China launches platform to stamp out 'online rumours'
news.trust.org
news.trust.org
It seems like the powerful around the world are competing with each other to see who can censor and control the internet the most. And of course they all, to the last man, claim it is for the benefit of the people.
Down voting things you disagree with despite being well articulated (in fact because they are well articulated) is a form of censorship here.
But of course it goes much further when shadowbanning is deployed to enforce the narrow and rigid views of the moderation team.
Yes, I know pointing this out means it will now happen to me.
Nothing a censor hates more than thwarting the narrative they are trying to enforce.
But that’s why you think it doesn’t happen here. This is the most harshly and hypocritically cultivated walled garden on the Net. (Moderators violate their own rules regularly with impunity.)
Alas, I cannot abide not pointing out these abuses.
Very rarely are they well written or polite.
I have yet to see well presented, civil, arguments censored. I have however seen entire threads criticizing HN and YCombinator staff, by name, be left alone.
You can notice this more obviously if you watch new, that certain topics reach and get to the front page VERY RAPIDLY and stay there, while others are flagged or fall off with prejudice. I'm not sure I'd call it a huge problem, and the parent post is probably a bit hyperbolic, (Certainly I give the mods benefit of the doubt, even though I've gently disagreed with dang via comment prior) but it's definitely present.
In fact a good way to think critically about things you hear is to ask “how is the politician profiting from this law?” And noting what new powers the law gives government.
If government “needs” more power with the justification of “helping people”, it may be the case that helping people is just the excuse.
Government power is easy to monetize: threaten industry with worse regulations but forget the idea when you get campaign contributions, etc.
Yet “hate speech” is literally a phrase created to justify oppression against people for having opinions you don’t like.
I may choose not to associate with a jerk like in my example, but the perpetrators of “hate speech” concept want to deny him basic human rights, and often do violence against him.
Ironically for the “crime” of being different.
Basic human rights s are rights for everyone.
Genuine liberals used to advocate for the right of the KKK to march. The ACLU even filed a lawsuit Withings the past ten years defending their right to make white robes fools of themselves.
When “liberals” stopped defending human rights, you lost the plot and the whole point of being liberal.
Both are characterized by marked intolerance. A small minority of both are what I would term "Violently Intolerant". You can get yourself killed for being a congressman at a baseball game, or for being black and going to bible study or walking up a street. The "Left" and the "Right", particularly their extremists, are just bad business all around when it comes to what we would typically term "tolerance".
No one's talking about the obvious stuff here. Like Nazis, or forcing blacks back into slavery or something. I'm talking about being intolerant of reasonable ideas.
It's perfectly reasonable for a bunch of congressmen to get together for a baseball game without being shot.
It's perfectly reasonable for young black military officers to walk up a city street without having a knife stuck in his chest.
Don't even get me started on how reasonable it is for little old ladies to go to churches.
A boycott is not even violence. So, again, who cares? We're not even in physical danger in the case of a boycott. In fact, the boycott is actually free speech. (Or, more precisely, free expression).
But consider, if the government comes after you, who will you arrest? Who can you get to defend you? In this case, the Constitutional protections of our freedoms are essential.
The threat from the government is the danger that the Founders were insistent on mitigating. And they were right to do so. The government is the main entity that we need protection from vis-a-vis restriction of rights.
So, cool that you have decided what's fake, but if the mob thinks otherwise you're toast.
See anti-vaxxers and their effects on innocent children, both their own and others.
China loves bureaucracy.
One of these is not like the others... You'd think that "attacking revolutionary martyrs" would be in the government's list of pros about rumors, not cons. Or at least so I've heard