Censoring the Internet: A Collection of Essential Links

[Android]

Discuss, defend, dismiss, and debate

LINKS (http://www.infowars.com/?p=3730)



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[DeadlyFreeze]

Alex Jones reads conspiracy's in his alphabet soup.

[Dile_]

woho! I'd pay for a Conceptart.org 'internet channel' =D sorry I can't take this so seriously as I heard this back in 99 or so when I first started to use a computer.

[Mike Frank]

If anything were to happen to stifle free speech and use of the internet, I think it would be pretty unfortunate. To me it is a lot like the Public Broadcasting Service, only it is run by the actual "public" and not partial to media sponsorship.

The most valuable aspect of the current situation is that it does not require the traditional profit motive inherent in creating media. People of all levels of knowledge and experience can easily blog and make videos to add to the public discourse. It breaks up the traditional "echo chamber" of the major media and should push the mainstream into a higher level of discourse, instead of being treated as a threat.

[Jason Manley]

china cant even stop the free internet...keep that in mind.

[Rist]

Why does everything seem to happen on or by 2012?!?!

Its like the film Numb1r 27.

[Dusty]

Hey, I remember that guy in the first video as "The best paladin in the world" or some such....

Hard for me to take anything he says seriously after all of his talking of "pwning newbs".

-D

[Atlantis]

http://www.yff365.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2162281%3ABlogPost%3A5863

This was top story on Digg.com today: Internet censorship and the iPatriot Act.

Lawrence Lessig, a respected Law Professor from Stanford University told an audience at this years Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, California, that “There’s going to be an i-9/11 event” which will act as a catalyst for a radical reworking of the law pertaining to the internet.

Lessig also revealed that he had learned, during a dinner with former government Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke, that there is already in existence a cyber equivalent of the Patriot Act, an “i-Patriot Act” if you will, and that the Justice Department is waiting for a cyber terrorism event in order to implement its provisions.

http://www.yff365.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2162281%3ABlogPost%3A5863

Don't be worried, though; any kind of censorship would require the collusion of at least a few entities which would be a conspiracy and thus impossible.

Plus, the Internet is too decentralized for censorship to be possible. Or is it?

Loss Of Major Hub Cities Could Cripple Internet, Study Suggests

"The Internet functions much like our air traffic system," said Tony Grubesic, who co-authored the study as a doctoral student in geography at Ohio State. "If weather stops or delays traffic in a major airport hub, like Chicago's O'Hare, air passengers throughout the country may feel the effects – even if they are not traveling to Chicago. The same is true of the Internet hubs. They can affect Internet traffic through much of the country."

...

But that decentralized network is expensive to build and maintain, Grubesic said. As the Internet has become commercialized, the major network providers have moved toward a "hub-and-spoke" model that funnels Internet connections through major hub cities.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/11/021126072153.htm

That story is 6 years old, btw.

[DeadlyFreeze]

This was top story on Digg.com today: Internet censorship and the iPatriot Act.



What a shock his link lead right back to Alex Jones.


If you haven't noticed by actually reading real news its pretty clear that ISP's that tamper with how you receive data through their network is a huge no no.


Comcast being the most recent example. (http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-users-seek-compensation-from-comcast-080723/) FCC actually doing something right, ya I know its kind of shocking.

[Atlantis]

What does Alex Jones have to do with this? Are you suggesting Mr. Lessig never made the statements the article alleges? If that is the case, you may wish to watch the video further down the page.

It's too bad we can't actually address issues instead of quibbling over what is and is not "real news."

And if you don't remember, before 9/11, unwarranted wiretapping was also a "huge no-no." Hence the significance of this alleged conversation with Clarke about the i9/11 and the iPatriot Act. (god I hate that fucking meme)

Wouldn't think this would require explaining.

[DeadlyFreeze]

The video isn't even in its entirety. Right at the point where he goes in to the "i9/11" you can see it jump, so who knows what context hes even speaking in.

It was never a "huge no no" to wire tape, in fact its been pretty common practice since the 60's. The patriot act just legitimized it.

[Jasonwclark]

Comcast is under fire right now, for violating the principle of net neutrality. Or rather, the results of the case against Comcast will determine whether or not the concept of net neutrality will continue to supported under US law.


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[Atlantis]

It was never a "huge no no" to wire tape, in fact its been pretty common practice since the 60's. The patriot act just legitimized it.

You just have no idea whatsoever about what you're talking about, do you? Why did Congress need to pass H.R.6304 to grant retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that had allowed network access to the NSA if doing so was not a "no no?"

For someone who's so quick to suggest I watch the "real news," you don't have a very good grasp of what's going on in the world.

