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Comment by cisanti | Hacker News Reader

The authoritarian regimes' secret police would be delighted at something like this. People actually (well, not all of us) give them information themselves, and those who don't, sure do get tracked across the web.

"Thoughts control" is very much a real problem, as the Google Memo scandal showed us. People dug out the irrelevant donation of Brendan Eich. Think about the power FB has, they know exactly who is the enemy of the state using the word from good old Soviet Union where I happened to born in.

People on the left dangerously remind me the fanatic pioneers, who only think one way is right and preach false tolerance. Some are even so stupid that they hold a hammer and sickle in one hand and rainbow flag in another. Knowing the possibility of the power and the capabilities these people would have if in power. I would say we live in dangerous times.

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They are delighted. People are being locked up based on content of their social accounts for years. Regime doesn't even need to get cooperation from the social networks themselves that much. They take your phone, make you unlock it and the off with you to a prison.

One such example being Turkey.

And if you're arrested and don't have any social presence that's presented in the media as odd, unacceptable, if not antisocial.

I'd rather take that, than be thrown into prison. There's a recent case of two Czechs traveling to Syria to help Kurdish cause in "Rojava", that were checked on a border in Turkey and revealed by posting stuff to Facebook. They got six years for terrorism both. They had terrible opsec though, the girl went to talk on TV about her activities in Rojava before leaving for Syria and also posted publicly on FB.

I more than agree with you. The only thing, why do you assume that only people "on the left" could be intrested in using these tools? Sure it's people "on the left" that are creating them and control them now, and yet thought control is DEFINITELY not a thing right parties have ever had problems using lol. Am I wrong?

Absolutely, the reason I wrote left is that for the past decade it's the left I'm afraid of. Of course, the right can use them for evil too. But seeing how American media behaves, scandals around people who don't agree with the left narrative, is very much frightening and reminds me the Soviet past. When I call it out, people say something along the lines "freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences", after social and regular media (that is left, let's face it) doxx and destroy a person.

I know plenty of people who are afraid to speak out. Even having a little bit different opinion can destroy your career. But you have family and kids. What is more important?

The Google Memo guy is a brilliant example. It doesn't matter what he wrote, people wanted to destroy him and they did. No freedom from consequences...

We had a similar saying over here too. It meant a crime against the state/society. That is a reason my grandmother was not able to go to the university. Her father used to own a small two-man brick factory and by being a capitalist he committed a crime.

Your universities are filled with ignorant, blinded radical people, who don't teach thinking but dogmas. Looks like the KGB work started to take effect a little too late.[0]

People reading it I'm a republican nutjob, but believe me, having once lived in that kind of society they are pretty close to the truth on that. Wrong on many other things.

[0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0

I'm generally liberal, but am a strong believer that much more power needs to be vested locally. There are a number of problems in the US that stem from power concentration in the hands of 1%ers that live far away. With Trump, more liberals are also starting to think in this direction. Concentrated power scares them.

Concentration of power into international corporations that know everything about everyone is dangerous also, not least because of the potential for blackmail against any that oppose some action those corporations wish to take.

That said, while some of your criticisms of the left ring true, you seem quite unaware of similar authoritarian monoculture tendencies in the right wing.

I'm fairly well aware, I guess I have personal reasons to be afraid of the left ;)

And the fact that I am also left, is what triggers me off. I'm sure I don't understand all the details but believe me seeing the whole media circus from here, you see it also from a very different angle.

> With Trump, more liberals are also starting to think in this direction. Concentrated power scares them

Hilariously predictably, it strictly only scares them when it's not their person in power. We get to watch this rotating clown show every few years, where the left suddenly wakes up again and pretends to be against concentration of power or various rights abuses (Clinton to Bush, Obama to Trump). When it was Obama abusing his power, they were as silent as could be (except for a few fringe people like John Cusack or Cindy Sheehan, who both got ostracized for speaking out - they were consistent in their beliefs - once it was a liberal in office).

If it were Hillary in there abusing power right now, they'd be just as silent as they were a year ago. There are more people willing to speak up against abuses of civil liberties on the left than there are on the right, it's still always a small bunch when you've got a Democrat in the Presidency (people like Ron Wyden).

The disturbing thing is that the American left is so invested in their narrative of tolerance, that many are completely blinded by the remarkable degree to which dogma has come to dominate acceptable standards of discourse over the last couple decades.

> The only thing, why do you assume that only people "on the left" could be intrested in using these tools? Sure it's people "on the left" that are creating them and control them now

Your critique is correct, the right is every bit as brutal about censorship when it comes to a context of authoritarianism. The left in the US is progressive (to varying degrees) in mentality, adopts technology much faster, and gets to utilizing new tools (in this case online) for censorship much faster accordingly.

