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.
Not a single one of my examples was committed by the government (except if you count funding Carnegie Mellon and MIT). But even in cases when they are, voting rarely helps: <a href="https://www.woes.blog/p/tgr-democracy" rel="nofollow">https://www.woes.blog/p/tgr-democracy
> you don’t know what that dictatorship you so much yearn for
Re-read my sentence. I don't yearn for a dictatorship, I yearn to blunt and make obvious the current secret, subtle censorship regime.
> has in their bag for you
Is it jail?
“White Lives Matter” Slogan Earns Two Dutch Men Imprisonment for Racism - <a href="https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news-corner/netherlands-jail-for-white-lives-matter-slogan/" rel="nofollow">https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news-corner/nether...
Activist ran race-hate sticker library, court told - <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51zn2l33r9o" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51zn2l33r9o -Stickers with text like "It's OK to be White" and "We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066". For which he was later convicted and jailed - <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68448867" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68448867
I repeat - you agree with the regime. You're floating in the river, letting it carry you where it pleases, while telling those swimming upstream that there is no current, nothing to struggle against.
Edit as reply because "posting too fast":
> How did all of these social media companies made a 180 suddenly after power shifts in Washington?
None of the racist or right-wing or white nationalist subreddits got unbanned, American Renaissance is still banned off Facebook and Youtube, Facebook still explicitly bans white nationalism, and other social media ban it implicitly as "hate speech", TikTok bans "white lives matter" [1], and promised to ban even more [2] (under Trump's 1st term), while wikipedia doesn't even bother to mention that as censorship [3]. All of this is still the case under the current Washington. The only exception is Twitter, after Musk bought it - there, American Renaissance got unbanned.
And a 180 would imply that these things are not only unbanned, but their opponents are banned.
So if you're going to just make stuff up, i.e. lie, then I won't waste my time with you.
like_any_other · · focus · HN ↗
geraneum · · focus · HN ↗
like_any_other · · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
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.
like_any_other · · focus · HN ↗
Not a single one of my examples was committed by the government (except if you count funding Carnegie Mellon and MIT). But even in cases when they are, voting rarely helps: <a href="https://www.woes.blog/p/tgr-democracy" rel="nofollow">https://www.woes.blog/p/tgr-democracy
> you don’t know what that dictatorship you so much yearn for
Re-read my sentence. I don't yearn for a dictatorship, I yearn to blunt and make obvious the current secret, subtle censorship regime.
> has in their bag for you
Is it jail?
“White Lives Matter” Slogan Earns Two Dutch Men Imprisonment for Racism - <a href="https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news-corner/netherlands-jail-for-white-lives-matter-slogan/" rel="nofollow">https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news-corner/nether...
Activist ran race-hate sticker library, court told - <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51zn2l33r9o" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51zn2l33r9o -Stickers with text like "It's OK to be White" and "We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066". For which he was later convicted and jailed - <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68448867" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68448867
I repeat - you agree with the regime. You're floating in the river, letting it carry you where it pleases, while telling those swimming upstream that there is no current, nothing to struggle against.
Edit as reply because "posting too fast":
> How did all of these social media companies made a 180 suddenly after power shifts in Washington?
None of the racist or right-wing or white nationalist subreddits got unbanned, American Renaissance is still banned off Facebook and Youtube, Facebook still explicitly bans white nationalism, and other social media ban it implicitly as "hate speech", TikTok bans "white lives matter" [1], and promised to ban even more [2] (under Trump's 1st term), while wikipedia doesn't even bother to mention that as censorship [3]. All of this is still the case under the current Washington. The only exception is Twitter, after Musk bought it - there, American Renaissance got unbanned.
And a 180 would imply that these things are not only unbanned, but their opponents are banned.
So if you're going to just make stuff up, i.e. lie, then I won't waste my time with you.
[1] <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/tiktok-sparks-massive-backlash-after-it-bans-the-phrase-white-lives-matter-while-keeping-black-lives-matter-chinese-propaganda/ar-AA24RbWj" rel="nofollow">https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/tiktok-sparks-massive-b...
[2] <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/tiktok-says-it-will-crack-down-on-anti-semitism-white-nationalism/" rel="nofollow">https://www.timesofisrael.com/tiktok-says-it-will-crack-down...
[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_TikTok" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_TikTok
geraneum · · focus · HN ↗
Interesting! How did all of these social media companies make a 180 suddenly after power shifts in Washington?
> You're floating in the river,…
Of course but this doesn’t have any bearing on what I said. We are talking about severity and type of censorship not its meaning.