[DeadlyFreeze]

Why? To make it legit, didn't I just say that?

Its old hat CIA has wiretapped everyone from John lennon to its own senators.

[Atlantis]

You seem to be using the word "legit" to mean "generally known." That's not what it means. It has always been a no-no to illegally spy on citizens of the United States; thus the allowance of unwarranted network access to the NSA by the telecoms was illegal and in need of a bill to grant them retroactive immunity from lawsuits. Likewise censorship of the Internet by ISPs would be a no-no, at least until an i9/11 incident and the passage of an i/PATRIOT act, which is the point of the article I posted.

And be careful about what you call old hat; you're straying dangerously close to Alex Jones territory.

But any way you slice it, you're not presenting any sensible argument against why Internet censorship is any less feasible than unwarranted wiretapping. What does it matter what the FCC rules when whatever the present status quo is becomes legit by default?

[Mike Frank]

While we're talking censorship..

http://www.projectcensored.org

#1 Story of 2007 - Project Censored --- Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media (http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/1-future-of-internet-debate-ignored-by-media/)


And a short blurb on censorship..

WHAT IS MODERN CENSORSHIP?
At Project Censored, we examine the coverage of news and information important to the maintenance of a healthy and functioning democracy. We define Modern Censorship as the subtle yet constant and sophisticated manipulation of reality in our mass media outlets. On a daily basis, censorship refers to the intentional non-inclusion of a news story – or piece of a news story – based on anything other than a desire to tell the truth. Such manipulation can take the form of political pressure (from government officials and powerful individuals), economic pressure (from advertisers and funders), and legal pressure (the threat of lawsuits from deep-pocket individuals, corporations, and institutions).

[DeadlyFreeze]

You sure have some amazing ability to read between the line. CIA getting the OK to wiretap its own civilians completely unfathomable, but complete censorship of the internet through global conspiracy completely real.

Apples to Oranges much? Restricting information to the masses(if not the world) is a tad different then covertly spying on a single person.

[Blahm]

honestly there is nothing we can do, get used to it.

[Atlantis]

You sure have some amazing ability to read between the line. CIA getting the OK to wiretap its own civilians completely unfathomable, but complete censorship of the internet through global conspiracy completely real.

Apples to Oranges much? Restricting information to the masses(if not the world) is a tad different then covertly spying on a single person.

What's unfathomable is that you could pack such incredible ignorance into one post. "CIA getting the OK to wiretap its own citizens?" What?

I don't even know why I'm arguing this with you. I suppose being basically told you're an insane conspiracy theorist loses its sting when you realize that it's coming from someone with no understanding of the issues.

But to answer your question, no, there is no difference between the government breaking the law to spy on citizens and the government breaking the law to censor Internet traffic. Both are transgressions of the law, whether or not they attempt to justify them with 9/11 or i9/11 events. And no matter what bills they pass to retroactively grant themselves immunity to legal action, such actions are still illegal.

Further, the CIA cannot 'get the ok' to spy on 'its own citizens.' The Constitution never specifically guarantees privacy in so many words, but the Supreme Court has always interpreted the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th Amendments as guarantees of privacy or suggestive of that right. And we are not the citizens of the CIA or of any other branch of the government; they are public servants who have sworn an oath to uphold the laws that they are breaking by spying on us. It's not legal, it's not ok, and to say it's old-hat and imply that it doesn't really matter is incredibly asinine.

So we have Lawrence Lessig, who is on the board of Creative Commons, Electronic Frontier Foundations, and the Software Freedom Law Center saying that Richard Clarke told him that there is going to be an i9/11 event with the subsequent passage of an iPATRIOT act to 'radically rework law pertaining to the Internet,' and you're content to tell me that such is impossible, there's no way to know what context he meant that in, and that I should go watch "real news." Again, unbelievable.

[DeadlyFreeze]

old hat = unoriginal, spying on your on civilains is not new as I said before its happen since the 60's, I NEVER remarked on the legality of it. That was all your tangent.

Read what I actually say and stop ranting on what you think I mean.

[Atlantis]

spying on your on civilains is not new as I said before its happen since the 60's, I NEVER remarked on the legality of it. That was all your tangent.


It was never a "huge no no" to wire tape, in fact its been pretty common practice since the 60's. The patriot act just legitimized it.

I know what old-hat means and I know what legitimate means.

