The most pervasive censorship is who and what social media companies decide to block or suppress. Even in places like China. It's deliberately harder to measure, but any censorship measurement that omits it is like measuring war casualties, but ignoring those on the front lines.
Not to minimize the impact of social media censorship, but one should really live in a country like Iran to grasp what pervasive censorship is. Most people born and raised in the relative freedoms provided in modern democratic systems have no clue what it feels like when you have such dictatorships. I say this because, looking at the current trends, we _could be_ heading in that direction, and the comparison is apt.
> You don't know what it feels like not because you're so free, but because you agree with the ruling regime on what it considers the most important questions.
We don’t know what it feels like because we collectively participate and decide what should be considered and what not _periodically_ and it’s possible to change it, evidently, with various degrees and velocity by voting.
> I would much prefer the dictatorship-style censorship, because our censorship is far, far more effective.
Case in point!
I’ve lived under both and can guarantee you don’t know what that dictatorship you so much yearn for has in their bag for you until it’s too late.
Its true, all usually highly conplex world events are dumbed down to an insanely infantile level that carefully omits anything that may poorly reflect on corporate interests.
Also obvious is that all news is made in a short list of countries. Everywhere else the best you can hope for are terrible events.
You will only get opinions from a small list of talking heads.
One might imagine populating the media with nothing but professors. Each field has new stuff every week. In stead you get Adam Savage. The name isn't by acident.
like_any_other · · focus · HN ↗
geraneum · · focus · HN ↗
like_any_other · · focus · HN ↗
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geraneum · · focus · HN ↗
We don’t know what it feels like because we collectively participate and decide what should be considered and what not _periodically_ and it’s possible to change it, evidently, with various degrees and velocity by voting.
> I would much prefer the dictatorship-style censorship, because our censorship is far, far more effective.
Case in point!
I’ve lived under both and can guarantee you don’t know what that dictatorship you so much yearn for has in their bag for you until it’s too late.
theendisney · · focus · HN ↗
Also obvious is that all news is made in a short list of countries. Everywhere else the best you can hope for are terrible events.
You will only get opinions from a small list of talking heads.
One might imagine populating the media with nothing but professors. Each field has new stuff every week. In stead you get Adam Savage. The name isn't by acident.