Internet censorship

[sjw]

I don't know how many other OL members have noticed, but the internet is becoming more and more censored lately. Here's a few recent stories:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331106,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7250916.stm

Last year a popular atheists' account was deleted from YouTube. BitTorrent admins are getting thrown in the slammer even though they've done nothing but maintain internet plumbing (it's a dangerous precedent to use copyright law to shut down technology). When Ron Paul started doing very well, Digg censored Ron Paul Nation (http://www.giftedtwisted.com/?p=57) and then changed their algorithm so that Ron Paul stories would stop becoming popular.

Shayne

[Selene]

For the sake of this argument, would you please define:

Fascism.

Adam

[sjw]

For the sake of this argument, would you please define:

Fascism.

Adam

For the sake of argument, would you please define what you mean by the quotes around "video".

Shayne

[bmacwilliam]

Cencorship? Really? Never heard of it...

[Aggrad02]

Shayne,

Both of the sites that you listed are private companies (Youtube and Digg) they can do whatever they please, if you or anyone else doesn't like it then they can use another service. It is called a free market. I am not familiar with the torrent case.

--Dustan

[sjw]

Shayne,

Both of the sites that you listed are private companies (Youtube and Digg) they can do whatever they please, if you or anyone else doesn't like it then they can use another service. It is called a free market. I am not familiar with the torrent case.

--Dustan

Since we don't have a free market, it's not as simple as that. Objectivists have this weird blind spot: they agree that the government shouldn't interfere with the operation of the free market, they agree that in theory it distorts the free market, yet when the government does intervene they are completely blind to the distortions.

Shayne

[Aggrad02]

Since we don't have a free market, it's not as simple as that. Objectivists have this weird blind spot: they agree that the government shouldn't interfere with the operation of the free market, they agree that in theory it distorts the free market, yet when the government does intervene they are completely blind to the distortions.

Shayne

Where is your proof that the government is causing Youtube or Digg to censor? And yes in the instances that you listed (Digg and youtube) we do have a free market.

Also I am quite displeased with the reporting of the media. Ethically the media is supposed to have integrity and report the facts as they happen, it is clear that this is not the case and they are pretty much a cross between a propaganda machine and a filthy tabloid, right out of the Fountain Head. But they are privately owned and can do as they please, this is not fascism. If you don't like it then you can start your own media company and not censor.

-_Dustan

[Chris Grieb]

Dustan; Good post.

Shane; You might read the Fascist New Frontier.

[sjw]

Where is your proof that the government is causing Youtube or Digg to censor? And yes in the instances that you listed (Digg and youtube) we do have a free market.

Well, we could start with the government indoctrination of children who then go run these companies...

You might think that evidence is too indirect. But look at who owns and pays for what. E.g.:

http://www.newshounds.us/2007/11/15/alert_...abels_it_18.php

http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/24/magazines/...rtune/index.htm

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/07/googl...-search-myspace

Note that FOX News is sanctioned by a government agency that controls their content: The FCC. The FCC decides who will and will not be permitted to broadcast. So I'd say by that fact alone they are suspect as being panderers to the government. I suspect that if you dig deeper you'll get to some nasty connections from Fox News and the government.

Shayne

[sjw]

Dustan; Good post.

Shane; You might read the Fascist New Frontier.

You mean this unavailable book by Ayn Rand?:

http://www.amazon.com/fascist-new-frontier...d/dp/B0007HWIII

Shayne

[Aggrad02]

Dustan; Good post.

Shane; You might read the Fascist New Frontier.

You mean this unavailable book by Ayn Rand?:

http://www.amazon.com/fascist-new-frontier...d/dp/B0007HWIII

Shayne

No he means the one that is available here:

http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AR89M

or

http://www.ilab.org/db/book177_3955.html

or can be found as part of this book, specifically on pg.98-99:

http://www.amazon.com/Ayn-Rand-Column-Writ...s/dp/1561142921

--Dustan

[Aggrad02]

Where is your proof that the government is causing Youtube or Digg to censor? And yes in the instances that you listed (Digg and youtube) we do have a free market.

Well, we could start with the government indoctrination of children who then go run these companies...

