
China launches platform to stamp out 'online rumours' - ytNumbers
http://news.trust.org/item/20180830063018-6rju6
======
liftbigweights
And the dream and hope of a free and open internet suffers a death by a
thousand cuts.

It seems like the powerful around the world are competing with each other to
see who can censor and control the internet the most. And of course they all,
to the last man, claim it is for the benefit of the people.

~~~
snaky
That's not exactly "powerful around the world" who are routinely vote for more
censorship in democratic countries. There is no strict difference between
"hate speech", "fake news" and "online rumours".

~~~
Bizarro
And many in the HN community regularly call for censorship - under the guise
of "regulation".

~~~
i_am_nomad
To be fair, I have never seen this on HN. You may still be right, I've just
never seen it. (Maybe those calls for censorship are themselves getting
censored?)

~~~
bittcto
HN has a long history of censoring particular groups of people based on
identity. That’s why it’s become such a monoculture (a monoculture of people
generally convinced than HN is diverse, however.)

Down voting things you disagree with despite being well articulated (in fact
_because_ they are well articulated) is a form of censorship here.

But of course it goes much further when shadowbanning is deployed to enforce
the narrow and rigid views of the moderation team.

Yes, I know pointing this out means it will now happen to me.

Nothing a censor hates more than thwarting the narrative they are trying to
enforce.

But that’s why you think it doesn’t happen here. This is the most harshly and
hypocritically cultivated walled garden on the Net. (Moderators violate their
own rules regularly with impunity.)

Alas, I cannot abide not pointing out these abuses.

~~~
com2kid
Click a checkbox in your profile and you can see those shadowbanned posts just
fine.

Very rarely are they well written or polite.

I have yet to see well presented, civil, arguments censored. I have however
seen entire threads criticizing HN and YCombinator staff, by name, be left
alone.

~~~
existencebox
A "third" perspective; I think there's at least some self-censorship (In
certain dimensions, don't let me paint this as some universal or even majority
thing) from people who tend to write civil, well presented arguments. You can
read my post history if you want, and I've _certainly_ had some of my posts
get greyed with rapidity (Obviously I selfishly found them to be innocuous but
others clearly disagree, I find in situations where the status quo is
_aggressively_ in one direction, even expressing moderation is caught in the
blast radius), so I avoid the really hot subjects with a ten foot pole; you
learn that it just doesn't end well, especially for those of us who have
associated our professional lives with this site.

You can notice this more obviously if you watch new, that certain topics reach
and get to the front page VERY RAPIDLY and stay there, while others are
flagged or fall off with prejudice. I'm not sure I'd call it a huge problem,
and the parent post is probably a bit hyperbolic, (Certainly I give the mods
benefit of the doubt, even though I've gently disagreed with dang via comment
prior) but it's definitely present.

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chroem-
This is precisely why it is dangerous to let someone other than yourself
decide what meets the criteria for "fake news." It gives the decider an
opportunity to manipulate public discourse.

~~~
umvi
Or "hate speech" for that matter.

~~~
LiterallyDoge
Obligatory: "The purpose of free speech is to protect unpopular speech. If the
speech were popular, it would already be free without any guarantee."

~~~
bilbo0s
More critically, it's to protect that speech from the _government_. Because
you don't really need protection from anyone else, as no one else has a
monopoly on violence.

~~~
mc32
An online mob can turn into violence. Or, the least look to silence opinion,
either directly or by soliciting favor through boycotts, etc.

~~~
bilbo0s
The violence of an online mob is not protected by the government. So who
cares? Arrest the mobsters and move on with life.

A boycott is not even violence. So, again, who cares? We're not even in
physical danger in the case of a boycott. In fact, the boycott is actually
free speech. (Or, more precisely, free expression).

But consider, if the government comes after you, who will you arrest? Who can
you get to defend you? In this case, the Constitutional protections of our
freedoms are _essential_.

The threat from the government is the danger that the Founders were insistent
on mitigating. And they were right to do so. The government is the main entity
that we need protection from vis-a-vis restriction of rights.

------
OedipusRex
"The platform operates under the guidance of 27 government departments..."

China loves bureaucracy.

------
evancox100
From the video promoting the platform: "Rumours violate individual rights;
rumours create social panic; rumours cause fluctuations in the stock markets;
rumours impact normal business operations; rumours blatantly attack
revolutionary martyrs"

One of these is not like the others... You'd think that "attacking
revolutionary martyrs" would be in the government's list of pros about rumors,
not cons. Or at least so I've heard

~~~
jakebasile
Many communist governments consider themselves "revolutionaries", so that is
likely referring to people "martyred for communism".

~~~
evancox100
Ya, I eventually figured out they were referring to people like Mao. But is
Mao a typical rumor topic?? Honest question

~~~
jakebasile
No clue, I just wanted to point out what they meant by using the
"revolutionary" rhetoric.

------
dqpb
How will this platform handle facts that are inconvenient for the moderating
authority?

~~~
protoster
They'll consider those facts rumors and remove them. The function of this
"platform" is so vague that I don't think anyone is under any illusions that
this isn't another way for the government to control public discussion.

------
gonmf
The attack on "fake news", by any other name...

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logfromblammo
Sinopes.com, the Chinese Snopes.com? Dang, it's already taken.

