idea that they'll go to great lengths to warp their view of the world to conform to that idea, rather than update the idea based on what they see around them. Religious fundamentalists are easy targets here, but I'm thinking more of the extreme devotees of the various political perspectives. Frequently these ideas/philosophies/etc. are very good ones, but when the philosophy becomes so enshrined and calcified that it ceases to evolve, it can become something that might guide you near the truth but prevent you from ever actually attaining it. This is actually what I think of every time someone defends RMS by citing his consistency over the years. Without getting into the rightness or wrongness of his beliefs, his consistency is not a virtue. The flip side of this is the monologue in Diamond Age about hypocrisy- the tendency people have to use an example of apparent hypocrisy or inconsistency to discredit everything a person says or does. TL;DR consistency is not necessarily a sign of truth and hypocrisy is not necessarily a sign of falsehood. Neither the world nor the minds of the people in it are perfect, so neither perceived consistency nor perceived hypocrisy are 100% accurate indicators of truthiness. Nothing absolves us of our responsibility to think for ourselves and maintain a healthy skepticism about the world around us at all times.
    - notthemessiah 13y ago
      I've been saying "Ideology is the dead end of ideas," but I think I might like the Emerson quote better, though I might be more inclined to defend RMS, as his predictions have all been true.
  - totowid 13y ago
    I don't think you understand what that quote means. But boy, you sure told him...!
_delirium 13y ago
> Banning the article _was_ censorship. The entire idea of "subreddits" is community-specific curation. If you post a leftist screed to /r/libertarian, they might choose to leave it, they might delete it, who knows. It's up to each subreddit to decide what kind of content they want to see, through a mixture of up/downvoting and moderator action. Some communities want the Greenwald article, some don't. Some have very little moderator action, others have a lot, and those differences are part of what defines them (e.g. /r/AskHistorians is known for its aggressive moderation). That's not censorship, any more than HN deleting some stuff is censorship.
- giardini 13y ago
  The groups where article was removed: /r/news and /r/worldnews and the article was news if there ever was news. Sorry, you lose! Let's review the GCHQ/NSA slides to find which ruse this was intended to be ... hmmm, I can't find "red herring" amongst them. Are we sure they released _all_ the GCHQ/NSA slides? [it's working already! Paranoia is setting in! Aaaaargh!]
- bduerst 13y ago
  I think this is where the semantics of the word come into play. Is the subreddit community mods banning the article censorship? Yes. Is it a violation of first amendment rights or worth getting upset over? Absolutely not.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    >Is it a violation of first amendment rights or worth getting upset over? Absolutely not. It is both of those if the decision to take the article down was made by the government in any way. It's just unfortunate that these questions have to be raised now.
- kyrra 13y ago
  But when a subreddit is part of the default selection of subreddits (for non-logged in users), that has a fairly large impact for the userbase of Reddit in general. And if it is part of the default, then the normal user (someone that doesn't mess with their subreddit selection much) would also be impacted.
res0nat0r 13y ago
Reddit has never positioned itself as a bastion of anything goes free speech. The mods are free to remove anything they don't believe is aligned with the subreddit's rules.
- keeshawn 13y ago
  Reddit did position itself as the bastion of anything goes free speech... when the speech itself was child pornography.
mahranch 13y ago
"Banning the article _was_ censorship." Technically, that's correct. But technically, you can call those square things floating in my coke "water cubes". It's not the term I would use, but it's technically correct. Most people would refer to them as "ice cubes" because it's more accurate and more descriptive. Just because a term is technically correct doesn't mean it's the most accurate. In the same vein, I wouldn't use censorship to describe what happened on reddit and instead use "content curation" or even pruning. Using censorship implies the intentional suppression of information. The mods of /r/news were actually recommending other, more suitable subreddits for users to submit the controversial article, and pointing out places where you could find it (like in /r/worldnews). That, to me, shows they were more concerned with content curation and not actual suppression of information.