[0kelvin]

But to answer your question, no, there is no difference between the government breaking the law to spy on citizens and the government breaking the law to censor Internet traffic.
There is one big difference. Spying on a person is easy, censoring internet traffic is extremely difficult. Like Jason said, China has tried, along with a number of other countries, but anyone willing can and will get around any system they've put in place. It doesn't matter whether it's legal or not, it's simply not feasible. The other difference is that you can spy on someone covertly, but there's no way to censor the internet without people noticing. At least not anything worth censoring. It wouldn't take long for people to notice if Youtube suddenly wasn't available anywhere in the country. If you can't censor Youtube, what's the point? Anything worth censoring can be said just as easily in a Youtube video.



Eric

[Atlantis]

Yet Youtube is censored; you won't find any porn, for instance (not like I would know, ahem).

And I've never lived in China, but I would think transgressing their filters would take more technical know-how than the average surfer has.

My point was not about the difficulty of Internet censorship vs. unwarranted wiretapping; obviously the former is vastly more complicated. No argument there, but I think it's rather naive to suggest that the Internet will always be free and open outside of China just because it is now, or that the state of affairs in regard to feasibility of filtering will always be as it may be now. When the founder of Creative Commons comes out and says that an iPATRIOT act is ready and waiting, that worries me. But I do hope you're right and it's an unfounded fear.

[Blahm]

this technology is made buy man therefore there will be a way around it.

[tensai]

i'm in china now. i downloaded one program (hotspot shield) that hides the isp or whatever (you see, i don't know) for me. now i can see e v e r y t h i n g. well, almost.

[thelefthand]

A lot of money has been invested by the high speed internet providers like Comcast and Verizon. They are looking for a ROI. It's always all about money. I am sure the larger businesses like Walmart and Target complain about losing money to smaller online businesses.

Take for example collectible action figures. They used to be only local hobby speciality shops that carried statues, figures, resin kits, ect for very high prices. Now people can search online through Google and find the best price possible for any item in just minutes. Now, with just a small loan, anyone can start up a collectible action figure online store and compete with larger stores by getting discounts as being a dealer. It definitely changes the way the game is played, but it always comes back to money. The big companies always want to be on top and they don't want competition.

Another example of what I am trying to get across about large companies trying to get rid of competition, is from where I used to work. A product costs so much more for a larger company to do rather than an individual or small company because of all the expenses they have to accommodate for. I used to help publish, design and print magazines. I worked for a company for over 10 years doing this. I built up a lot of contacts both with clients as well as professionals used in the process of making magazines - writers, photographers, printers, salespeople, ect. Once I started making noise about going freelance I was attacked on every level - personal life, discrediting me, work place harassment - all kinds of stuff. The truth was that I could produce a high end, professional product, bid it out for less and make more profit than the company I worked for. I was a real threat to them. I never took any of their clients, but noise got out that I was doing projects on the side and thinking of leaving to do freelance is when the "squeeze" came on. I eventually quit. Even after I quit, I was still attacked.

The point I am trying to make is this: Large companies want to keep the money coming in to "them" and no one else. This is why I believe, unfortunately this new definition of internet will happen. I personally like the internet just the way it is, but the one with the gold makes the rules.

My greatest fear of having a more specialized internet service is that the providers will carry out their threat of providing packages that limit where you can visit and charge you extra for visiting "non" participating sites. With that kind of stigma, smaller sites not wanting to pay "extortion" fees, will most likely die out due to lack of traffic. It might even become the case that they will not even show up in search engine results.

[moroi]

in regards to Chinese censoring, it sounds fairly easy to get around. for instance, "The Freedom Stick".

FreedomStick (http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/breaking_down_the_great_firewall_of_china_10755.as p)

[Black Spot]

Be careful - they're watching (http://users.chartertn.net/tonytemplin/FBI_eyes/)

[Lotet]

Hey, I remember that guy in the first video as "The best paladin in the world" or some such....

Hard for me to take anything he says seriously after all of his talking of "pwning newbs".


hehe ye I know, the guy is kinda wierd, though he really bleaves in this, and have posted many videos on the subject, he really wanna help, he and hes gang are pretty edjucated on the subject to, and in my opinion thats what matters, and serriusly, its not like youve ever tryed to be funny one time and serious another, its not like u have to pick and then stick with it.

im sorry if im trying to defend the guy, its just that i Like him and i think hes funny too lol.

[Duq]

Yet Youtube is censored; you won't find any porn, for instance (not like I would know, ahem).

Thats not censorship, that is policy. Its simply not a service they want to provide. Anyone who makes an account on youtube for uploading vids had to agree with this policy.

[Atlantis]

Thats not censorship, that is policy. Its simply not a service they want to provide. Anyone who makes an account on youtube for uploading vids had to agree with this policy.

It's a policy of censorship; porn is as easy to censor as anything else that they deem "not a service they want to provide."

