
Ask HN: is there still a country without web censorship? - caludio
During my recent trip in Turkey, I&#x27;ve had the opportunity to first-hand experience what a &quot;hard, in plain sight censorship&quot; is. YouTube home page was showing a government&#x27;s statement and Twitter was not even reachable. There are of course a lot of different kind of censorships (Italy is blocking thousands of websites for any reason a judge might think of, U.K. is censoring porn, and so on and so forth).<p>I&#x27;m not sure about the situation in the US (DMCA, COPPA, and the likes) but at this point I wonder: is there any place left on earth with no censorship and&#x2F;or any filters at all? And if the answer is (most likely) &quot;no&quot;, what can we deduce for the future to come on this matter?
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nailer
Side note: I don't consider DMCA censorship - most of the time the content is
available elsewhere, it's just that someone's nicked a copy from the original
author (or whoever owns the rights).

If I send a takedown notice to someone who's ripped off an article from my
blog, people can still read the article on my blog.

~~~
chimeracoder
> most of the time the content is available elsewhere,

As is often the case with censorship, what happens "most of the time" is not
the concern - it's the rest.

The DMCA isn't exclusively a tool of censorship, but no effective tool of
censorship is. For it to survive as an effective tool, it has to provide some
value in other ways.

~~~
dfine
> but no effective tool of censorship is. For it to survive as an effective
> tool, it has to provide some value in other ways.

There are laws and tools built exclusively to censor web content all around
the world. That's what OP is referring to as "hard, plain sight censorship."
How are tools & laws like the ones used by N. Korea, Iran, and a variety of
other autocratic regimes[1] not "effective tools"? What value does something
like China's "Great Firewall"[2] provide other than censorship?

Seems to be a big difference between those and the DMCA.

[1] [http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/special-reports/what-
next...](http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/special-reports/what-next-quest-
protect-human-rights-defenders-and-journalists-digital-world)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Shield_Project](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Shield_Project)

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dvcc
The US web is not really censored. DMCA is not censorship and COPPA is a
violation of federal law for various reasons.

~~~
scurvy
It is true that the US doesn't have a national framework for censoring the
Internet. However, it does exist in patchwork form on an ISP level. Every
major ISP censors and filters websites and IP's it deems to be harmful. A lot
of times, there's confusion and a lot of innocent sites are caught up in the
mix due to name based virtual hosting in webservers.

Some would argue that anti-spam blacklists and droplists are censorship, and
pretty much every ISP uses those. I don't share that point of view, but there
are those who would argue this.

~~~
dvcc
I have not come across anything that was censored by my ISP in anyway. Only
one such case was cited on Wikipedia, were Verizon blocked text messages due
to a violation of ToS.

Could you provide any more information on ISPs blocking content?

~~~
scurvy
Comcast has an abuse block list. Verizon has an abuse block list.

Between those two you've got > 50% of America covered.

Every ISP has a spam blocklist. Technically that's censorship, too.

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andrewfong
There are two ways to think of "web censorship":

The first is that web censorship (as opposed to just plain old regular
censorship) requires filtering or interfering with the end-to-end principle.
In this case, the U.S isn't really censored (although we had a close call with
SOPA / PIPA). The DMCA and COPPA don't affect the end-to-end principle or
block content -- they only threaten penalties on various people on the edges
of the network.

The second way to think about this is to say that threatening penalties on
people for what they say IS Internet Censorship. The question now isn't about
"web censorship" per se, but really about whether said country has any
restrictions on speech that can be applied to speech online. And if you take a
very strict view of free speech rights, I'm pretty dubious you'll find any
country that fits the bill (except perhaps some tiny nation with almost no
laws to begin with).

Varying levels of "speech" you'd need to permit to be completely "censorship"
free:

* Spammy advertisements

* Infringement of any and all IP rights

* Hate speech

* Threats

* Cyberbullying and other intentional inflictions of emotional distress

* Publication of private data

* (Re)-distribution of child porn

~~~
mansr
All of the things you mention can be illegal without imposing pre-publication
censorship as has been the case with printed material for centuries.

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vezzy-fnord
I don't know if there's any place without _de jure_ Internet censorship, but
there are several places where there is _de facto_ no Internet censorship.

Most of the Balkans fall under that.

