Slashdot Mirror
Global Internet Censorship On the Rise
An anonymous reader writes "State-led internet censorship is on the rise around the world. According to a study conducted by the Open Net Initiative and reported by the BBC, some 25 of 41 countries surveyed were filtering at least some content. Skype and Google Maps were two of the most often-censored sites, according to the article. 'The filtering had three primary rationales, according to the report: politics and power, security concerns and social norms. The report said: 'In a growing number of states around the world, internet filtering has huge implications for how connected citizens will be to the events unfolding around them, to their own cultures, and to other cultures and shared knowledge around the world.'"
Governments have done this with newspapers and other media for ever.
How 'bout they apply to the citizens of the USA?
Absolutely. You can throw out any rational you want to justify censorship, but outside the need for national security, it's just plain wrong. China has big sign on there internet access that says, "Thank You for not Discussing the Outside World!". Control of information is still the best way to control a population.
It's sure too bad we didn't turn the control of the Internet over to the UN, like you guys all wanted...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Look closer. We aren't exactly sending in the B-52s to airdrop loads of McMuffins, LOTR DVDs, sneakers, and twinkies onto the Noble Primitive Peoples who are Honoring the Sacred Traditions of Their Ancestors. It's a pull situation much more than a push. Western culture, simply put, is addictive.
It's the Noble Primitive leaders that don't like this, because the Sacred Traditions are invariably religious-authoritarian.
From over here we only hear about people bewailing Western culture, but we aren't hearing the real opinions of the Noble Primitive People themselves.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
There is another aspect to this - instead of blocking, some governments monitor. By monitoring, they can profile people who either openly oppose the regime du jour and then arrest/detain/harass as they wish.
Carnivore would be an example here. The new leaning on ISPs for user records. Requiring archiving of all activity. Or just silently copying and keywording all traffic.
In some ways, monitoring is more dangerous and insidious than censorship as it allows building cases against perceived "enemies" of the state.
Indian women today are better off because General Napier had the gall to impose his culture on Indian men who thought it was perfectly natural to burn a wife alive when her husband died. Today, Indian women don't have to worry about being lit up like a firecracker because their husband bought the farm. How many normal Indian women would seriously say, "damn that British fascist for not allowing our men to incinerate perfectly healthy Indian women like they were kindlin?"
Part of the Western tradition is a belief that there is a natural law, and that this law dictates many things that other cultures don't respect. It is a religious belief in many respects, but it is the idea that there is a universal order that mandates liberty, accountability and peace, rather than subordination of the individual to the herd.
The world would be better off if American soldiers in Iraq strung up the men involved in honor killings from the nearest object capable of lynching a man, if it castrated and otherwise humiliated those who engage in female circumcision and if it did similar acts of "cultural imperialism." Why? Because no one ever gave these victims a choice whether or not they wanted to be oppressed, tormented, mutilated and murdered.
"outside the need for national security"
What makes nations sacred? Who gets to decide what constitutes a threat to national security?
I'm not sure I follow your comment. What I was saying is that with censorship, people's access to "forbidden" information is simply blocked - though records could certainly be kept and monitored of the attempts to access. Sure it is censorship but the point is to merely deny access to information.
However, monitoring is allowing free access but keeping tabs on the activities. Basically giving the citizenry the rope to hang themselves with.
In some cases, monitoring can be used to find terrorists and true enemies of the state. (whether a population prefers privacy over "security" is another issue) In others, depending on the paranoia level of the state, it can be used to find citizens who oppose a government or a "leader" but are not terrorists bent on killing as many as possible. Monitoring is the kind of activity that is desirable if you are a paranoid "leader" who wants to expand, consolodate, or hold on to power. It takes a lot of trust to allow a government to monitor and hope they won't use it for the wrong reasons. It seems that there are no examples where this has been allowed and not abused. Or even abused where not explicity allowed.
We are in one of those cycles now -- that's why more and more are calling for Alberto Gonzales' resignation over the illegal wiretaps that were justified as a way to combat terrorism.
By forcing western values on the rest of the world we are in effect violating them ourselves by not giving other cultures a choice.
Cultures aren't some delicate flower than can be crushed when a more popular once rolls around. It's a dynamic thing. Cultures aren't equal and aren't universally valuable. They are secondary traits of large groups of people. They will naturally mutate and hcange over time, drawing bits of neigboring cultures and dominant cultures into themselves. Those that are dying should problably die. Some cultures are more productive, more robust, more attractive and it's up to those who exist within that culture to ensure it survives. Culture aren't human beings. They are body of ideas. They should have no rights.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
You covered the most common argument. The second most common argument is this: If you let them make everyone familiar with their arguments, have the public discussion, and show everyone that they're wrong then many will accept their very well developed and sophisticated arguments when they make them in private.
