PM orders internet blocked for anyone spreading info that might frighten people

I believe PornHub was taken down because it had movies of a very influential person in the country. Not movies that would fit his stature.

Where did you see the troll circulating that page earlier today? You want to link to the post, wherever it is?

Agreed, and furthermore, I think it’s easy for most of us to take for granted the influence of our domains of work and study. In general, many of us have backgrounds which pride themselves in their methodology, consistency and pursuit of understanding (whether or not we actually work in line with these values is another matter.) A lot of people outside of these circles aren’t privy to that sort of training (self-taught or otherwise), so adequately analysing the news that shows up on news feeds and timelines is difficult. Any news on the pandemic and the varying responses of the general public are a fine example of this. There’s always room for differences in opinion, but the intense variability highlights the race across the internet between access to all sorts of information and educational material that was previously unavailable, and the ill-intended trash like the link you shared.

Background: In Thailand, this is about residents and media discussing COVID updates - often including case counts released by the Thai government. It’s not an attempt to stop lies from spreading.

Thailand sets new case count and death records almost every day (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-thaila...) and the government is scared of residents talking about it. Keep in mind that Thailand is essentially a dictatorship right now (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayut_Chan-o-cha).

Here’s how the AP described this order: https://apnews.com/article/business-health-media-coronavirus...

> but we habitually fail to get to grips with the very real problem of deliberate lying

Deliberate lying....like about Iran-Contra, Iraqi WMDs, IRS targeting, NSA surveillance?

I have no illusions that deliberate lying isn't a problem, but asking the fox to guard the henhouse will make it even worse.

> I think this conception is a side effect of software development

No, it’s been a pretty consistent concept for about 250 years at least.

Are you implying that censorship is necessary? If so, who are the non-liars that will police the liars?

Well, it’s sort of a hard issue isn’t it? Because as it turns out Mao was sort of right about the importance of controlling the story your society tells.

I’d argue that we don’t actually have a problem with deliberate lying, but that we have an issue that too many people are doing it. Because our democracy has always been build on a certain degree or twisting facts to whatever purpose. The difference is that until very recently we had a society where the public narrative was controlled by a set of institutions and authorities. With too many billionaires and populists questioning those institutions for too long, we now have split narratives where people have to chose the lies they believe in, and that’s turning out to be a bigger problem than anyone ever imagined. It’ll likely also end up biting some of those billionaires and populists in the ass when enough people decide to follow the same path of lies.

It’s a tad ironic that we’re likely witnessing another relatively free and liberal society fall due to too much decadence between the ruling class who have failed to live up to their responsibilities. Either because they were too stupid to realise the fire they are starting or because they were to greedy to care, but in either case, you need a coherent story to have a functional society where it’s different members don’t turn on each other because their world views become too different.

A lot of libertarians believing in total free speech, and a lot of HNers share this. Which is understandable, because when you are part of the technical elite of a society you tend to value the essence or basic human rights and personal liberties. So much like the masons of the past formed the free masons, you too see engineers going down similar lines of thought. But the thing is, if you look at history, that’s just not how society works as a whole. Which brings me back to my opening statement about Mao, because while we little about Mao beyond the cultural revolution and the hunger travesties and attribute most of the sway of socialism and communism to Marx and Lenin in the west. The true brilliance of Mao is still at play in the core of what is modern China, in that the revolution never actually ends and that you need a tight grip on information and the public discord on matters that effect society as a whole if you want to control society.

Unfortunately we are currently very busy proving him right. The populists may have taken some hits recently because the reality caught up to their stupidity, and the world has woken up to the foreign influence, but we still don’t have strong enough support behind our democratic institutions to have any form or safe future for our western ideologies. Unless that changes, we’ll soon become what China used to be for us. Not because we didn’t strike down on lies, but because we didn’t mutually agree on one of the lies.

In every discussion around censorship on HN we see a very large portion agreeing that censorship is good when targeting the right kind of people for the right kind of reasons, and bad otherwise. One side thinking that companies or government are enlightened enough to figure it out, the other disagreeing that such enlightened entity doesn't exist.

It is about trust, not hardware vs wetware. I would not trust a AI to do it better than an moderator. The least harmful method of censorship are strict defined legal systems written by democratic elected people, and as the article demonstrate, it has some flaws.

Everyone can agree that some people has been inspired by fake news to commit crime, leading to death and suffering. Everyone would also agree that without fake news there would still be people doing crime that leads to death and suffering. Crime is a problem, and censorship as a tool to combat crime has its up and downs in popularity. It does not however change the issue of trust.

