Slashdot Mirror
Censorship is Changing the Face of the Internet
Lucas123 writes "Amnesty International is warning that the Internet "could change beyond all recognition" because state-sponsored censorship has spread from a handful of countries to dozens of governments that apply mandated net filtering, and because companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have remained complicit, according to a BBC story. '"More and more governments are realising the utility of controlling what people see online and major internet companies, in an attempt to expand their markets, are colluding in these attempts,"' said Tim Hancock, Amnesty's campaign director."
Nothing to see here. Move along
Is there *REALLY* nothing here, or has this been (gasp!) censored?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Yeah, according to the BBC report, censorship is spreading. According to my state-run newspaper, everything is just fine, and, wait a second, it says here I should just move right along.
-THE END-
Governments want control, businesses want money.
There's nothing loving, forgiving or compassionate about a committee with a purpose.
The only question is how to prevent them from killing our freedoms. Democracy hasn't seemed to work all that well lately, at least in a two party system.
I hope this turns out to be an informed debate. We have all watched this slow incursion. It is obviously in full swing in repressive socvieties such as China and Burma. But it seems that Government legislatos are also tempted the curb certain things. In Australia it is material that could be condidered "sedition" such as Islamist (as opposed to islamic) sites calling for an Australian Jihad. But always, underneath, we detect the temptation moving further into banning activist websites as "sedition".
Unfortunately, many of these conferences get hijacked by the shrill calls of alarmists, who have more believe than knowledge, and emotion over thought.
"Laugh while you can a-monkey boy!" - Dr Emilio Lizardo
If you don't want problems with censorship, net neutrality, etc... make your own internet. No one said you have to use the main domain name system which the rest of the internet uses. And no one said you have to communicate purely via TCP in traditional ways. Most of these censorship systems are bricks which are designed to restrict clueless users who don't know about tunneling traffic through various secure & anonymous means.
At the extreme end of the scale, a country could do censorship on a "white list" basis where all the sites available do not allow user-submitted content. Trying to access any other port/protocol/IPs not on the white list would result in an error. This is where the real problems occur, as it blocks out even the most tech-savvy hackers.
Corporations at one time tried to make money for their shareholders, then they began to realize that if they instead working on controlling the public, in what the public bought and thought, the money would come as a consequence.
.....
Governments have always worked on controlling the public, in what they thought and in some governments what they bought.
The difference is that corporations and governments are now vying for positions in how to best control the public. If a corporation allows the government to control it, it can get access to the population and thereby have some influence. If the corporation doesn't allow the government to control it, it will ether be shut down or shut out.
You can see this behavior in music, literature, web searches, museums, copyright, trademarks, patents and on and on and on.
As far as the public is concerned,
good luck
More and more governments are realising the utility of controlling what people see online and major internet companies, in an attempt to expand their markets, are colluding in these attempts,"
I don't think this is so much "changeing the face of the internet" as allowing the internet to grow into places where censorship has long been a part of life. The governments that are censoring are not comeing to any new realisations about controlling informantion, they are ust applying existing policies to a new medium. Any international companies that want to do business in those markets has a different set of rules there then they do in the US or UK. Internet based or not. This is not much different than when Nike started making shoes in China and there were outcries of the "inhuman sweatshops". It was crap pay by 1st world standards but a decent job in China at the time.
Yes censorship sucks, but there is a long list of things that suck in most countries that censor heavily. Would a lack of international companies in the PRC make it a better place to live? I don't think so.
We are all just people.
the Internet "could change beyond all recognition"
Compared to, say, when those very same totalitarian-type countries didn't have internet access at all? Compared to only a few years ago when it didn't exist at all? And, will China's internet censoring actually change it, beyond all recognition, for me? Will this article or the summary change the meaning of hyperbole beyond all recognition? Places like China have been lacking free speech since before the internet existed, and they still lack it. That China was a little slow applying their cultural norm to this newer tool isn't very shocking. What's terrible is that censorship IS their cultural norm. Change that, and little things like internet filtering, or centralized political control, etc., change right along with it. This is a symptom, not the problem.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I wonder if, at least in the United States, the internet and its "freedoms" are already too interlaced in people's lives for a censorship program to be successfully implemented now. What would happen if suddenly school students could not get reliable information on subjects like Guantanamo? Or, if John Q. Public can't get his free porno? Also, what would large media networks do--especially those with other outlets besides their website, such as television stations--if their content is censored online, but not elsewhere?
