[mtsr]

Interesting point. There’s wide acceptance of commercial censorship, but censorship for the common good (rightfully) feels like a slippery slope. But are they actually so different? Couldn’t the latter be done in a way just as purposeful? Or does it always lead to loss of freedom disproportional to its goals?

[mrtksn]

I don't think that there's difference, just implementation details differ. Youtube was blocked in Turkey for many years because someone from Germany uploaded defamatory videos about Ataturk(illegal in TR) and it was considered protected speech and Germany & Google refused deleting those. The situation was resolved when someone copyrighted Ataturk in Germany and made Youtube remove these videos.

Besides copyright, especially among Americans, I find that its completely O.K. to censor content it is bad for business. A major one is censorship in order to be advertisement friendly but anything flies, even the guy owns the thing and can do whatever he pleases is good enough for many(slightly controversial).

[mannykannot]

This is a myth: in Germany, as in many other countries, copyright covers only specific expression; you cannot copyright either the name of a historical person or a topic of discourse. The videos were briefly taken down as an automatic response to a complaint, but it seems the complaint was not upheld and the videos were restored.

At the time, Germany had a law censoring insulting comments about foreign heads of state, but that only applied to living ones (and maybe only those in office at the time?) That law was repealed in 2018.

The videos remained blocked in Turkey, but on account of a specific law banning criticism of Ataturk, not copyright.

[mrtksn]

Okay, how this changes the core argument? The videos were not taken down briefly because they did not comply with the Turkish law that protects Ataturk from defamation but for the claim that they violated someones commercial interests.

[mannykannot]

As the claim you made about copyright being used to take down a video was completely false, how did it contribute to anything?

[nani8ot]

The video wasn't taken down over commercial interests. They were taken down because some old law prohibited insults at representatives of other nations, with whom Germany has diplomatic relationships.

https://archive.is/wWvwM

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

What is censorship for the "common" good? The point being that censorship is a top-down thing; it is not a "common" thing by definition.

[FirmwareBurner]

Definition of Common good is doing what the political establishment sees as good for preserving their power.

It's not what's good for you, it's what's good for them.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

This is some weird revisionism. The definition of a common good is what's good for a community.

[FirmwareBurner]

Your definition is weird idealism from the past that doesn't work in today's corrupt political landscape.

[immibis]

Just because politicians are misusing a word to justify corruption doesn't mean the word doesn't have an actual meaning.

There's this weird effect I've noticed where people act like words don't have meanings any more. I don't know what to call it.

[buran77]

What about all the propaganda sites you like?

Would you ban all propaganda? Russian propaganda? Propaganda from countries engaged in illegal wars? How many social media or news sites survive? Heck, how many sites that allow comments and user interaction survive?

Yours is the "think of the children" argument, makes you feel warm and fuzzy when it aligns with your interests but you won't have a leg to stand on by the time it's used against you. Banning is just sweeping some of the trash under the carpet. The ones wielding the ban hammer don't care that most of the trash is still out in the open (social media?), they just need to open the door to arbitrary banning. The ones applauding the ban hammer are lacking the same critical thing that would otherwise handle propaganda and misinformation very well: education.

If you want your child to not smoke you don't just hide the cigarette pack on a higher shelf, you teach them what smoking is and does.

Meanwhile all the RT type crap is flooding social media under thousands of names. But that's fine as long as enough rubes are tricked into thinking banning one site did anything to solve the propaganda issue.

[mtsr]

It’s just not as black-and-white as you say. Propaganda is doing a lot of harm to democracy and freedom in my country and the EU on a daily basis. Should we invest in education (that is generally already reasonably good, IIUC)? Should we leave it to commercial journalism, even the best of which are moving to clickbait headlines? Should we do nothing?

[buran77]

So then let me ask you, do you feel like arbitrarily banning sites worked? Are we having less of a propaganda and misinformation as we are going ahead with the bans? Because if it's not actually working it sounds a lot like "it's not helping but at least it looks like we're doing something".

