Slashdot Mirror
Vice: Internet Freedom Is Actively Dissolving In America (vice.com)
An anonymous reader points out Vice's rather dark view of the state of Internet freedom, the author of which posits that "one fact about the internet is quickly becoming clear this year: Americans' freedom to access the open internet is rapidly dissolving." As evidence, the writer points out negative trends in broadband adoption, legal moves to weaken encryption, industry consolidation that means fewer competitors in some areas, increasing use of data caps, and increasing reliance by many (especially poorer) Americans on mobile phones as their only internet-connected devices. (On the other hand, it's worth pointing out that there are now free encryption-centric apps for voice and text communication that give ordinary people privacy options, and both unlocked phones and inexpensive data plans are far closer to the American norm than they were a few years ago.)
Stop pretending. The government is monitoring ALL electronic communication. The US is a fascistic police state with a very very dishonest and corrupt government. It's funny that just 20 years ago the people of the USA made fun of the USSR for doing things that don't even come close to what is happening in the US today. Land of the free my ass. Merry Christmas! I hope everyone found some nice tracking equipment in their socks!
On one hand you have the Copyright Cartel, I mean, the Entertainment Industry buying laws to give them more rights, so they can abuse more ways to make money off content that will NEVER go into the public domain. And on the other hand you have the Government, who gladly accepts money to make laws that benefits their Movie & Music Mafia pals. On top of that, they want to overreach by collecting all the data America makes to make us safer, yet not catching home terrorist acts. Then claiming they need backdoors and no encryption to make us safer.
Our government has failed the people.
Be seeing you...
Some of the best journalism comes from Muckraking. Still, it's pretty easy to see that the main advantage of the internet is that it provides education / information to billions of people who never had access to it before, and the growth in that penetration is a bigger story than the limits to educating and informing people. The main disadvantage is when the internet provides miseducation / false information to billions of people. The nuance is that misinformation has been readily accessible to the billions of people for eons. The optimist thinks that misinformation will find it more difficult to compete with truth, and that attempts to curtail it will tend to blowback on churches, governments and corporations which try to wedge against it.
Gently reply
and point out their bs
I'm not so sure Vice is all-negative, after all, they did a pretty cool and positive feature on my fusion work. You can search youtube on my username for it if you care.
What does concern me is that it used to take me almost all day to read everything new that day on the 'net - and now it takes only an hour, if that, and I don't really read faster than I used to.
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While it seems even the tinfoil hat crowd aren't talking about explicit censorship, either the world is kind of going dead, or something like hidden chilling effects are happening. I really don't like that one bit - no matter which it is - the creeping lack of new worthwhile content doesn't bode well at all. Yes, I read more widely on more topics and specialties than most so maybe it's more obvious to me, but gee, it's a huge change over the last few years. Seems as though society is just giving up, whatever the reason.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
If the author of the refenced article had any journalistic ability he would have realized that the definition of broadband was redefined between 2013 ant 2015 leading to the apparent decrease of home installations. Furthermore the author seems to be easily confused by conceits such as rate vs. total and confuses adoption (normally expressed as a rate YTY) with installed based. I attribute this to a general lack of fundamental understanding of mathematics if not calculus on the whole. Sadly this is a pretty common sight for ignorant journalists these dqys. What would make an interesting article is the decline of fundamental mathematics comprehension among journalists over time.
You and the GP blame "governments", but it's much more than that.
The worst censorship we witness online isn't done by governments, or those acting on behalf of governments.
The most insidious censorship is that done by the people running the discussion forums, or their minions. Look at places like reddit, or Hacker News, or Stack Overflow. If you don't hold exactly the right viewpoints and opinions, then you will most likely be silenced and banned.
Slashdot isn't as bad as those aforementioned sites, but it's still susceptible to very abusive and incorrect moderation, too.
The real threat here is Millennials. They're an entire generation of people who've deluded themselves into believing that they stand for freedom and openness, yet in practice they're actually among the most virulent perpetrators of censorship and the suppression of free expression.
If you express an opinion that they dislike, they don't engage in discussion. They just shut you down, typically using a system that's without any sort of an appeal process, or due process of any sort.
At least governments tend to be subject to at least some judicial oversight, no matter how minor or ineffective it may be. There is absolutely no resource against online moderators who engage in oppression.
If your society requires anonymity for freedom of speech, then that society is not free to begin with.
"(On the other hand, it's worth pointing out that there are now free encryption-centric apps for voice and text communication that give ordinary people privacy options, and both unlocked phones and inexpensive data plans are far closer to the American norm than they were a few years ago.)"
Mobile phones are rooted by both the carrier and/or your employer and provide a direct backdoor to the government. There is absolutely no security/privacy on a mobile phone. There isn't much point in encrypting your voice/text when they have the key.
