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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...
"(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.
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.
It is funny, I open tabs of pages of data that I want to consume, but defer because it is not topical to what I'm researching, and then later I can go back and read those tabs. But they grow too fast, and I only have the same 25 hours a day as everybody else. So I finally end up with firefox getting bloated, so I give up and just toss the unread tabs... by then it is usually a few thousand. I do read probably 25% of what I set aside to read.
If your internet data sources are shrinking, you're almost certainly stuck in a silo of your own making.
It is the same problem the people crying about censorship have. They lack motivation to participate in meaningful speech, and they blame invisible gatekeepers.
The difference between the internet now and 15 years ago is that now there is just more data, and most of it sucks. The noise is increasingly difficult to filter. But that should present itself as a different problem; excess crap, excess data. If you're short on data you've got severe bottlenecks. I use noscript and ad blockers, and can'trefuse to consume much of the available data, and there is still significant excess. There is no way to trim that down without restricting speech, so building silos might be a good answer. But perhaps they become less useful if they're seen as something evil that is being imposed by invisible beings.
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.
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.