China holds drill to shut down 'harmful' websites
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni...
I've found that while in practice these comments are often by otherwise somewhat acceptable HN commenters and not shills, they are often noticeably more partisan/controversial/low-quality than their other comments.
Specifically, this seems to happen with discussions that involve particular nation states (India, Turkey, Russia, Serbia, China are at the top of my list), as well as particular topics (gender, Trump, socialism/capitalism, etc.).
While I do agree that pointing this out violates the principle of charity and possibly hurts the conversation, it's still a 'dynamic' that kind of stands out.
EDIT: this is more of a general 'observation', not necessarily applicable to this particular thread.
Of course any country that's discussed here is likely to attract people from that country who feel they have something to explain or defend, but due to the userbase being predominantly American the bias is very much towards the US, not India, Russia, China or whatever.
Especially on topics that have massive media focus. But that's healthy isn't it? Especially in a place like this that has a higher than average level of discussion.
And really so what if someone is actually a paid shill? If they can hold a reasonable discussion to get their point across and perhaps even enlighten me to something I was ignorant of then I welcome them.
In reality I imagine a paid shill would work off of some sort of set of talking points that gets pushed to an entire team but even in this case civil discussion should be able to tear apart what are likely to be fairly weak arguments.
Independence from your source of income is truly impressive. I doubt any other news organ manages it.
> In 1991, the BBC assumed the role of TV Licensing Authority with responsibility for the collection and enforcement of the licence fee.[5] The BBC is authorised by the Communications Act 2003 to collect and enforce the TV licence fee. Section 363 of the Act makes it against the law to install or use a television receiver to watch or record any television programmes as they’re being broadcast without a TV Licence. Section 365 of the same Act requires the payment of the TV Licence fee to the BBC.
That hardly makes the case the BBC is Fully Independent from the British Government, which is what is being discussed here.
Really, the alternative is you have them beholden to billionaire owners and advertisers. This is why I like the idea of a (properly funded) public news source, just not as the only source of news.
Obviously false.
> Really, the alternative is you have them beholden to billionaire owners and advertisers.
Or have them run as a non-profit which doesn't accept advertising and instead takes donations from a huge variety of sources, including the people who watch it.
Don't pretend there are no other funding models.
Don't pretend the fact the government has a strong hand in their funding doesn't impact what they consider to be newsworthy.
Justify this. The funding is legislated into place in such a way that they are not subject to the whims of a new budget. Removing it would require actually changing the law, which ensures that a government trying to do so is subject to scrutiny.
That seems about as good as you can reasonably expect.
> Don't pretend there are no other funding models.
I didn't. Don't put words in my mouth.
... assuming you want the news to be government-funded and, therefore, government-run.
Some of us see a problem in that.
I haven't had a TV license for a few years actually. Never been bothered beyond the occasional letter.
If true, the Chinese government isn't even pretending this information is "fake" or "untrue", but instead they just find "harmful".
I don't mean to imply that it's an acceptable thing to think, or that the U.S. is as authoritarian as China (it's not by an order of magnitude), but contextualizing this makes it seem less surprising. If we're more alarmed, we should have been this alarmed to begin with. This is the party that spearheaded the Cultural Revolution and erected the Great Firewall... this kind of behavior is very par for the course.
It's one thing to publish a leak detailing corruption which "harms" the agenda and reputation of the criminals engaged in it. Boo on them. "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be."
It's another to publish a leak that reveals identities and plans made in secret, and gets people killed.
Somewhere in the middle are leaks like yesterday's transcripts of Trump talking to Australia and Mexico: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/politics/austra... Perhaps world leaders should be able to speak together confidentially, and perhaps these transcripts will 'harm' people in the future when politicians are less able to communicate frankly because the conversations are public.
The government is free to try and stop leaks. That's not the same thing as censorship.
The level of secrecy a government operates under is a massive issue, but it's not the same one.
> this kind of behavior is very par for the course.
That doesn't mean we should normalize it.
[1]: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/z4k73w/someone-pu...
If the lion share of people can't see it, it doesn't exist.
The key difference is that you're allowed to make your own platform and set whatever rules you like
But can you really? What if suddenly Google decides your platform is producing fake news?
And as we know Facebook was actively doing exactly that.
http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-supp...
Don't get me wrong, I am deeply disturbed by the level on control facebook (and google) exhibit over news, information, the internet. But it's a fundamentally different thing then the government doing it.
When the government does this I think it's actually less harmful because people are aware the government wants to manipulate opinion.