You're not addressing my point, just arguing semantics.

edit: in case I'm not being clear, here is the definition of censorship from thefreedictionary.com:

"...to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable."

[Duq]

It still has nothing to do with censorship.

Toys ur Us doesnt sell porn dvd's, but they do sell dvd's. Nothing gets censored here, porn is simply not a product they want to offer to their customers.

Same for youtube. They want to cater a specific market, and porn simply isnt the product they want to sell to their customers.

If a company chooses to not distribute certain information because it simply doesnt stroke with their mission, it has nothing to do with censorship. They are not offering the information, so they cant censor it.

Ofcourse you can say they are applying moral censor to their policy. But alot of stores, websites, information outlets in the world dont provide porn. Are they all morally censoring? Just look at CA, porn spam gets removed, why? Because it clogs up the forum, and the members in general dont need it. It is not removed because CA want to surpress us with their morales and protect us from porn.

There is a big difference between forcefully withdrawn information, and looking for information in the wrong place.

edit: What you made clear with that statement about Youtube. Is that you dont know what internet censorship is. Internet censorship is not websites moderating their own content. Its goverments, ISPs preventing access to an open unmoderated network. What websites do with their own content completly falls beyond the scope of Internet censorship.


edit: back to topic

Internet cant be censored, its technically not possible. Two reasons for it.

- 99% of the physical internet is controlled by the private sector
- Anyone can set up an ISP. In my old town I had an ISP that was run by two guys from the local university that only supplied internet to our building.

[Atlantis]

You're getting distracted with semantics again, Duq. Let's go back to the beginning: 0Kelvin said that Internet censorship was impossible in part because any website that was censored (or deemed a service not provided by the ISP) could simply re-post their message on Youtube, thus defeating the censorship. "If you can't censor Youtube, what's the point?" were his words. My reply about porn being censored on Youtube was meant to illustrate that Youtube can and does filter content, and could just as easily filter out the aforementioned website's message as it could pornography if it chose to. Filtering out content is censorship by definition; any dictionary will back me up on this.

And here you come in telling me that pornography isn't being censored on Youtube. Yes it is. Try posting some there and see what happens if you don't believe me. Borderline videos (not quite porn but still sexually explicit) even come with warnings and a requirement for the viewer to verify their age in order to view, so don't feed me that bullshit that 'they're not applying a moral filter.' Toys-R-Us is a total non-sequitur here.

edit: in regards to your edit:


Internet cant be censored, its technically not possible. Two reasons for it.

- 99% of the physical internet is controlled by the private sector

75% of statistics are pulled from asses, so I'm going to have to ask you to source that.



- Anyone can set up an ISP. In my old town I had an ISP that was run by two guys from the local university that only supplied internet to our building.

I have no idea if it is possible to set up a totally independent ISP that avoids plugging in at some point to a major hub (though I doubt it), but I am fairly certain that most people lack the technical knowledge and equipment necessary for doing so. For the majority of people, then, your point is irrelevant. It's like saying you could never stop air-traffic because some people could still build their own planes; sure it's true, but most of us can't.

[Duq]

I think the censorship thing is just a dead end, I can keep on hitting you in the head with the difference of Internet censorship and Moral censorship.

75% of statistics are pulled from asses, so I'm going to have to ask you to source that.

This one is simple. Although I cant show you one document that proves it. But its common IT Knowledge. The physical internet is all the pc's, servers, cables connected together. Cables are in general owned by the private sector, basically all the datacenters are owned by the private sector, basically all the clients that connect to the internet are owned by the private sector. The real stats would prolly show its 99.999999999%

Its important to understand noone owns the internet, they just add their own small piece to it. Websites is just small fry, and goverments basically only supply that. Youtube prolly hosts more information then all the goverment sites put together. Simply because they host huge amounts of movies, and goverment sites are basically just websites with text and images. Its not a proven fact, because it is almost impossible to make a solid comparison. But its a standard percentage in the datacommunication world, based on logic thought and some knowledge about the internet on a hardware level.

The internet firewall from china for example is not because the Chinese goverment has physical control over the internet, they just passed a law forcing those that have the control to build the wall.

I have no idea if it is possible to set up a totally independent ISP that avoids plugging in at some point to a major hub (though I doubt it), but I am fairly certain that most people lack the technical knowledge and equipment necessary for doing so. For the majority of people, then, your point is irrelevant. It's like saying you could never stop air-traffic because some people could still build their own planes; sure it's true, but most of us can't.

