Who are the enemies of the Internet? | Hacker News Reader

Who are the enemies of the Internet?

inp-software.com

20 pointsSami_Lehtinen15 comments

The grammar does not inspire confidence. And the near-immediate mention of employees being restricted to work activities by employers, before moving on to actual censorship of civil society, doesn't help with taking the page seriously.

If we were going to really list enemies of internet freedom, the list must include practically all governments - almost all practice some surveillance and most suppress at least a few categories of communications (nods to DoctorZeus on this page).

Corporate power is another major enemy. In any country where the law doesn't protect internet neutrality, pretty soon citizens will be limited to a shrinking set of sites unless they pay extra to remove artificial blockages.

Those who censor are not the only enemies of the internet. When being monitored by an unaccountable organization capable of all manner of violence, a threat is implied and speech is hindered.

Furthermore, why remove speech when you can just make sure no one ever finds it? Increasingly, most people only access content on the internet via a handful of giant corporations (google, facebook, etc). It is their algorithms that determine what speech we come across. These could easily be leveraged to shape public discourse.

I can only subscribe to a definition of "enemy of the Internet" if it includes the Huffington Post and Zedo.

Too bad nobody cares what you think.

Zing!

Throw in Upworthy and Buzzfeed and I'm with you.

>It is their algorithms that determine what speech we come across.

Even without deliberate attempts to manipulate these algorithms to shape public discourse, I wonder what effect the algorithms themselves have. For example, a major feature of these algorithms is to show people what they want to see. The algorithms may determine this based on the individuals history, which already has implications for public discourse, but they could also take into account what similar individuals like.

They could also have a systematic bias. For example, they may consider links from external sites to be a positive indicator. This would prefer internet cultures where each participant has their own site over similar cultures where each participant has an account on a larger site.

Depending on the day, everyone in the HTML5 and HTTP working groups. :)

Don't forget ICANN!

> Internet is supposed to be a place of freedom, a place beyond borders, where anyone can exchange ideas and information

That's the dream. If that's the dream then why not start building a better internet?

Corollary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG0Kw-kD0q8

The telecoms

So... the Internet is the enemy of the Internet. Got it.

I'm sure working in security you can comprehend the difference between telecom companies and internet infrastructure. I'm sure you'd prefer if your customers don't make that distinction.

I read this comment 3 times and now I give up; I have no idea what you are trying to say.

TCP/IP and telecom cos who own racks of networking equipment are two different things. These kind of distinctions are important.

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