The interesting thing about the left in regards to censorship is two fold: they (used to) pretend to be the champions of free speech and civil liberties, that makes them a dangerous fake protector. They can strip your civil liberties much easier, as their own base will remain quasi-silent (as we saw in the Obama era), while the right often won't protest because they agree with the abuses. This is fundamentally why the left was able to put us into Vietnam: there was nobody left to stand in the way of it, the right (more inclined to war) was naturally going to agree with the premise.

They're also fast adopters of technology. In my opinion people in the more left half of the political spectrum (call them Democrats or whatever makes sense), on average, move substantially faster as adopters of technology (Clinton & Obama were far more technologically progressive than the Bushes or Trump). The big platforms are all extremely left in their political bias, deriving from the people who work there, the memo was correct in that regard - not to mention credible people like Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel have noted this publicly for years. These platforms are/were built by young people, who (likely inherently) do not tend toward conservatism.

It makes perfect sense that social platforms founded by people with a left wing bias, including: Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Google - would then link up with left-favoring ideology/politics/causes when it comes to what they allow on their platforms, or what ideas they tolerate.

The left are the fast(er) adopters of technology, at least in the US. Of course they're going to get to using these tools for censorship before the slow-moving conservatives do. The far more scary part, is when the right catches up, and both sides are gun-ho about abusing technology for censorship.

> They're also fast adopters of technology. In my opinion people in the more left half of the political spectrum (call them Democrats or whatever makes sense), on average, move substantially faster as adopters of technology (Clinton & Obama were far more technologically progressive than the Bushes or Trump). The big platforms are all extremely left in their political bias, deriving from the people who work there, the memo was correct in that regard.

Disagree. The internet used to be more libertarian, even just a few years ago. This turn to authoritarianism coincides with an influx of late adopters.

Disagree. The internet used to be more libertarian, even just a few years ago.

In the '90's we believed that Freedom on the Internet was unassailable because all the talented engineers wouldn't work for or participate in all the sleazy stuff, in fact would actively fight it. The best cryptographers, security researchers, etc, were on "our side". How naive we were.

At the moment the left is more of a threat, but this shouldn't really be a left-right comparison.

A better way of framing it is authoritarian-libertarian. Some authority is useful, but too much is highly corrupting.

Currently a section of the left is rather authoritarian and dogmatic. In the past the same has been true of the right.

>At the moment the left is more of a threat

Nazis are literally holding rallies in downtown Charlottesville with torches and yelling kill jews. One just ran over people counter-demonstrating in the streets. But yea it's the left who are a threat.

We have a president who refuses to condemn white nationalism. He has repeatedly issued calls to violence and wants to rough up journalists. But yes, it is the left who are endangering our free speech.

A close advisor to the president, Gorka, wore a Hungarian nationalist pin to Trump's inauguration - this group were nazi collaborators. He says that the bombing of a Minnesota mosque could've been a "false flag" and he has refused to condemn white nationalists. But yea it's the left who are a threat to our wellbeing.

The president hasn't directly condemned black supremacy or Antifa either. Does that also concern you?

You're observing a response to authoritarianism on the left. We can expect increased conflict between ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum.

Yep, the Nazis are just upset about authoritarianism on the left. They don't actually want to kill jews or black people or anything. They just want to peacefully protest the fact they can't say such things right? Maybe we should try appeasing these fascists, because that worked so well last time?

Upset about, encouraged by, emboldend by...

The actual number of neo-Nazis is very small but we hear more about them because they're the greatest troublemakers and because of history.

There are many disgruntled conservatives and former lefists who are also upset about authoritarism on the left. The neo-Nazis are using their sentiment as fuel, so to speak.

We can see a similar thing happening with Antifa emboldend by the current clout of social Marxism.

An interesting perspective. Could you elaborate more on some similarities for someone who is only vaguely familiar with the Soviet Union ?

the one constant is they want their privacy only if they suspect someone else profits off using it. if they profit off giving up their privacy they are more than willing to oblige.

At first they were fine with FB and similar because they didn't see how all that information they handed over to another was to be used, they only saw the advantages they were getting. While nothing has really changed in how the data is used they suddenly seem upset that someone else makes use of it for profit or gain.

People on the right dangerously remind me the fanatic pioneers, who only think one way is right and preach false tolerance. Some are even so stupid that they hold a bible in one hand and a rebel flag in another. Knowing the possibility of the power and the capabilities these people would have if in power. I would say we live in dangerous times.

I'm not from the United States, it's ignorant to think labeling everyone who doesn't agree with you having a rebel flag in their hand. It has nothing to do with me. Outside of the land of free, there are more possibilities than just being liberal or conservative. It's not a binary system.

I tend to lean left according to your politics, but the stunts American left is lately pulling are disgusting, especially the labeling, hypocrisy, and anti-freedom.

You're not making points, you're just disparaging "the left." I can easily do the same to "the right" by flipping a few of your own words.

And yet your original post was an overly simplistic left- versus-right ideological rant.

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