Its easy. Rent the landline from the telecom corp, set up a server that distributes the information to all the clients and done, it justs costs loads of money so there is no use doing it for yourself. But if you can supply a street or a building, its doable. The reason why large ISP's are doing well is because they are cheap. But if they censor the internet, it will just take a few months before a ton of small ISP's show up, and supply full internet.

I dont know if you experienced the beginning of internet. But internet started with loads of small ISP's that just kept merging.

[Atlantis]

I think the censorship thing is just a dead end, I can keep on hitting you in the head with the difference of Internet censorship and Moral censorship.

I'm thinking "censorship" must mean something different in your native language than it does in English. In English, it's just the excision or suppression of information deemed undesirable; the reason is utterly irrelevant. Thus, there is no difference between "Internet censorship" and "moral censorship" - morality is only justification for censorship and the Internet is only a location for it to take place (figuratively). I would be curious to hear your definition of each, though, if you can nail them down.

But I agree that it's a meaningless argument.

Again, I hope you're right about the Internet being impossible to control, but from my understanding of the subject, that seems to be a bit of an optimistic view of it. I'm not an expert on the subject, but the experts of whose opinions I'm aware do not appear to be of the view that there's nothing to worry about. I guess we'll just have to see.

edit: Duq, you may find this article enlightening:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-censorship.htm

You'll notice that it conforms to the definition of censorship that I do (the correct one :)).

[Duq]

I'm thinking "censorship" must mean something different in your native language than it does in English. In English, it's just the excision or suppression of information deemed undesirable; the reason is utterly irrelevant. Thus, there is no difference between "Internet censorship" and "moral censorship." I would be curious to hear your definition of each, though, if you can nail them down.

Well the meaning is the same thing. Its just the context you are placing it in.
A very simple way to explain it would be.

Internet censorship: China preventing the chinese acces to a free and public information sharing network.

Moral censorship: Youtube removing porn because they dont want to be associated with that.

The first one is preventing the people from reading information to keep them surpressed. The second one is not supplying that information because its not what that company does.


Again, I hope you're right about the Internet being impossible to control, but from my understanding of the subject, that seems to be a bit of an optimistic view of it. I'm not an expert on the subject, but the experts of whose opinions I'm aware do not appear to be of the view that there's nothing to worry about. I guess we'll just have to see.

Its just how it is designed. Internet works because it is decentralized and dynamic. Sure it can be centralized, but the base will never change. Ofcourse there are things to worry about, but those worries should be directed to the lawgivers and how they deal with it. The internet on its own is simply impossible to control, but you can control the people that are connected to it.

[Atlantis]

Well the meaning is the same thing. Its just the context you are placing it in.

The first one is preventing the people from reading information to keep them surpressed. The second one is not supplying that information because its not what that company does.


Ah, thanks. I'd still argue that, in the context of the point I was making towards 0Kelvin, this distinction is irrelevant; the line between 'suppression for the purpose of suppressing the population' and 'suppression because we don't want to be associated with it' is very thin (enough to be nonexistent, in my thinking). Perhaps in the grim, dark future, Youtube will decide that it doesn't want to be associated with material the government deems objectionable. That was all my point was.

[magicgoo]

In 2012, Yeti will phase out man, making the internet obsolete. Loch Nessy will reveal that he did, in fact, fake the moon landing footage. Greys will continue to probe your butthole for human information. Oh wait... Humans will be phased out by Yeti .... FBI...censoring this .....post... lasers!!!

Discuss, defend, dismiss, and debate...

[Atlantis]

In 2012, Yeti will phase out man, making the internet obsolete. Loch Nessy will reveal that he did, in fact, fake the moon landing footage. Greys will continue to probe your butthole for human information. Oh wait... Humans will be phased out by Yeti .... FBI...censoring this .....post... lasers!!!

Discuss, defend, dismiss, and debate...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule

[0kelvin]

I'm thinking "censorship" must mean something different in your native language than it does in English. In English, it's just the excision or suppression of information deemed undesirable; the reason is utterly irrelevant.
The difference isn't the reason for the censorship, it's the method. We're talking about the suppression of information through legislation. That's the difference and it's a huge one. Youtube's not wanting to host porn has nothing to do with that.

Perhaps in the grim, dark future, Youtube will decide that it doesn't want to be associated with material the government deems objectionable. That was all my point was.
I used Youtube as an example. Youtube is only one head of the hydra. If not Youtube then Vimeo, or Break.com, or DailyMotion, or YouPorn, or GodTube, or The Pirate Bay's sure-to-come video sharing site.



Eric

[D.Labruyere]

I'm thinking "censorship" must mean something different in your native language than it does in English. In English, it's just the excision or suppression of information deemed undesirable; the reason is utterly irrelevant.

erhm no, it means exactly the same. All duq is saying that someone who owns a car-company isn't going to sell vegetables to you, and that has nothing to do with censorship.

