A Birds-Eye View of Online Censorship

Felipe Rodriquez writes "I've written a paper about online censorship, providing a bird's eye view of online censorship and the technologies that are used to implement censorship. My conclusion is that a limited form of online censorship is possible in repressive countries such as China and Saudi Arabia, but virtually impossible to implement in democratic nations. I'm interested in any lucid comments, ideas and criticism."

Comments

Be careful who you call democratic.

[Darby]

While America still acts like a democratic nation in many ways, it is a very dangerous thing to consider it one.

Your vote does not count. This was demonstrated absolutely in the last presidential election.

The recent laws (patriot act, homeland security etc) which have been passed by our congress have completely gutted the protections in our constitution. Do you really think the supreme court would strike them down (even if you were permitted to bring a suit which you are specifically not allowed to do)?

While they will certainly use the slow heat process used in boiling a frog, every single piece is in place to make Orwell's vision a reality.

Re:Be careful who you call democratic.

[Darby]

In the case of the US, this is utter nonsense. If money can be said to buy votes, and therefore buy power, who, exactly, is selling these votes.

I think you misunderstood what he said. If not, and I did, I think my interpretation is more relevant.

The votes are not what is for sale. The elected officials are what is for sale. Whether it is straight bribes, or merely campaign donations, it would be a very difficult thing to argue that most if not all of our elected officials are not completely owned by corporate interests.

Now, given the rest of your post, this is arguably a merely semantical distinction. So once more into the breach.

Whe we vote for polititians that act on sound principles rather than pandering to our own special interests, we will get polititians that don't pander to special interests.

There is one incredibly huge obstacle to this to which I see no non horribly bloody solution.
I certainly hope there is a better answer, but I'm losing hope quickly.
That is the Republican *and* the Democratic parties.
Essentially, they choose who we are allowed to vote for. There are the primaries, but it's still a choice between pieces of garbage wrapped in very slightly different skin.
I personally will never vote for a major party candidate again (it's been years) . I would vote for a white supremacist, or a black supremacist or any other sick wacko long before I would vote for a Rep. or a Dem.
You saw it in the last election. Many more people than did would have voted for Nader or some other "other party" candidate if they weren't convinced (not by anyone in particular) that that would be throwing their vote away.
Now, of course, this is only part of the issue.

Why do we allow ourselves, as voters, to be manupulated so easily by expensive political advertising. When we view these messages skeptically and critically, the messages will begin to reflect the intelligence we bring to bear on them.

Again, there is a large chunk of truth in this, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
The expensive advertising is not the only manipulation. It starts practically from birth.
"America is a free country"
This "freedom" we have is told to us as if it was our birthright and somehow inviolate. When, in school, were you taught that being a patriot does not mean trusting your government, rather it means never under any circumstances trust anything *any* government *ever* does.

"We have freedom of the press"
Where is the analysis of this statement in our education or in our society?
Most people, by my observation, think this somehow means that the press has a duty to tell us the straight unbiased truth. All it means is that the government can't pass laws restricting their freedom to print practically anything they want.
85% of all news you hear see or read (for an average value of "you" YMMV) is fed to you by 7 corporations. This is worldwide, not just in America.
What obligations do they have to the public they are supposed to be working for? Zero.
They havve one and only one obligation.
Maximize profits.
This works up to a point with other types of companies, but it should be painfully obvious to anybody with a minute to think about it that it is absolutely antithetical to the percieved purposes of a news organization.

Now, anybody who has bothered to inform themselves knows that George Bush lost the election. It was buried in a few major papers, but it wasn't made a big deal of. Their reasons? They thought it might undermine his presidency?!?
Well, yes.
That's their freaking job.
It was reported two weeks before the attacks that John O'Neill Resigned as Deputy Director of the FBI
for the specific reason that George Bush and US oil interests were the major block in their investigations of the Saudis. In particular, GB *ordered him to get off the Bin Laden family's backs*
Where was the analysis of this later?

Yes, these things can be discovered if you have the time, the means, and the inclination to dig for it. Given the incredible lack of free time we have compared to the rest of the civilized world, is it any surprise that more people haven't discovered these things?

Even "counter news" (for lack of a better word) sites aren't unbiased. You can find sites with this information next to pretty far out conspiracy theories and other merely bizarre stories with undetermined (by me) truth values.

So, while it is possible to do your most basic duty as a citizen of a free society and inform yourself, it is really difficult.

Can you point me to one source that is unbiased?

Yes, the American people are to blame, but given how completely the deck is stacked against us, how do you propose they do better?

But it's foolish to think that our problem is a failure in democracy rather than a failure in the voting population.

Democracy (or Constitutional Republicism) depends absolutely on a free flow of information (not copyrighted MP3s) and a transparent government.

So when it's in the best interest of the media conglomerates, who have massive wealth and vast knowledge of mass propaganda techniques at their disposal, to lie to us and manipulate us for profit what do we do?

When our government is creating an Uber Gestapo and specifically putting into the laws that we are not allowed to know what they do; even to the point of exempting them for the Federal Whistleblowers act (which says absolutely without a shadow of a doubt that they *plan* on breaking the law), what is a good citizen supposed to do?

Re:Be careful who you call democratic.

[/dev/trash]

If you would actually take the time to research the subject, you would know that he was shown absolutely to have lost when the whole state of Florida was recounted.

If Gore would have won the whole state, why didn't he ask the whole state be recounted and not just the very heavily Democrat counties?

Another fact you would come across if you took your responsibility to inform yourself seriously is that the only reason it was even close in Florida is that Jeb robbed 10s of thousands of citizens of their most fundamental right as a citizen of a democracy.

You forgot to place a link or two here, backing up your claim Jeb robbed people the right to vote.

The fact that you don't know these things shows that you do not deserve the freedoms we are supposed to have since you can't be bothered take *any* responsibility for them.

Good god I hope you never get elected to an office with power, your opponents would be locked up and killed for not believing you.

The fact that you can, at this point, after he has demonstrated absolutely that he hates freedom and the constitution, defend the traitor Bush proves you to be a fool and a traitor as well.

Again I didn't see any references to Bush's 'hatred' of the constitution. In my world, Congress makes laws, not the President or John Ashcroft, so take your beef up with them.

If Bush was so evil and he's doing so much to hurt this country, why is for the first time in years, the opposing party lost the mid-term elections? Oh wait, don't answer that, me and 1000's of others didn't VOTE for Republicans, Democrats were just robbed.

With ignorant scum like you here, I have very little hope for this country's future.

Sticks and stones, my friend. But if I were you I'd read the Constitution. Look for things like "Congress makes the laws" and "Electoral College elects the President." You won't see "Popular vote is the way to elect the President."

Solution to the censorship problem found!

[Alsee]

My conclusion is that a limited form of online censorship is possible in repressive countries such as China and Saudi Arabia, but virtually impossible to implement in democratic nations.

Well then the solution is obvious, we just need a repressive government.

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