Yep, this vid is best explanation I've seen of what's going on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Of course government and corporations want to control and censor the internet, but lately they've found support and allies among righteous authoritarians who pass themselves off as activists for the oppressed (when all they're really after is power).
If you ever encounter someone who thinks that only government censorship matters, show them how Reddit once actively opposed things like SOPA and PIPA. Then point out how CISA recently passed without a blip from them, and how they now actively shut down discussion of things like TPP.
You should always have a devil's advocate on every software project. Or better yet, be the devil's advocate - it's more fun and more constructive because then everyone says "what would you do, smartypants?" Keeps the creative juices flowing :-)
In times past, this important role would have been filled by the court jester or fool.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The real threat here is Millennials. They're an entire generation of people who've deluded themselves into believing that they stand for freedom and openness, yet in practice they're actually among the most virulent perpetrators of censorship and the suppression of free expression.
If you express an opinion that they dislike, they don't engage in discussion. They just shut you down, typically using a system that's without any sort of an appeal process, or due process of any sort.
Whoa, bit of an over-generalization there, don't you think? If you want to engage in generational blame, I could also easily blame the baby boomers that currently dominate congressional leadership, and feel the need to regulate things they don't understand (and laugh off the fact they don't understand technology, which always irritates me). The internet started free, and deteriorated into spying and other things under the boomers' watch, you know. Many Millennials only recent gained the ability to run for Senate, for example, and most are not even eligible to run for President. The generation hasn't even had an opportunity to contribute to governance much yet, and you already blame them?
Really, the issue is we've gone through a massive cultural shift in the 20ish years since the internet became mainstream. We can talk to people around the world, and learn about cultures and viewpoints we didn't before. We don't need commercial media as much, because my twitter stream shows me real time events in the middle east, for example, and aggregated together, probably much less biased. Just facts. The Internet allows us to seek our own knowledge and not be fully reliant on corporate media. I think what you will see is that a cross-section of people that have used the internet since its early days -- all generations but probably leaning more toward Millennials -- respect this freedom and independence, and want to protect it.
Meanwhile there seems to be a counter-culture that takes the corporate viewpoint a little too seriously -- some young people too but in my anecdotal experience, tends to be older people, I think because they grew up only having corporate media as single source of news -- and these people use the internet as a way to stay attached to people like them. Like-minded viewpoints. I have had the misfortune of stumbling across some of these on a number of social websites; they are groups for hate and fear-mongering. Where a person used to be the weirdo in town, now they can talk to other weirdos and pump themselves up and pretend they are majorities. It is these people that shut down all dissent and disagreeing viewpoints. They want to live in their own bubble; they are "proud conservatives that watch Fox News" for example, and seem to be proud of the fact that they stay in their bubble. I am not a fan of the current Republican candidates, but I still watch their debates because I want to know more about the viewpoints. There are those that refuse to hear anything outside of their viewpoint, and it really weirds me out.
So what we have is a cultural war -- do we see the internet as stay free, open, independent, allowing anyone to become a contributor and not just a bystander? Or do we see the internet as a way of segregating ourselves from other conflicting viewpoints? Really, this came about because of the rapid shift of computers and the internet and really the globalization of the economy. Our culture changed so quickly that I don't think everyone has caught up yet, and there's disagreement about how we should feel about the rapid shift..
If you agree with me, and the internet should stay free and independent, then it is our responsibility to speak up. Government in this country is still the people and laws -- if current representatives don't hear your pleas, start running for office yourself. Doesn't strictly have to be the US congress either; run for state congress, or even county-level or city-council. Mayors and county executives wield a large amount of power but we tend to ignore them. If you aren't willing to try something, then I don't believe you get to have much room to complain about government.
Any encryption software that you can buy is very likely to be government created or compromised by the government. If you want real security you'll have to be somewhat creative in how you accomplish it. I also want to know why bank software disallows really good passwords. You would think that banks would be eager to have customers with seriously, strong passwords or pass phrases. It is almost like they want to be hacked.
Internet freedom is indeed dissolving. If you use the internet, you're at an increasing risk to catch malware. If your computer is infected you don't have any freedom at all. You are at risk of losing your money on the bank. You're at risk of losing your valuable personal data or your identity being abused. In all cases you are bombarded with ant-virus advertisements which may of may not be fake. Your computer might also be used in all kinds of illegal activities designed to hurt others. Also, if you buy from legit-looking webshops, it turns out that your cash disappears and your goods are never delivered, even though you might intuitively think that it can be traced, because everything is 'digital'.
Unless you're a slashdot nerd, you don't have the knowledge to effectively defend against it.
I think the average person has much more to lose from these than from the NSA looking at his data-streams (not that I don't have problems with uncontrolled monitoring). If you feel concerned about eroding freedom on internet, you should at least address this issue as well. It also has as extra advantage that you take the wind out of the 'security by more control' arguments