My argument is much simpler. You can't impose censorship without necessarily censoring the meta-discussion about that censorship. If I want to argue that some hate speech isn't socially harmful, I can't start by giving an example of the hate speech that I'm talking about. If you want to argue that the law in the US where 17 year olds can consent to sex but not to being the subject of sexual photographs is absurd, you can't respond to the argument "17 year olds look too young, nude pictures of them will make perverts want to rape babies" with the most powerful response - a photographic counterexample.
Information isn't dangerous, uninformed people are. The only reason to censor discussion is to defend political positions that can't hold up to the close examination they would get if discussion were legal - or occasionally as a political tool to distract people from relevant political issues by reminding them of people/opinions they don't like.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
H
How 'bout you tell me why they shouldn't? Do you really think that Germany is a swarming mass of anti-Semitism, just waiting for a leader to come along and light the fire of the Fourth Reich? I would like to think that most Germans would be a tad offended by your implied sentiment - that if they heard a bit of Nazi propaganda, they'd start rounding up the Jews. We have Nazi propagandists here in America, and we don't censor them - we laugh at them (not that we're a shining beacon of freedom or anything ourselves; we just "get it" when it comes to political speech).
Let's try: Why should I give (fill in the blank) the right to be heard? Because it's a right - a fundamental right, just like the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold those truths to be *self* evident - that means they don't need to be justified. If your "culture" disagrees, then your culture is wrong.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
In addition to all of that- assuming there was a foolproof way to completely restrict certain things while allowing other things to get through, I doubt those who would have the ability to implement it would do so; I would think anyone that knowledgeable would have a vested interest in the information remaining free.
I think that's a hell of an assumption. I know lots of very technically capable, bright, creative people, who are borderline amoral (at least when it comes to accepting assignments, not necessarily in their personal or private lives, or how they conduct themselves) and wouldn't have any problem working for virtually anyone who's willing to sign their paycheck.
In fact, I think the majority of really, really bright people that I know are like that, to a certain extent. They might have some personal hangups, but if you presented the (socially) "ugly" task to them as a technical challenge, and it really was a challenge, I know people who'd do it just because it was interesting. To a certain class of person, and I don't necessarily exempt myself here, doing something interesting is more rewarding than doing something good. Not everyone has the patience to be Mother Teresa; a lot of us would much rather be Edward Teller.
To continue that historical example: lots of physicists and engineers -- many very good ones, some of the best -- worked in government labs on nuclear weapons programs; basically building bigger and better bombs. It's pretty tough to come up with a rationalization for why that's a Good Thing, but I can tell you from experience that most people who do work like that don't really even perform the rationalization. (The politicians do that, but I don't think the actual engineers really care that much.) They just focus on the work, because the work is interesting, and allows them a comfortable life; that's more than a lot of people get right there.
If you pay people right, and put them in the right atmosphere (basically closed environment with a lot of other technical people), and present the problem as a purely abstract intellectual challenge, very bright people will do all sorts of stuff that might, taken from a broader perspective, not seem like a social good.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I think you underestimate the human desire for power, wealth, and a challenging task.
how many people would bite the hand that feeds them? That source of knowledge is their livelihood and a major interest for them.Some people want to be the hand that feeds. They want to keep their access to the information, and in addition would like power over other people trying to get that information. Working for the right government, this could make you quite wealthy too. As a bonus, staying ahead of those that try to thwart your efforts to restrict seems like it could be fun game of cat-and-also-cat. It would be one of the most intensely challenging games one could find for a career.
It would be counter-productive towards their own interest.Depends on what one's interest is. If it's making sure everyone has the same level of access and freedom, then yes. If it's getting ahead, positioning oneself in a place of power, having access to the information, and stopping others from becoming better in the field than one, it seems like the most productive move. Again, you're assuming people think that their own good and the good of others are related. I think they are, but there are an astounding number of people who just look out for various small circles around themselves, starting with friends and radiating out to family / political group / nation / species.
if they come up with a way to block all access to one piece of information, someone else can copy that and block THEM from accessing something they need.I think anyone vying for power has to worry that the methods they put in place might be used against them. Obviously people get beyond this fear (or stop themselves from thinking about it) because seeking power is still something people do.
Some people want power. Some people hate other people. Technical people may be less likely to seek power than others, which is what you are suggesting. I think that hypothesis would require a good deal of research. But I would venture to guess that someone with great technical aptitude and a knowledge of networking would want power as much as any other type of person. They are just not as often in a position to grab it.