You might think that evidence is too indirect. But look at who owns and pays for what. E.g.:

http://www.newshounds.us/2007/11/15/alert_...abels_it_18.php

http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/24/magazines/...rtune/index.htm

http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/07/googl...-search-myspace

Note that FOX News is sanctioned by a government agency that controls their content: The FCC. The FCC decides who will and will not be permitted to broadcast. So I'd say by that fact alone they are suspect as being panderers to the government. I suspect that if you dig deeper you'll get to some nasty connections from Fox News and the government.

Shayne

Shayne,

I have followed the RP blackout by the media, but it is not fascism. Yes there is plenty of fascist tendency to be found in our government, and if we are not careful more will be upon us (Read Naomi Wolf's 10 Steps to Fascism, or Judge Napolitano's Constitution in Exile), but private media companies choosing what to report and what not to report, or what to allow on their internet site is not fascism. Now might some in these companies want to espouse a fascist or socialist doctrine, probably. But it is not a government controlled effort.

And though government education today is crud (which is why my children go to private school), I don't see how you make a logical leap from public education, to a private company choosing what to report, to fascism. Also I would bet that a great majority of CEO's didn't go to private schools, but that is just my guess and not based on fact.

--Dustan

Edited February 20, 2008 by Aggrad02

[sjw]

I have followed the RP blackout by the media, but it is not fascism. Yes there is plenty of fascist tendency to be found in our government,

So there IS a tendency, but there is no fascism. I don't think it's all or nothing--fascism comes in degrees. I don't see how you can say that there is a motive to be fascist, but then say that there is no real-world consequence of that motive.

and if we are not careful more will be upon us (Read Naomi Wolf's 10 Steps to Fascism, or Judge Napolitano's Constitution in Exile), but private media companies choosing what to report and what not to report, or what to allow on their internet site is not fascism. Now might some in these companies want to espouse a fascist or socialist doctrine, probably. But it is not a government controlled effort.

How is it that you are privy to knowing precisely what is behind their bias? I don't think you know whether or not government is behind it. Are there direct orders coming from government straight into the press rooms? I doubt it. Are there more subtle forms of bias that cause some degree of government interference and therefore a degree of fascism? That is obviously true. What is difficult is to measure the degree of influence. We don't need any more evidence to know that we have some degree of fascism, we need the evidence to measure to what degree we have it.

And though government education today is crud (which is why my children go to private school), I don't see how you make a logical leap from public education, to a private company choosing what to report, to fascism. Also I would bet that a great majority of CEO's didn't go to private schools, but that is just my guess and not based on fact.

What do you call it when the fascism is implicit? As in, everyone is of one mind and goes along with it, causing the same effect to breaching individual rights as simple fascism?

Shayne

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I agree with Michael Crichton's analysis of the media/government/legal structure. They live off of appealing to the lowest common denominator for persuasion: fear. They appeal to fear in order to sell their wares, i.e., news, political power and big honking lawsuits. They prompt a State of Fear (the name of one of his books) and rule within that state.

This is not organized by a single group, but the way it developed. In my own analysis, this is what happens at the crossover between free enterprise and government (especially the power to license).

I will have more to say (some thoughts on Internet censorship) after a bit.

Michael

[Selene]

Interesting discussion folks.

Once again, Shayne, for the sake of this argument, please give your definition of fascism. If you refuse, which is your intellectual right, I will post my definition of the word.

Adam

[sjw]

Interesting discussion folks.

Once again, Shayne, for the sake of this argument, please give your definition of fascism. If you refuse, which is your intellectual right, I will post my definition of the word.

Adam

Why do you refuse to define what you mean by "video"?

Shayne

[tjohnson]

From wikipedia "Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology that holds the state above all else and seeks to forge a type of national unity, usually based on ethnic, cultural, or racial attributes. ..."

[Kat]

Google is not obligated to post everything that comes through. They remove blogs, make advertisers abide by terms of service and remove sites from their search engine results. That is their right as site owners. Just as Michael and I have the right to keep people from posting on OL at our discretion. Google is a company and does what it thinks is in the interest of its shareholders. In the second case, there is litigation pending so that is why the documents were removed from the internet. If all the evidence is published in the papers or on the internet it could be grounds for a mistrial.

