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Comment by pizzathyme | Hacker News Reader

My understanding was in the US, they can openly criticize the government

You are saying that is inaccurate? Or you are talking about a different type of censorship?

speech is heavily, heavily restricted in the united states, in particular on American social media platforms.

there are a massive number of subjects which cannot be spoken about on social media without risking massive deboosting and the blacklisting of your accounts.

this censorship is directed by "former" CIA agents working at all major American social media companies. In other words, this is direct government censorship of private citizens' speech.

We're literally on a social media platform right now criticizing the US with publicly available information about US intelligence.

What content are you worried would blacklist your account?

What is “deboosting”? If I own a social media site wouldn’t you argue that I should be able to control what content I “boost” in the first place? Am I forced to compulsory “boost” your content? In which case wouldn’t that mean I am “censoring” the PoV of the social media company?

Can you share the topic contents that are subject to your accusations? If you’re able to share them here without fear of government reprisal then I would argue that’s not censorship.

A current example would be Tiktok artificially boosting ice related challenges.

Why? Because it makes searching for immigration and customs enforcement content much more difficult to find. It lower the social temperature and stops it from metaphorically boiling over.

Is crowding out content censorship? Who knows. If tilting feeds in one direction and away from another has the same effect and isn't censorship because of a definitional technicality, does it really matter?

> If I own a social media site wouldn’t you argue that I should be able to control what content I “boost” in the first place? Am I forced to compulsory “boost” your content? In which case wouldn’t that mean I am “censoring” the PoV of the social media company?

That sounds cool as long as you forfeit your Section 230 rights since at that point you’re more of a newspaper than a social network.

Yes, I know all social networks do this currently which is why they should all lose their Section 230 rights.

>If you’re able to share them here without fear of government reprisal then I would argue that’s not censorship

I mean, the definition of censorship is far larger than just that, and what you're talking about is it's more extreme form.

Moreso you ignore all the modern subtlety and nuance of modern censorship. The government doesn't need to attack you directly, they just tell the large companies that contract with the government they can't do business with companies that do certain things. Or they tell payment processors that businesses that are 'high risk' need to be audited more and will invite more government intervention in which the payment processors just drop said businesses.

I mean, if you were on a corner protesting, then the government came in and closed the roads and routed all traffic around you so no one saw you, it would be really sus, right?

I think we are starting to see that under the current administration, yes. But the question was - does it rise to the level that Chinese have? I argue no.

I also worry about some sort of policy where a site “must” carry content. That has its own risks as well, which should be obvious.

You can about some things. Others (most recently anything too anti Israel) will get you deported, debanked, etc.

The saddest part of US censorship is it isn’t even pro American. It’s pro American billionaires who are disproportionately pro Israel.

Say something bad about Israel in your public social media.

In China, dissent is caged because it still has teeth. In the US, free speech is allowed because the teeth are all gone. We parade the animal about, saying, "Look, we still have free speech", but it has no ability to bite.

I don't know what's worse, being trapped in a cage or de-fanged and let loose. I've only ever lived without teeth, so the idea of biting sounds almost beautiful.

The last time it had teeth was the 60s into the 70s with the protests for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War.

But angry crowds can still remind them that the threat exists -- witness Josh Hawley fleeing the capital when the angry mob broke through (the irony being that the mob was in service of his boss, Trump).

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