[Mr.Delicious]

the only form of censorship I've seen on youtube is when they've limited view counts or marked them down so the video doesn't get popular enough to get any recognition. I believe they admitted to this a few times, but apparently youtube was working with china in censoring out videos. I'd give links but I dont wanna look for them. :(

the porn isn't allowed... youtube has a set of rules and I'm pretty sure they want it to be somewhat family friendly.

[A. Sobriquet]

Funny how a thread founded upon a conspiracy theory has gone right to porn. You dirty-minded lot. ;)

I'm not inclined to get sucked into the argument, but I just wanted to bring your attention to the fact that, whereas various supposedly "uncensored" web services from the "free world" are "working with" the Chinese government to control the information that can be readily accessed by the Chinese people, censorship of the internet has in fact already become a global problem; Google, Yahoo, Youtube and the rest are not crusaders of liberty aiming their broadband cannons at Iron Curtains and the infamous walls of Berlin and China. They are businesses keen to make money, and when an opportunity arises for business with a nation that is both wealthy and authoritarian, they have no principles beyond those of the "free market" - which means in the case of China at least a very unfree internet.

My point is that none of your assumptions of what is or is not possible have any solidity; every condition upon which your conclusions have been reached is in fact a transient condition. "Eternal vigilance," etc., etc.

In closing, I'd just to add that it's both ironic and insightful that China has censored all traffic to any websites associated with the world's largest collection of Marxist articles and information.

[Atlantis]

The difference isn't the reason for the censorship, it's the method. We're talking about the suppression of information through legislation. That's the difference and it's a huge one. Youtube's not wanting to host porn has nothing to do with that.

Perhaps not, but until 2007, there was legislation mandating sites to require age-verification before viewing pornographic content (U.S.C. Title 18, Section 2257 ) - a practice Youtube still carries on in borderline cases.

I'm not sure why you say the addition of legislation into the equation makes a huge difference; the result is entirely the same, and as media centers conglomerate (as they're prone to), one company's policies can easily become a law unto themselves, as it were - the company's policies can become very far reaching.

Or hey, forget porn. Take copyrighted material - Youtube filters it out due a legal requirement to do so.

I think my point is pretty clear and we're quibbling over irrelevant details.


I used Youtube as an example. Youtube is only one head of the hydra. If not Youtube then Vimeo, or Break.com, or DailyMotion, or YouPorn, or GodTube, or The Pirate Bay's sure-to-come video sharing site.

Heh, ThePirateBay might not be the best example, given that the only reason they haven't been permanently shut down is that they're not actually hosting copyrighted materials on their servers.

A.Sobriquet put my point into clearer words than I did: "none of your assumptions of what is or is not possible have any solidity; every condition upon which your conclusions have been reached is in fact a transient condition."

So back again to the founder of Creative Commons saying that Wesley Clark told him an i9/11 event and an iPATRIOT act are coming. Those transient conditions that you're supposing will forever insure free-speech on the net may not last.

erhm no, it means exactly the same. All duq is saying that someone who owns a car-company isn't going to sell vegetables to you, and that has nothing to do with censorship.

Do they just not sell vegetables, or do they actively track down all references to vegetables in their dealership and expurgate them? Fuck it, I'm a native English speaker and majored in English for years; I know what the word means.

[chriskot]

Do they just not sell vegetables, or do they actively track down all references to vegetables in their dealership and expurgate them? Fuck it, I'm a native English speaker and majored in English for years; I know what the word means.

If you work at a car dealership and you try to sell vegetables alongside the vehicles, your boss will tell you to stop. They don't get rid of all reference to vegetables, they just get rid of the vegetables. Similarly, YouTube doesn't track down and delete all references to porn, just pornography itself. I'd say that D. Labruyere and duq are right.

[Atlantis]

Jesus Christ. This has to be the stupidest argument I've ever been in.

Ok, one last time.

Main Entry: Censor
Function: transitive verb

: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable <censor the news>; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable <censor out indecent passages>

From Merriam-Webster.

The vegetables at the car dealership is a very poor example and only tenuously related to my point about Youtube and porn (which is an excellent example of censorship), but the meaning still applies at a basic level. But arguing over the vegetables at the car dealership is pointless as it is not an example of my choosing but of Duq's, and thus disproving it does not negate my original point in any way.

In regards to Youtube, they've decide that they don't want porn or copyright infringements hosted on their site, they therefore object to the presence of those and proceed to remove them. The removal of that which has been deemed objectionable is termed censorship.