Kat

[Selene]

This is one of the distinctions between Fascism and Communism:

"In its Corporativist model of totalitarian but private management the various functions of the state were trades conceived as individualized entities making that state, and that it is in the state's interest to oversee them for that reason, but not direct them or make them public by the rationale that such functioning in government hands undermines the development of what the state is. Private activity is in a sense contracted to the state so that the state may suspend the infrastructure of any entity in accord to their usefulness and direction, or health to the state."

Link to article: http://www.politicsdefined.com/content/fascism.htm

The primary reason that I asked you for a definition regarding the word "fascism" is because I would have used "statism" as the lead for your topic.

Then the facts of the internet censorship issue that you were raising could have been addressed more directly as Kat did in the last post.

Adam

[sjw]

Google is not obligated to post everything that comes through. They remove blogs, make advertisers abide by terms of service and remove sites from their search engine results. That is their right as site owners. Just as Michael and I have the right to keep people from posting on OL at our discretion.

The principle that applies to OL doesn't apply to a business that allows itself to be manipulated by the government. It stops being a private business and turns itself into a tool of the government. I don't claim that Google is 100% a tool of the government, I say these things come in degrees, and that we have already started sliding.

What do you call it when AT&T, at the direction of the government, illegally wiretaps all of its customers, hooking every last one of them up to the "Big Brother Machine" (as the tech who did it put it)?

Shayne

[Matus1976]

Well, we could start with the government indoctrination of children who then go run these companies...

Shayne

That's a rather deterministic interpretation is it not? You are essentially saying that since the government educated these people, than any decision they ever make later in life was directly and primarily influenced by that indoctrination, to, presumably, favor a pro-fascist position. I am a product of the public school system, yet despite that I am an advocate of civil liberties and free markets. So is that a product of my 'government indoctrination' ?

If I owned Digg I too would have changed the algorithm to lower the popularity of Ron Paul articles if I felt their popularity was being artificially elevated or if, as is in my case, I simple think he's an idiot. Of course, since I went to public school, that must be because I was 'indoctrinated' by that school. If I went to private school, would that not also be a product of that indoctrination?

The larger conceptual question you imply is to what extent are we responsible for our own choices. Your answer appears to be that our volitional choices are entirely dependant on our schooling, and not our family, upgringing out side of school, work, or choices we make. Interesting blind spot for an objectivist.

Edited February 20, 2008 by Matus1976

[Matus1976]

The principle that applies to OL doesn't apply to a business that allows itself to be manipulated by the government. It stops being a private business and turns itself into a tool of the government. I don't claim that Google is 100% a tool of the government, I say these things come in degrees, and that we have already started sliding.

Shayne

I think this is an interesting point that deserves emphasis. Although we are champions of free markets, it is wrong to assume fundamentally that every action a 'private' company makes (to whatever degree it is reasonable to even call companies private in such heavily mixed economy) is automatically purely a product of an individual or group of individuals leading a company making a decision outside the mind numbing influece of the government. Equally though, it is also wrong to automatically assume every decision made by large firms in mixed economies is directly influenced by the government, it might be best to look at the kind of business, the regulations relating to that, and the nature of the decision made and if it is closely related to regulatory influence.

[Selene]

Excellent observation. Kudos.

I have specifically chosen to go into a "virtually" unregulated business, mediation. I specialize in divorce and family mediation. It is an unlicesed "skill" by most states.

Therefore, I can actually practice my profession without the interference of the government. However, whenever I add a peice needed to a particular mediation, in terms of ringing in a licensed professional, I have to be fully aware of all the requirements for the "expert" in each particular industry.

For example, I have just added a Licensed Psychoanalyst" which is a new license issued by the State of New York. We then needed to get approval from the professional associations "endorsed" by the state to get approval to conduct therapy by phone, which we did.

Therefore, in a particular mediation, wherein a therapeutic question arises between the clients, I can outsource it to the "licensed pychoanalyst" and continue the mediation towards resolution.

I believe this supports that analysis that this should be based on the particular industry in question.

Good point.

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

With respect to one of the original articles Shayne mentioned:

Whistle-blower site taken offline

BBC News

18 February 2008

I didn't comment on Wikileaks at the time because I was going to supply a set of links around the world where the contents of that site could still be read (among other considerations, which I will get to later). Now I just saw this:

Judge allows Wikileaks site to re-open

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

Yahoo! News

Feb. 29, 2008

What should be noted here is that a judge can only set terms within the jurisdiction of its court. Obviously USA law and USA court rulings do not apply to other countries, so I thought the idea of U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White taking a whistleblower site off the air in the USA was a VERY STUPID THING TO DO.

