[gitrog]

> There's not a single social network that has begun to require phone verification because of the risk of "toxicity or hate speech". It's all to fight spam and to better track user activity (and, if we're being charitable to them

I think that _is_ being very charitable. Way too much in fact.

The thing with Chinese censorship is that people living under it either don't care about it or are fully aware of it. It's very much in the open.

On the other hand, Facebook/Instagram, Microsoft, Google, etc all start requiring your phone number for verification or some other valid reason, reeling and locking you in, and before you know it not only one entity but any entity willing to pay for your data has access to it.

We should of course be outraged at both approaches.

Also, is removing fake news/propaganda not censorship solely because it's not the government doing it? Because if that's the case, Facebook and Google only really started removing fake news _because_ governments started to apply pressure on them.