That's the meaning of the word, and all the illiterate know-it-alls in the world piling on to tell me I'm using it incorrectly do not change it. Please reference a dictionary before you tell someone that they are misusing a word.

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Removing porn spam = Filtering

Removing artistic nudity / porn posts = Censoring

Same word, but the latter has a negative connotation (fuzzy moral ties)? It's probably subjective which word you choose to use.... which end of the stick you're on so to speak.


Back to OP, First video has brief cheap tit shot halfway into the video. Alex Jones talks with his entire face.

On topic, remember that by 2012 a lot of young people who've grown up with the internet will be older and have a job. It's a different demographic to sell to, and I don't think it'll be easy to sell a downgraded product so blatantly. They'll have to attach lots of superficial bling... the game dev model of attraction.

[A. Sobriquet]

If you work at a car dealership and you try to sell vegetables alongside the vehicles, your boss will tell you to stop...

Considering the rising costs of produce at market, this might actually be a successful form of promotion. ;) Buy a new car and get onions for 20 cents a pound, as they ought to be. Go see Cal, etc., etc.

[0kelvin]

Atlantis, there's really no need for the name calling.

I'm not going to debate semantics. Dueling dictionaries is the absolute worst form of internet debate ever.



Eric

[Atlantis]

Oh call the wambulance. That was the tamest name-calling in the history of Internet drama. Next I'll be calling you all whippersnappers or something. All I'm saying is know what a word means before you accuse of someone of misusing it.

[Jason Ross]

Control of information is an essential element to control the masses. The most influential cable companies have been losing it's audience for quite some time now since the internet became public. I see they are looking to regain that control.

[Ravenseye]

lol oh the internet. I can press a button and what comes from my perspective of life is sent to you. Everyone states their cans and cants. walks their walks and talks their talks. All threwout history flapping our jaws trying to make some sort of impact on the constant caos. The constituion was written by a major group of these jaw flappers. Yet by the end they wernt looking at all the perspectives they forced on them self they came together with disagreements and in the end threw community agreed upon something to establish a freedom in the caos. Yet look at the jaws snaping back and forth. Your all torn apart throwing perspectives at eachother trying to prove something to one another. This coming from artists who take in the daily hardships and filter it threw into a creation of something that displays this emotion. There is a whole group of artists here and our solution is to copy and past back and forth. Well i got a better idea. Why dont we all come together and Make a peice about this issue. Why dont we use this here system that we have the ability to use right now to show what were afraid could happen. Start working together to make a statement. Ever seince i was born ive been told you gotta work hard so you can get this and this. Well thats why everyones always being hurt. Lets quit thinking about ourselves but start thinking about eachother. Lets use some revolutionary thought here and come up with some remedys.

[SADCLOWN]

my god

[s.ketch]

Internet censorship: China preventing the chinese acces to a free and public information sharing network.

Moral censorship: Youtube removing porn because they dont want to be associated with that.



Well what happens if Youtube decides it want to be associated with free and public information? What happens if a company does not post negative information about their product on their website? What happens when a politician lies on their site?

Moral censorship is only censorship a society agrees with and could easily become the big bad kind. Its similar to letting a government violate your rights just a little bit.

The internet should be a place of total freedom. Yes bad things will be put online but bad things are a part of life. That is something that most governmental censoring agencies and society do not understand. You take the bad with the good and move on.

[Sig.NAL]

The internet should be a place of total freedom. Yes bad things will be put online but bad things are a part of life. That is something that most governmental censoring agencies and society do not understand. You take the bad with the good and move on.

Oh i think these entities understand. Whoever argued that the internet is controlled mostly by the private sector and meant it as some sort of consolation for those of us that are actually concerned with internet censorship, i thought that argument was rather ineffective.

Our government is practically owned by the private sector as well and it's been one big clusterfuck that gets stickier and stickier everyday. Many of these giant companies that have shaped our foreign and domestic policies, pushed us into wars with other nations, manipulated information, flat out lied , distract public attention from pertinent issues that actuall affect everyone, inflated our financial market, and then crashed it only to extort more money from us under the threat of complete economic meltdown (with the governments assistance), as we bombard our children with visions of vile people like Paris Hilton, and shitty music, shitty Reality TV, and lots of plastic shit that nobody fucking needs. The people who run things are the attitudes and personalities that shape too many of our policies and degrade the cause of the human spirit. if you think that they're going to pass up the opportunity to screw the common man over to make assloads of money because 'it would be too hard to do' then maybe you should reconsider, read some other literature or something, because there are a lot of shitty people out there who work hard to screw people out of money because it's effective and they benefit.