SeanLuke 13y ago

> The article is factual. There are only a few sentences of opinion at the end. Are you aware of the contradiction inherent in your two sentences here?

giardini 13y ago
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
- mwfunk 13y ago
  When I was younger this quote didn't even make sense to me- I had no idea what Emerson was trying to express. As I've gotten older, not only did it start to make sense, but I honestly think this quote is one of the few examples of true wisdom that humanity has acquired. I think of this whenever I see the (many, many, many) examples of people who latch onto an abstract philosophy, then proceed to drive it into the ground without a hint of skepticism or devil's advocacy as they try to apply it every aspect of the world around them. People can become so enamored of an idea that they'll go to great lengths to warp their view of the world to conform to that idea, rather than update the idea based on what they see around them. Religious fundamentalists are easy targets here, but I'm thinking more of the extreme devotees of the various political perspectives. Frequently these ideas/philosophies/etc. are very good ones, but when the philosophy becomes so enshrined and calcified that it ceases to evolve, it can become something that might guide you near the truth but prevent you from ever actually attaining it. This is actually what I think of every time someone defends RMS by citing his consistency over the years. Without getting into the rightness or wrongness of his beliefs, his consistency is not a virtue. The flip side of this is the monologue in Diamond Age about hypocrisy- the tendency people have to use an example of apparent hypocrisy or inconsistency to discredit everything a person says or does. TL;DR consistency is not necessarily a sign of truth and hypocrisy is not necessarily a sign of falsehood. Neither the world nor the minds of the people in it are perfect, so neither perceived consistency nor perceived hypocrisy are 100% accurate indicators of truthiness. Nothing absolves us of our responsibility to think for ourselves and maintain a healthy skepticism about the world around us at all times.
  - notthemessiah 13y ago
    I've been saying "Ideology is the dead end of ideas," but I think I might like the Emerson quote better, though I might be more inclined to defend RMS, as his predictions have all been true.
- totowid 13y ago
  I don't think you understand what that quote means. But boy, you sure told him...!

_delirium 13y ago

> Banning the article _was_ censorship. The entire idea of "subreddits" is community-specific curation. If you post a leftist screed to /r/libertarian, they might choose to leave it, they might delete it, who knows. It's up to each subreddit to decide what kind of content they want to see, through a mixture of up/downvoting and moderator action. Some communities want the Greenwald article, some don't. Some have very little moderator action, others have a lot, and those differences are part of what defines them (e.g. /r/AskHistorians is known for its aggressive moderation). That's not censorship, any more than HN deleting some stuff is censorship.

giardini 13y ago
The groups where article was removed: /r/news and /r/worldnews and the article was news if there ever was news. Sorry, you lose! Let's review the GCHQ/NSA slides to find which ruse this was intended to be ... hmmm, I can't find "red herring" amongst them. Are we sure they released _all_ the GCHQ/NSA slides? [it's working already! Paranoia is setting in! Aaaaargh!]
bduerst 13y ago
I think this is where the semantics of the word come into play. Is the subreddit community mods banning the article censorship? Yes. Is it a violation of first amendment rights or worth getting upset over? Absolutely not.
- freehunter 13y ago
  >Is it a violation of first amendment rights or worth getting upset over? Absolutely not. It is both of those if the decision to take the article down was made by the government in any way. It's just unfortunate that these questions have to be raised now.
kyrra 13y ago
But when a subreddit is part of the default selection of subreddits (for non-logged in users), that has a fairly large impact for the userbase of Reddit in general. And if it is part of the default, then the normal user (someone that doesn't mess with their subreddit selection much) would also be impacted.

res0nat0r 13y ago

Reddit has never positioned itself as a bastion of anything goes free speech. The mods are free to remove anything they don't believe is aligned with the subreddit's rules.

keeshawn 13y ago
Reddit did position itself as the bastion of anything goes free speech... when the speech itself was child pornography.

mahranch 13y ago

"Banning the article _was_ censorship." Technically, that's correct. But technically, you can call those square things floating in my coke "water cubes". It's not the term I would use, but it's technically correct. Most people would refer to them as "ice cubes" because it's more accurate and more descriptive. Just because a term is technically correct doesn't mean it's the most accurate. In the same vein, I wouldn't use censorship to describe what happened on reddit and instead use "content curation" or even pruning. Using censorship implies the intentional suppression of information. The mods of /r/news were actually recommending other, more suitable subreddits for users to submit the controversial article, and pointing out places where you could find it (like in /r/worldnews). That, to me, shows they were more concerned with content curation and not actual suppression of information.