The problem is just getting bigger because 1) we aren't actually doing anything else (real) about it and 2) we even actively allow propaganda and misinformation on so many other channels it's laughable.

I said above, the people doing the banning just need a vehicle to carry their interests and justify their banning powers. Since they don't care about the problem itself, they don't care about any of the real measures that could tackle it. They pick the only one which gives them what they really want: power to arbitrarily control information. Russia is a great excuse today (and honestly, almost throughout their history) but it will be used against you tomorrow.

You don't even have to dig too far to see the exact same type of propaganda freely spread on X or Facebook, where the people actually are. RT is happily active there. Far right Musk is there. Can you even pretend that banning the rt.com site in Germany does anything towards the goal of curbing disinformation?

[perihelions]

> "Propaganda is doing a lot of harm to democracy and freedom"

What's "freedom" mean if not the right to read any publication you want, including (especially!*) media from hostile foreign countries? It's cynical to attack core civil liberties and say that you are doing so in defense of liberty.

*This is the most obvious thing in the world, IMHO, if you look at the general category, and ask yourself what you think about it when the actors are switched around. If China bans its citizens from reading the New York Times (it does), is that a human rights violation—or is it a simple exercise of sovereignty? When North Korea sends people into labor camps for possessing South Korean television shows (it does), is there a colorable case that *their* national security justifies that? Or is that totally out of the question?

One'd have to twist themselves into pretzels to plead exceptionalism for their own country doing anything of this category.

(There's a further subtext that anyone on HN knows how to trivially circumvent such blocks, so, these rules inherently can never apply to HN commenters, ourselves—it's always other people, we'd wish to apply these rules to).

[immibis]

I think that freedom includes, for example, the right not to be shot dead. When someone is using speech to cause people to be shot dead then we have to weigh which freedom is more important and I happen to think that not being shot is more important. If there not also your opinion, fine, you can go to America where speech is considered more important.

You don't want to live in America because it's dystopic and collapsing? Strange. Strange that there's a correlation between countries that hold your opinions and dystopia and collapse. One might even be lead to think that principles held by dystopic countries that collapse might be bad principles to build a country on. But those who promoter those principles told me to reject the evidence of my eyes and ears.

[glenstein]

For one it runs into paradox of tolerance problems, for another it fallaciously relies on a "marketplace of ideas" to resolve friction which, despite the bumper sticker term, is not a real mechanism.

It's been a longstanding part of the fascist playbook to turn the norms of liberalism against itself, advocating for "free speech" when it helps actively amplify their message to audiences, and having no hesitation to abandon those purported principles once in power and able to censor opponents. Poof, there goes your free speech.

Principle agnostic approaches to freedom of expression lead to the collapse of democracies. Happened in Hungary, almost happened in Poland, and it's unfolding in the U.S. The point isn't that these idea's "win" in a marketplace of ideas but that they mobilize violent anti-democratic capacity.

[immibis]

We have to stop rejecting the evidence of our eyes and ears. Propaganda is everywhere. That is a fact. Some of it is destroying the country. That is a fact. We either deal with it or accept the destruction of the country. That is a fact. Your choice is to accept the destruction of the country. That is a fact.

[komeijist]

>We either deal with it or accept the destruction of the country. That is a fact.

No, it's a false binary choice presented by you in which the only outcomes are "dealing with it" (severe overreach) or the destruction of the country.

[immibis]

Blocking RT is a very light reach. If you believe the lightest of reaches is already a severe overreach then you are making it binary and polarized, not me.

[account42]

Is your comment propaganda?

[squigz]

> If you want your child to not smoke you don't just hide the cigarette pack in a higher shelf, you teach them what smoking is and does.

> just

So... you do both?

[johnisgood]

Y'all never made homeless people walk into the tobacco store to get cigs for you when you were kids? Or anyone who would do it for a quick buck.

[squigz]

The fact that some kids will still find ways to get them would be at least partially addressed by the "education" part of GP's comment. Even then, of course, some kids will still start smoking. Is that some kind of argument that we shouldn't do anything, or...?