The companies, lobbyists, and governmental figures that make these things happen know that you can't fool all the people all the time but fooling alot of the people some of the time is very lucrative. Sure they can't censor the whole internet, and regulate it with an iron fist, but legislation like the Patriot Act, and the FISA bill have has already been used to target, intimidate and accost peaceful protesters, and other non-criminal parties. And legislation that gives people cause to be afraid of finding information and spreading it, is nothing short of subversive, and evil.

The powers that be are moving toward a grim totalitarian scenario where individuals can be 'legally' spied upon, threatened according to their views and opinions, charged as terrorists, and held without habeas corpus; and to say that they wouldn't try to seize control (even if it's not absolute) and hold serious influence over our globe spanning information network is a ridiculous statement with no historical leg to stand on. I mean really, the fasci-capitalist machine has done so much to enslave and exploit all of us up to this point, has brought us to the bring of nuclear holocaust and you think they'll suddenly decide that having controlling interests on our greatest human resource to date isn't in the best interests of their family of companies? If you have control over the information available to people you can more easily control them by limiting their access to it.
History has shown that those with lots of money and influence usually try to keep it that way even if it's costly to do so and a few heads have to be broken in the process. Because if everybody has a reasonable amount of money those who have more have relatively less influence over everyone else. This is all a power game.

I mean fuck, since i was five i've been fed alot of rhetoric in favor of renewable energy, i'm sure many of us have, mine was through the benefit of conscientious family members, friends and many other progressive people but you never heard about it on TV even though it's a matter of global importance. Twenty years after the fact we're more dependent on fossil fuels than ever. We've known there was a growing problem and It's the same private sector that we 'don't have to worry about' that has been keeping the renewable energy revolution from happening all this while, their argument being that converting to renewable energy would be difficult and costly on the scale of our country. This is absolute malarky since by mere fact that you're building renewable energy sources, the incurred cost will quickly be paid back in improved efficiency.

But now that the main resource of the energy industry is beginning to lessen as the rest of the world steadily modernizes, these groups have suddenly become proponents of clean energy and are putting more of their crap adverts on the tube, talking of how environmentally conscious they are, and how progressive and humanitarian they are. It's such fucking bullshit and people buy into it.

The internet is still a place where they haven't dug in a deep hold(or at least as deep a hold) , despite what you think, i believe it's safe to say they are going to do their best and more people should be concerned with the possibilities of what could happen rather than dismiss them based on their perceived unlikeliness, especially considering nothing has been done to prevent thus far or retract the controlling efforts that have been made, because even if it's unlikely, recent events have made such a scenario far more likely than only a few years ago, and it doesn't have to be abrupt, it can continue as it has if it's not checked.

As artists, who generally hold views more outside the status quo we should be the most outraged at this so it really upsets me to see fellow artist just sort of shrug at the problem and say, well that hasn't happened yet, so why would it? People need to see to it that there isn't the possibility for such manipulation, to not allow infractions against our civil liberties under ANY circumstances, because the ideological foundation of what america claims to be demands it, and because these rights are supposed to be inalienable. No exceptions. But shrug away just like most everyone else, it's alot easier than organizing and doing something about it. Yuck.

Limiting the number of views on youtube videos is a more subtle version of censorship than barring access to it outright, but it is a more insidious method of censorship and should be called into question, because if there isn't that dialogue, then the problem will only grow larger.

The government needs access to everything in your email account and your browsing activities to keep you safe from 'the bad dark people' (You know, like Martin Luther King Jr.) but has no interests in controlling your access to the information available to you? Yeah right.

[TheJester]

I'm not a big fan of the "history repeats itself" appeal, but it has to be portrayed here.

It's a real fact, that hackers are usually just a bit smarter than corporate programmers. Or should I say, many times, they are the same person... It's plain and simple, and someone has mentioned it up in the thread. If it is man made, it can be broken. Meaning, that in the perfectly logical language of the machine, it is imposible to create a system, that can not be destroyed.

[Arshes Nei]

You take the bad with the good and move on.

It's supposed to be "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the Facts of Life"

[s.ketch]

It's supposed to be "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the Facts of Life"

I'm confused as to what you are referring to with that image. When I said take the good with the bad, I was talking about content not accepting censorship.

[Arshes Nei]

I'm confused as to what you are referring to with that image. When I said take the good with the bad, I was talking about content not accepting censorship.

The image was a funny find one day at work when the Websense filter went haywire and ended up blocking out any government sites.

Your statement about the good and the bad, started to borrow a lot from a Pop Culture sitcom so I was just musing at your reply. It wasn't a debate on your statement.