(I used to submit for classification for adult content for distribution in NZ or streaming in hotels)
Edit: so HN wants Twitter moderation and censorship but a country censoring videos and text books is a big no no.
I have no big problems with websites limiting what users can post (HN is also ding this!), but I have big problems with politicians having ability to for example take down content criticizing them.
Content that should be made illegal to post anywhere at all is in my opinion extremely rare, and basically all censorship system should censor less. Sadly, some things needs to be blocked and once system exists it inevitably gets misused.
Not sure what the proper solution is.
Therefore, they'll help set policy for what needs to be taken down, but a politician will not be able to take down content, they may request the censor office does this, but they won't be able to force them or do it themselves.
NZ is an outlier in the world, but it is a very strong liberal democracy. It has very low levels of corruption, very high levels of public confidence in government, very transparent ways of operating, and very strong media and public participation to hold the public sector to account.
Other countries might abuse this system, but I doubt New Zealand is.
The Prime Minister can only exercise control over the military by policy? They have no input to operations at all? Seems extraordinary. Wikipedia says that ministers exercise authority.
Seems like it is less a democracy than rule by a professional elite with a thin veneer of elections to keep the people happy.
An example is during covid, the government set policy around what could be done but the police were ultimately in charge with how they enforced it. Additionally New Zealand has a culture of egalitarianism and community. While there is growing inequality, there isn't an elite yet.
The government provides checks on the public service and the public service provides checks on the government.
Another example is the treasury prevents the government going into debt unless there are extreme circumstances and a plan to get back into surplus. The government can't just cut taxes and up borrowing to buy votes, they need to be fiscally responsible and that's controlled by the treasury.
Ultimately New Zealand has a reasonably direct, accessable, and transparent form of government which represents the community that it serves, it is rated top in the democracy list for a reason.
Is this a hypothetical? Because plenty of content on FB criticising New Zealand's politicians.
depends on a country
> Because plenty of content on FB criticising New Zealand's politicians.
This does not mean that no content was taken down solely for criticizing politicians.
Because trust me, New Zealand's opposition parties, social media, and the real media, would be on that like flies on shit if there was even a hint that it had happened. All it would take is someone saying "Wtf, my FB post calling Jacinda Ardern a pretty communist was mysteriously deleted."
I guess it's good to live in a nation where corruption is low, and the rule of law applies to all, the media is free, and who deliberates on questions of law isn't decided by politicians.
Because I know that any of the behaviour you posit would be absolutely called out.
Like the time a New Zealand Prime Minister sent the Police in to find an investigative journalist's sources, because it embarrassed him and his government.
Or the time that the New Zealand Defence Force sicced the internal intelligence service on the same journalist to find his sources because he embarrassed them...
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/104638742/police-apo...
https://i.stuff.co.nz/opinion/130640313/the-dirty-politics-b...
The fact that a) these things happened concerns me but b) that it was exposed to the light heartens me.
So yeah, if you've got evidence of what you posit actually occurring, please share it.
Yes. In communist Poland "You submit the content for classification. With documentation. And they send it back with a detailed report of what needs to be censored" was used and designed to keep criticism of ruling class and ruling system out of public view.
----------------------------
Note that I am not claiming that NZ is currently abusing this system, or that NZ system is intended to provide such use.
I was responding to
> Because plenty of content on FB criticising New Zealand's politicians.
that is not really indicating anything, except lack of USSR-level censorship.
Maybe confusion was caused because I responded to
> But that sort of censorship is fine. You submit the content for classification. With documentation. And they send it back with a detailed report of what needs to be censored and why.
treating is a claim in general, not specifically about NZ
(I do not want to claim anything about NZ as I am not familiar with it)
The post saying that would also be deleted in that scenario.
Moderation is blocking content when the sender wants to communicate something the receiver doesn't want. Censorship is blocking content that both the sender and the receiver want.
Gmail running spam filters is moderation. The government blocking you from sending emails to journalists is censorship.
Except when it isn’t. All media content goes through classification and censorship in New Zealand. You cannot air anything on tv without classification.
My comment was on the processor of classification and censorship that occurs during the classification process.
> Moderation is blocking content when the sender wants to communicate something the receiver doesn't want.
Then Twitter, Facebook, etc do not have moderation teams. They have censorship teams. Because they are blocking content people do want.
You might disagree with Trump. But removing his tweets and banning him is censorship as people do agree with him and do want his content.
This was your original comment. Yes, people want moderation of their platforms, otherwise they become unusable. Most people want some degree of censorship (CSAM is the obvious case). But there's a big difference between Twitter censoring something and the government doing it. For example Facebook can say "hey we don't want people posting nude photos" - that's censorship. And that's fine; they don't want to run a site that has nude photos.
>>Then Twitter, Facebook, etc do not have moderation teams. They have censorship teams. Because they are blocking content people do want.
Yep, they do both, in varying degrees. The government should be more restrained.
>>You might disagree with Trump. But removing his tweets and banning him is censorship as people do agree with him and do want his content.
Yes, it absolutely is censorship. And if twitter wants to do that I'm fine with that. I don't want the government doing that.
Because people downvoted me to -4 before anyone commented. Since I only talked about censorship in regards to traditional media it was safe to assume people dislike censorship of traditional media. Which is a contradiction to wanting censorship and moderation on social media.
> Yes, it absolutely is censorship. And if twitter wants to do that I'm fine with that. I don't want the government doing that.
I agree but Twitter in the past is very inconsistent in its moderation and censorship. Stuff that’s an absolute violation of rules is allowed but borderline violations on the right are quickly dealt with. I’m fine with a private company doing it if it’s consistent.
There are always trade offs but I think we are better off with zero censorship. What are we worried about? Will we become Jihadists after seeing a Taliban post? Are with that impressionable that anything we see sticks in the brain as truth? If so, perhaps we should try to solve the root problem.
These definitions don’t work, because there is always some (possibly extremely small) population that wants the content, ergo you could say all moderation is censorship to some people.
Between this and the matt taibi twitter discussion, the conclusion is that Americans overwhelmingly are for censorship of " the otherside", but wants to do it in such a way that it can't be called censorship. It's not that they don't want censorship, but they don't want to do it in a transparent way in which a government entity/clerk hands in a takedown request to fb/twitter, instead they want embedded partisan operatives operating through backchannels to takedown content they don't like in absolutely opaque fashion. The point is to claim - "see it's not censorship" even though the end result is the same. All it matters is how it looks like, not what it is.
It could be "send to the front of the moderation queue." or, it could be "ban it immediately globally".
People's perception also probably depends on how far they believe a ban applied to Facebook extends. Does it extend to NZ only, or worldwide?
If I were designing this system:
1) Upon receipt of a ban request by a governmental org.
2) If legally required, immediately ban it to all IP ranges inside of that country/region - there is typically a SLA with penalties here, e.g. 1hr in EU.
3) Send it to the front of the moderation queue.
4) If it comes back marked "not allowed", ban it globally.
That way, the legal bans only apply to the smallest allowed region, but we then take that as a strong hint that it might not be allowable on the platform in general.
That allows us to operate in Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, New Zealand and the US, each country with different things considered "illegal speech".
If some readers think this is NZ deciding for the world what Facebook publishes, they will have a very different response to someone who thinks the takedown only applies in NZ.
What I don’t like about some moderation tool on Facebook is that we don’t know what is moderated, by who, for who, and why.
I saw someone else say there should be a registry of sorts for moderated content so it’s visible which I think is good. (The moderation not the content itself)
Yes, of course? I can choose not to use Twitter but I have no choice but to submit to censorship.
Yes, that's actually very sensible.