Even if it were more altruistic, like censorship of terrorist web pages or even malware sites, there would be a huge outcry from an otherwise free media.
I decided to stop stealing cynical quotes to use as a signature line.
"could change beyond all recognition"
As opposed to... What? Change is expected - along w/unrecognizable traits.
"Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have remained complicit"
'remained' - remained..? You mean like they haven't taken any time-outs yet...? Or, they get together in Bermuda twice a year to compare notes and plan how they will rule...?
The gentrification of the internet is always a concern, I suppose, but I am reminded of a phrase that was coined 'long about the first time such topics popped up - "The internet interprets restriction as an interruption and routes around it."
Seems to me that one of the basics of (pointed) redirection is blocking and/or interrupting - fine, bring it on.
Yes... but given this is the 10 millionth time someone has made this obvious joke it's still redundant regardless of what time it was posted at.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
Yes. It used to be this :-) now it's this :(
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
One giant piece of missing information is that all three internet giants refused the public Amnesty International debate. It's too bad they won't clarify their position as an aid to repressive governments. As the Register noted, "no news is good news" when you have something to hide. Because they refuse to meet their critics in the open, we are all left with speculation and stink. As all of us are dependent on these three companies to one extent or another, how censored is our own world view?
The answer is to help each other and report what you see. Alternatives, like Slashdot and blogs exist for this reason. The majority of us still get most of our "news" from "mainstream" sources but we don't have to. As long as the internet remains a free place we can inform each other of what's happening.
This is good news for small newspapers, if they take advantage of it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
My Oxford American Dictionary says that democracy is "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives" (or "a state governed in such a way"); and republic is "a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch."
Note, however, that dictionary definitions do not settle arguments. Meanings are determined by usage, and dictionaries are records of usage (and fallible ones). But, when all the media in your country routinely use the word democracy in a way that contradicts the rule you're stating there, well, it's your rule that's mistaken, not the people who use the word in violation of it. This is just Linguistics 101.
Are you adequate?
However, blocking the Internet is very difficult. Anyone -- even a person with no technical knowledge -- can use a proxy server to bypass the blockage. Just pick a proxy server that anonymizes the user. Then, enter the URL of the "dangerous" site like, say, CNN. The proxy server will fetch the content of the site.
The only way for a brutal society like China to truly block the Internet is to sever the Chinese Internet from the rest of the global Internet.
Also, blocking radio news is difficult since these days, almost anyone can buy a shortwave radio for under $50. A shortwave radio enables you to listen to Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, etc.
The above observations lead to the interesting conclusion that most Russian citizens can still access fair and balanced news by (1) accessing Western web sites like CNN and Fox News and (2) tuning into Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. Statistics indicate that about 20% of Russians have regular access to the Internet. The other 80% could easily buy a shortwave radio. I recommend a Panasonic one.
The main problem in Russia is not government control of the Russian radio and television stations. The main problem is that most Russians genuinely support Putin and his authoritarian polices.
Similar comments apply to mainland China. Most Chinese who study at American universities support the occupation and brutalization of Tibetans. The Chinese in the USA know the truth (from CNN, Fox News, etc.) but reject it. They prefer Chinese nationalism.
Power needs only complimentary information available. You do not motivate groups of people by exposing them to contradictory information. Corporations do it with advertising, parents do it with cautionary tales, religions do it with fear of lack of immortality, and governments do it with force. The real question is how to build an international darknet that is impossible to oversee, and can "route around" the damage.
Anti-Globalism
I've often thought about how obselete democracy is. Every four years,we get to put a cross on a piece of paper for some bloke I've never met, to represent me. Why do we still use this archaic system of governance we call democracy? Computer technology is such a powerful enabling technology that could revolutionise governance. Many fields (e.g. Banking) have been totally revolutionised by computerisation. We could have the same revolutionisation within governance, by applying our collective intellectual capital to governing a country.
What is possible today is a franchise based voting system based not on the old premis of land ownership, but on our participation in society. We could be rewarded for our qualifications, our age, our life experience, with voting points within our areas of expertise. We could continually vote within our fields of expertise on issues of governance, and be rewarded for this participation by having more voting points within our individual areas of expertise.
Participatory Governance is a totally feasable option today, which would prevent the type of misuse of power the parent article is about.
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.