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US Declines in Internet Freedom Rankings (techcrunch.com)
If you need a safe haven on the internet, where the pipes are open and the freedoms are plentiful -- you might want to move to Estonia or Iceland. From a report: The latest "internet freedoms" rankings are out, courtesy of Freedom House's annual report into the state of internet freedoms and personal liberties, based on rankings of 65 countries that represent the vast majority of the world's internet users. Although the U.S. remains firmly in the top 10, it dropped a point on the year earlier after a recent rash of changes to internet regulation and a lack of in the realm of surveillance. Last year, the U.S. was 21 in the global internet freedom ranking -- the lower number, the better a country ranks. That was behind Estonia, Iceland, Canada, Germany and Australia. This year the U.S. is at 22 -- thanks to the repeal of net neutrality and the renewal of U.S. spy powers. The report also cited "disinformation and hyperpartisan content" -- or fake news -- as a "pressing concern."
With shadow banning, FB jail, twitter censorship, deleted accounts due any number of excuses. And lets not forget the spy vs spy MAD Mag comic of the deep state. Julian Assange last interview he talked about those being born today will be the last generation to be free... I'm trying to get a head start of my unfreedom. May I be marked a troll for this.
That's not what it means. That's never been what it means.
The philosopher Rudolph Steiner had the most comprehensive discourse on freedom in his book from the late 1800s, The Philosophy of Freedom. He wrote that any definition of human freedom required an "ethical individualism", that required a level of consciousness of self and one's motivations. In other words, taking a shit on the living room floor just because you need to take a shit and happen to be standing in the living room at the time, is not freedom. Your "freedom" in absence of an ethical framework is basically just trolling.
And if you need to ask, "Well derp, who gets to make up what is ethical?" then you're in luck, because this was also pretty well established by about 300 B.C., and the answer is, "We all do, based upon reason and moral behavior".
Now, if you need to ask, "Why should we be moral at all?", then you need more help than I can provide in one Slashdot comment.
This has been another edition of, "Why you should have taken a few Humanities classes when you were working on your Associates degree in Computer Science."
You are welcome on my lawn.
I believe the problem with "disinformation and hyper partisan content" is who is deciding what qualifies as such. Major platforms Facebook, Youtube, Google, and Twitter have come under intense criticism for the way they decide what is fake news, whether through algorithms, hiring third parties (that could be partisan), or having real people do the job who mislabeling without consequence and thus preventing people from seeing the news, real or fake. Many reporters believe their real news is being mistakenly called fake or being included in a vague undefined definition of hate speech. The corporations try to use an excess of caution on the subject of hate speech that results in even preventing real statistics from being published by organizations if the statistic includes ethnicity or race in any negative light. While it is not the government doing the limiting, there is an only a handful of large tech corporations that decide how many people you can reach with your message and/or whether your message is appropriate. People can create their own websites but it is a bit like shouting in an empty room, you have free speech but no one can hear you.
Freedom of speech must — in a society without the Ministry of Truth — include the freedom to lie.
But the targeting of "hate speech" ought to be a "pressing concern" — and for the same reasons. No one lamenting the demise of the "Net Neutrality" would agree, that the regulation would've prevented the persecution of Gab.com, for example. On the contrary, these same people claim "free speech" has become a very lazy excuse to tolerate hatred and the ignorance".
It immediately follows, US still has "too much" freedom — unlike the enlightened and sophisticated Europeans.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.