The COVID lab leak hypothesis was not called outright "deliberate lying", because it was a hypothesis, however, it was banned from open discussion by even experts who feared the wrath of social media platforms and their members. It was called "False" by various "fact-checking" groups too, which many took as "it's a lie". Way before the internet people would say, “If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you”. You cannot legislate intelligence, so stop trying to filter and ban things being written and said, if you don't agree with censorship especially from big tech or gonvernment. I always enjoyed reading the trash newspapers while waiting on the checkout line at the supermarket for fun (aliens (sorry, I doubted you, Kevin!), conspiracies, etc...). I knew they were false, and I know some people who actually believed them, but there will always be gullible people. Then there are facts as plain as day like the Uighur concentration camps in China being forced to make goods for the West (pick cotton, etc. Nike, Zara, H&M) and elsewhere, and Disney makes a movie in the same vicinity, and it's business as usual - profits before principals. Don't tell me it's different today with social media. I think it's the same, but social media has amplified ignorance by ameliorating facts and rewarding narcissism. I left LinkedIn and Facebook years ago.

Why exactly is this such a problem? People have been making up bullshit stories to sell a narrative since there have been printed media (before even) and the world hasn't been harmed by this in any way that's remotely comparable to how much harm giving governments powers of censorship for the sake of "protecting truth and morality" has caused in real human lives and repressions.

As a basic general rule, private people absolutely should have the right to lie and spread lies in most contexts except those where contractual or professional obligations intervene, or where a legitimate criminal investigation is underway or in the case of government employees in positions of trust with the public.

Got a starting point for us?

For anyone wanting to add to their perspective how some younger generations are bringing in their thoughts on freedom/authority:

- https://thisrupt.co

- https://thestandard.co/homepage/ (Thai language only, but you can attempt to Google Translate)

I feel that you have something that you feel is important but just stopped short of saying it. If that's the case, would you mind elaborating on it?

I am interested because I am one of those people whose "reaction will probably be the same". I think I do appreciate cultural and historical differences between different groups of people, but I don't understand how having a more interesting story behind [insert injustice] would lead to a better outcome for everyone.

These days I tend to avoid real life discussions about these issues with people because whenever someone pulls out the "you don't understand their culture and history" card it's pretty much the end of a conversation or just an argument between beliefs.

> learning something about a group of humanity very different from the Western experience

Just want to note that I think there are lots of people from non-Western backgrounds, or have a very good understand of both Western and non-Western cultures here.

What exactly is relevant about a kingdom from the 14th century when it comes to banning IP addresses?

I don’t mean to sound flippant, but the suggestion of “if you only knew the entire history of this area/group, you’d understand…” smacks of smugness at best, and some sort of dog whistle at worst.

If you could kindly share what about the incredibly broad area of study you’ve suggested we all become experts on would be helpful here, I think many of us would appreciate it.

Otherwise the only piece of information I’ve cleaned from this post is “I have an opinion that’s informed by… something I’ve read. I decline to share neither the opinion or what information it’s based on.”

Also, only entertainment companies are allowed to push your buttons, outrage you, grind your gears and send you into a tailspin of social media "criticism" of that content, because that is their attention economy business model.

If private people do it, it's hate speech, the most vile thing that destabilizes civilization.

> allowed to frighten people.

No, no. They call it "awareness"..

That's the democratic way. Pointing this out won't be well received on a site used by people who are in favor of censorship, many of whom work at the companies that are collaborating with governments to enable it.

> What happened to freedom to share false information? Gone?

In today's interconnected world, it's a very dangerous right that has resulted in deaths - be it Rohingya people in Myanmar, or even Samuel Paty in France, just to name two recent examples of the top of my head.

A good discussion needs to be had on the limits we ( per country) want to have on that right. Too many people today can't disseminate truth from bullshit, and many bullshiters, on a small or big ( e.g. Alex Jones or Fox News or Boris Johnson) scale profit from this with serious consequences for the health of people ( death, mental health for people thinking they're always under attack by X) and societies. What good is a freedom when society is falling apart because everyone hates/is afraid of each other and nobody can agree on anything?

Useful context, thank you.

Maybe it scared someone

Not banned yet, thank you for sharing!

Same. Where do I report the Thai PM?

That's just how our fearless leader intended it.

The average monthly salary in Thailand is USD250.

It's unlikely that Starlink will be anything else than niche in countries where it would cost people half of their salary. Assuming that they can get the equipment at all.

StarLink may be successful in sparsely populated areas of North America and Australia and may have some success in rural areas of Europe.

Anywhere else, it won't be affordable or it won't have the local infrastructure (regional base stations), or distribution of the equipment will be banned or heavily controlled by local governments or the link access will have to follow the same rules as other internet connections, or it will just not be needed at all.

I'm curious to see how it's going to pan out given the high maintenance costs of the infrastructure, but it's clearly not going to have any effect on the average Thai's access to information.

is this optimism?

given that countries can force all the major tech companies to censor and remove selective content, what makes people think Stalink will be immune to governmental forces of oppression?

If it's not immune and I don't think it is, how could a billionaire design a system to make it immune today, as I think it's possible to at least try to make it immune from censorship.