[buran77]

> Is that some kind of argument that we shouldn't do anything, or...?

You keep trying to make it sound like we are doing "both". In reality we aren't doing the thing that works, and keep doing the thing that doesn't. The proof is that we live in a world with more disinformation on more channels than ever, while education is cratering.

So I guess the question is why are you pretending we're doing something useful about this? Why are you pretending the useless measure we keep applying needs to be applied nonetheless? Who convinced you that banning solves the problem when reality shows things getting worse and that if we pretend we "do both" it's as if we actually did?

[johnisgood]

Thank you for answering, pretty much my thoughts.

We do both, yet it does not work, so I ask the parent, now what do you suggest?

[cowboylowrez]

>door to arbitrary banning

lol the US has had that door removed

[dw64]

We do accept „censorship“ if it follows due process based on clear and well-intended laws. Think taking down piracy sites, child porn, slander.

But CUII is formed by a private oligopoly, with anonymous judges, implementing vague rules, trying to keep secret even what they block. All while limiting what the vast majority of Germans (who don’t know what DNS is) can access on the internet. IMO that’s the issue.

[immibis]

Commercial censorship is worse.

[Xelbair]

I see no way to have censorship and freedom and common good at the same time, so good of society is out of question - unless you don't value freedom at all.

It is a tool that entrenches current powers that be, system wise. Who decides what the "common" good is? the one in power.

It also hides societal problems and signals that could be used for policymaking.

The acceptance of censorship honestly scares me, and i grew up on stories of oppressive communist regime - full of censorship, secret police etc.

and frankly, commercial censorship might be even worse - it is a "for profit" enterprise, common good be damned.

and one last thing - even if you fully trust your current government, you're just one elections away from something vastly different. They will have access to the same powers that you've granted them(indirectly, by voting).

[immibis]

So you don't believe child porn should be illegal?

Everyone believes in censorship for the common good. People don't agree what should be censored for the common good.

[Xelbair]

Going straight for the loaded question and making extra assumptions? nice.

the issue with it isn't just in itself, but the fact that there's no way to make it without abuse.

[jack1243star]

> So you don't believe child porn should be illegal?

The Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse strike again!

[immibis]

It's a serious question - can you answer it?

If you believe nothing should be censored, then you believe child porn shouldn't be censored, so please either square that circle, or weaken the argument to "I believe this thing shouldn't be censored"

[jack1243star]

Child abuse is already illegal. Law enforcement tracks down creator? Good. Court orders website owner to take down material? Good. ISP preemptively decides what to block? Bad.

CP is often used as an "I win" card in this kind of arguments, as it can stir up emotions in the general public, in favor of ever expanding scope of surveillance and censorship. We should be extra aware of this.

[immibis]

You still haven't answered the question that I actually asked.

I didn't say "should child abuse be illegal?". I said "should child porn be illegal?".

You said it's good if a court orders the website owner to block the material, i.e. censors it, so I assume you're pro-censorship for child porn and likely also support jail time for those who possess it.

In which case, please do not claim to oppose all censorship.

[coffee_am]

imho that is just silly ... I can see various ways censorship and freedom and common good at the same time. Actually, I can imagine different set ups where this could work...

But then, you have to define these things. E.g.: freedom of person "A" to kill person "B" infringes on person "B" freedom of come and go and not be killed (by "A" or anyone else) ... so what is freedom. "Common good" is even more complicated ... who should defined it ? And how ?

On the other topic, I for one think that censorship of AI generated content and fake news, as well as AI generated ordering of results should be censored. But it's not that easy, and implementing that is an even bigger can of worms.

[Xelbair]

the issue is how do you prove the content was written by AI?

> But then, you have to define these things. E.g.: freedom of person "A" to kill person "B" infringes on person "B" freedom of come and go and not be killed (by "A" or anyone else) ... so what is freedom. "Common good" is even more complicated ... who should defined it ? And how ?

even worse - how do you make sure the definition of such terms stays up to date with changing times?