The capability to individually tailor propaganda like is already done with advertising is much worse I think.
They'll do what the government wants them to do, as long as it doesn't threaten the bottom line.
I was born in a communist country and when I was a kid, there was a joke:
In the socialistic countries, the government owns the businesses. In capitalist countries, it's the other way around.
Think about it a little, and then apply your argument again.
In China, if you don't like the government's policies, you can try starting your own government. Good luck.
The level of corporate control in the US is disturbingly high. Ultimately they are weaker than the federal government.
If the government comes in and tells me to delete comments because they don't like them, that's a WHOLE other ball game.
How about when they tell you to play ball or they're cancelling their contracts with you, which will ultimately destroy your company? (Similarly, when they insinuate that you'll receive contracts if you're compliant -- and your rival might if they're compliant instead.)
It's not (and has never been) do whatever you want with your company, once you reach a certain size. In fact, I don't think most of us actually want that. (Also, arguably, your comment section is a public accommodation and you're legally requires not to discriminate on certain bases.)
I'm not implying that the US is the same as China in this regard -- I'm pointing out that they US does regulate content in an authoritarian way, they simply vest that authority in private lobbying groups and exercise it via back-channel deals.
I find that worse than the open authoritarianism with an obvious source of blame, even if it's a "milder" authoritarianism in terms of effects.
"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
It is in their right to bow to pressure from outside, from players bigger than you. After all, they are companies, they can do whatever they want, right?
FB and google both have a larger population than china. Censorship by FB or Google is far more harmful/effective than whatever the chinese government does.
Also, would we support corporations right to censor if they were censoring content we disagreed with? Imagine if FB/Youtube/Verizon/etc started censoring lgbt content. Would we still use the "private companies" can do whatever they want argument?
Given how powerful many companies are ( especially monopolistic companies like FB/GOOG ) maybe it's time corporations are required to protect free speech like corporations are required to protect the rights of minorities/disabled/etc.
Anymore? Corporations were radically more powerful in the past than they are today.
US Steel, the railroads, Standard Oil, JP Morgan they were all more powerful than the US Government a little over a century ago. Rockefeller all by himself was financially more powerful than the US Government; he actually bailed out the government, a concept entirely impossible today. Contrast that with Gates or Bezos, they're not even pikers by comparison to the US Govt and Federal Reserve. Just one month of the recent QE program from the Fed is about equal to the richest person in the US.
Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and Apple are all a joke compared to the power of the Federal Government in all possible regards. Alibaba, Baidu etc are a joke compared to the power of the Communist Party in China; the CCP can destroy or seize those corporations any day of the week.
Even mighty Samsung isn't more powerful than the South Korean Government - as recently demonstrated - and it's a rather extreme example. Turns out the guns give you a very solid upper-hand, even when you're equivalent in size to 13% of your nation's GDP.
If I opt out of google, then I miss out on google's services. If I "opt out" of my country's laws, I go to prison.
Google censorship only controls what people say on google. Government censorship can control what their citizens say anywhere.
Not directly but they could get the government to act on their behalf. Also, I'd say FB, GOOGL are more powerful than most nations. I don't think monaco or luxemburg are more powerful than FB or GOOGL.
> If I opt out of google, then I miss out on google's services. If I "opt out" of my country's laws, I go to prison.
But if corporations can get the government to make the laws. Also, if your job requires you to have a facebook account or an internet connection and FB or AT&T "ban" you, that could be damaging to you.
> Google censorship only controls what people say on google. Government censorship can control what their citizens say anywhere.
In another way. Google censorship censors you on google on earth. Government censorship only controls you within a nation's borders. You could argue that google's censorship is global while a government's censorship is local.
When it comes to large transnational monopolies like GOOG and FB, in many ways their censorship is far more damaging and dangerous. Even more so when you consider the influence large monopolies have over governments and laws.
Whatever your views, it's a very interest topic.
They're not. The government has the power to stop them at any time and if they don't want to go that far can easily put pressure on them. Just look at the whole 'fake news' thing in the last year and the fact that companies have had to respond to that in quite a major way.
At some point I would think you would run into anti-discrimination laws, but short of that sure do what you want.
I'm free to say to those users "hey, come post here my lgbt brothers/sisters/anything in between. Come post here liberals who are pissed off about the actions of facebook/google".
Whereas if I said something against the government of china they would just toss me in prison or have me killed.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor–Keogh_official_secr...
One sees huge amounts of state power used to investigate and prosecute; the other not so much, even though a significant number of people are murdered by current of former partners.