What on earth was he thinking?

All he could govern was USA installations, not access by users to all the other installations all over the rest of the world. This kind of muscle worked with Napster because a lot of money tied up inside the USA was involved. I presume that Shawn Fanning (Napster's founder) wanted to keep his fortune in the USA and continue being an Internet celebrity. But the Napster debacle did nothing but reroute USA users to other similar services hosted in other countries. In other words, the RIAA wanted to use the government as a bludgeon to scare everyone and make them stop downloading music. Instead it only clobbered one person, then went pfffffft. The rest of the world went merrily on its merry way, the practice grew, and it became obvious that P2P exposure actually increased sales for many artists (see here).

For Judge White to backpedal like he just did (in a little over a week), I have no doubt his own career was on the line. Not only was there First Amendment issues, but it was a hugely dumbass thing to do. It meant absolutely nothing in terms of practical effects except show a really ugly desire for the government to further expand its powers into the intellectual realm. However, there was a STRONG MESSAGE (and a great one) sent to the world with this episode: governments are impotent, even the USA government, at ruling access to public information. Also, last but not least, banks cannot buy USA government censorship protection for their shady deals. Tangibles and specifics have to be on the table like loss of profits, etc.

This is a glorious case of capitalism beating government through sheer competence. Technology advanced much faster than the laws of the different governments did. When the governments finally woke up, it was too late. The technology was in place and there was no way for one country to impose its laws on the other countries. Dictatorships are feeling a real bite into their powers with this and aspiring dictators in America are feeling boxed in.

Strike a huge "Hurray!" for freedom.

This is checks and balances on a scale that our Founding Fathers never imagined.

Michael

[Aggrad02]

With respect to one of the original articles Shayne mentioned:

Whistle-blower site taken offline

BBC News

18 February 2008

I didn't comment on Wikileaks at the time because I was going to supply a set of links around the world where the contents of that site could still be read (among other considerations, which I will get to later). Now I just saw this:

Judge allows Wikileaks site to re-open

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

Yahoo! News

Feb. 29, 2008

What should be noted here is that a judge can only set terms within the jurisdiction of its court. Obviously USA law and USA court rulings do not apply to other countries, so I thought the idea of U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White taking a whistleblower site off the air in the USA was a VERY STUPID THING TO DO.

What on earth was he thinking?

All he could govern was USA installations, not access by users to all the other installations all over the rest of the world. This kind of muscle worked with Napster because a lot of money tied up inside the USA was involved. I presume that Shawn Fanning (Napster's founder) wanted to keep his fortune in the USA and continue being an Internet celebrity. But the Napster debacle did nothing but reroute USA users to other similar services hosted in other countries. In other words, the RIAA wanted to use the government as a bludgeon to scare everyone and make them stop downloading music. Instead it only clobbered one person, then went pfffffft. The rest of the world went merrily on its merry way, the practice grew, and it became obvious that P2P exposure actually increased sales for many artists (see here).

For Judge White to backpedal like he just did (in a little over a week), I have no doubt his own career was on the line. Not only was there First Amendment issues, but it was a hugely dumbass thing to do. It meant absolutely nothing in terms of practical effects except show a really ugly desire for the government to further expand its powers into the intellectual realm. However, there was a STRONG MESSAGE (and a great one) sent to the world with this episode: governments are impotent, even the USA government, at ruling access to public information. Also, last but not least, banks cannot buy USA government censorship protection for their shady deals. Tangibles and specifics have to be on the table like loss of profits, etc.

This is a glorious case of capitalism beating government through sheer competence. Technology advanced much faster than the laws of the different governments did. When the governments finally woke up, it was too late. The technology was in place and there was no way for one country to impose its laws on the other countries. Dictatorships are feeling a real bite into their powers with this and aspiring dictators in America are feeling boxed in.

Strike a huge "Hurray!" for freedom.

This is checks and balances on a scale that our Founding Fathers never imagined.

Michael

Thanks for the update Michael,

WHOOP!!!