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singold
I think that here in Uruguay, we don't have any kind of internet censorship,
but we have a monopolic ISP owned by the state, so... At any moment they could
turn on the censorship switch and there is almost nothing you could do about
it.

I feel like this is the general situation on countries where you "don't" have
internet censorsihip, you don't, today.

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ThePhysicist
Most parts of the European Union? Obviously there are some exceptions like the
UK but overall there are few countries that have either the technical
infrastructure or the legal framework required to perform large-scale Internet
censorship (please correct me if I'm wrong). Of course it's difficult to draw
the line between politically motivated censorship (which most people are
concerned about) and legitimate, small-scale censorship of websites that
contain illegal content. I don't consider content removal due to copyright
issues (e.g. on Youtube) censorship, for example, but I'm of course aware that
governments often justify the censoring of content through its alleged
illegality. Before talking about the extent of censorship on the Internet it
would be necessary to have a good definition of the term first, I think.

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snowwrestler
I think it's important to be clear about what you mean by the word
"censorship."

Generally it's considered to be a restriction on freedom of expression by a
system of legal authority. Generally it is not thought to include matters of
private choice and contracts, even if the sanctity of those contracts are
enforced by the system of authority.

The U.S. has a system of law that permits people to control the distribution
of their expressions. Tool can decide they don't want their music distributed
by iTunes, and the government will enforce that decision. But it's not
censorship because iTunes is not expressing any original thought by selling
digital copies of Tool's albums. And Tool themselves are free to post their
own music online with no restriction.

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Beltiras
Iceland is relatively free of censorship. There are a couple of IP numbers
filtered by way of court order (hosted images of minors in compromising
positions), but sadly those filters have collateral damage (shared hosting
sites on same IPs). Interior Ministry is in awe of the results in the UK and
wants to do the same. Resistance to the ideas is pretty high since the general
population has a pretty good idea of the entailments. (side note: a popular
Icelandic blog and news aggregator, eyjan.is is blocked by the UK porn
filters, bit of an irony really).

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spoiler
I'm pretty sure there is no censorship in Croatia. Not because of the general
philosophy, but simply because I am convinced everyone who works in the
government's tech department still thinks FORTRAN is the latest shit in
computer science.

The amount of expertise in this country is shamefully low[1].

[1]: Citation needed, but my experience with "technical high ups" would
indicate so.

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jwr
Poland censors nothing. So far. There have been efforts to introduce
censorship, so far effectively countered.

~~~
lukasm
No event so far, but the law is in place, meaning there is no clear definition
if someone publishes on the internet is he/she a journalist. Some may use
bullets that you offend head of the state, president or "blasphemy". Better
off in a country which doesn't have any tools at all.

Over the years there was this notion that US is a role model of democracy and
freedom which is a joke especially in a context of recent news.

~~~
jwr
The question was clearly about _censorship_. There is nothing of the kind. You
can access anything you want and publish anything you want. Certain things you
publish might offend people and potentially get you in trouble, but the
government doesn't censor the internet.

That said, it is not a battle that is completely over.

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alexchamberlain
You can turn it off in the UK; right?

~~~
njs12345
There is a system you can't turn off, although you're unlikely to run into it
from day to day usage:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_\(content_blocking_system\))

~~~
scurvy
Unlikely, but possible. Large web hosts end up on the list from time to time,
and a lot of innocent sites are blocked in the process. It's an incredibly
difficult process to find out what site triggered the initial block and to get
your IP's removed from the list.

Yes, they use IP's. They don't do URL-level filtering. They use IP's.

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fauria
Spain:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Spain#Internet_cens...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Spain#Internet_censorship_in_Spain)

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mansr
None of the filtering in the UK is legally mandated, and only the major ISPs
implement it. Smaller ISPs still offer a completely unfiltered service.

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lukasm
Monaco? Small islands like Jersey (UK)?

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contingencies
Maybe Bhutan.

~~~
johnnydoebk
It is not possible to censor what does not exist, right?

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contingencies
I don't know, but I'd assume Bhutanese monks probably excel at similar types
of deep philosphical inquiry. Perhaps they even have cats, and the internet
has nothing to offer them?

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coldcode
I believe the Moon has no censorship that is readily observable. Then again
the Moon is not a country. The real question is is there a country with a
provable lack of web censorship? Assuming of course you can define that well
enough.

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evolve2k
Australia

