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Making Small Steps Against Censorship

Posted by Zonk on from the small-steps-are-better-than-none dept.

JD writes "BBC News has an article about online censorship, blogs in particular. It points out that 'perhaps we need to accept that small gains and slight shifts in direction can make a difference to people's lives, and work for them instead of trying to blast down the walls of repression with a single blow.' Whittling away may be the only realistic way to see change happen."

7 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Blogs: today's main Freedom Tool by CyricZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Blogs are the modern versions of the small, local newspapers the Founding Fathers had. They allow lone individuals to reach the masses with minimal effort and overhead. It is no wonder that blogs are leading the freedom train.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
    1. Re:Blogs: today's main Freedom Tool by CyricZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Every media source is free from fact checking. That includes the Big Media. Hell, if they had done their fact checking then they would have never helped generate as much public support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq as they did.

      --
      Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
  2. Does information want to be free? Do you? by shanen · · Score: 5, Insightful
    That's a deliberate juxtaposition because these issues are all so tightly related. For example, if information about the abuses of power was freely available, it would often be more difficult to abuse it. On the other hand, if our personal information was more freely available, it could often be used against us. We value our own privacy, but that's essentially the same as saying we want the right of censorship over who knows our personal information. Meanwhile BushCo wants to keep private such things as how the energy policy was created and how and when the decision was made to take out Saddam...

    Anyway, my own primary interest is at the personal side of things. I think we need to establish some kind of defensive perimeter around our personal information, or the very notion of privacy will soon be non-existant. That will become just another power used against each of us.

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    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  3. Re:Those who built it by Shadow+Wrought · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My guess is that a lot of them have drunk the punch, so to to speak. They probably really do believe that all of those external sites extolling the virtues of freedom and democracy really are bad, and so they probably enjoy the challenge of blocking them. Intelligent and educated doesn't always imply open-minded and tolerant; it just ups the odds.

    --
    If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
  4. The times they are a changing by metlin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is unfortunate that we have gotten to the point where we have to talk about defeating censorship - it has permeated our society so much that we've grown to accept it. How did this even happen, how did we let it come so far? Several generations are to blame, but more importantly, those that were blind to the fact that this was happening in the first place.

    Even today, look around you - most people simply do not care about what is happening, or how their rights are being trampled on, or even that they have any rights at all. The republic is not of the people anymore, it belongs to our corrupt politicians trying to remake things in the way that benefits them.

    Really, really unfortunate. :-/ Leave the great wall of China, in the great US of A, we've the classic, "Ihr Papieren, bitte!" scenario.

    1. Re:The times they are a changing by Kesh · · Score: 5, Informative
      This is not a recent thing, contrary to popular opinion. Things weren't better in the "good old days."

      Point of reference: The Alien And Sedition Acts, signed into law by President John Adams in 1798.

      Luckily, it didn't last long. But, other laws did. It took us a very long time to stop censoring entire classes of people, and things were still a lot more constrained than today.

      It's not an excuse for the abuses of today, but it's false to think things were really better a long time ago. Censorship has existed since the first words were spoken.

  5. Re:Those who built it by MourningBlade · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So what's in it for them? How do they feel about what they do? Anyone have a link to any information about them?

    You know how you get someone to implement a censorship system for you? You don't hire mean and cruel people, you get a few people who want to do good. Then you set up draconian punishments for violations of speech and thought codes.

    Then (and this is the magic ingredient), you tell these people you've hired that their job is to keep people from getting in trouble by preventing the people from violating the speech and thought codes.

    Pretty easy, really, and you put people in "helping mode." What's the old quote about "the tyrant may rest, but those who are act for your own good are tireless in their efforts." These people almost definitely believe that they are helping people - saving them from worse punishment.

    And they're probably frustrated by how hard people try to prevent them from doing their job.