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by mitxela8 hours ago |
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upvoteby orbital-decay3 hours ago|
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Internet blocking is a last resort for regimes that can't do anything against the source of the information or intermediaries, but it's a red herring in regimes that can. Anna's Archive has a political position and is one of the very few voices that survived the immense pressure. How many didn't? How many attempts were not performed at all because of it? This suppression is really hard to measure, OONI can't do anything here, it measures blocking. It's very simple to understand.
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upvoteby averysmallbird7 hours ago|
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Scare quoting democracies is probably telling, but OONI absolutely does test content blocked in Western countries. https://explorer.ooni.org/domain/annas-archive.org
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upvoteby vlyan4 hours ago|
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scare quoting """""""""democracies""""""""" is perfectly acceptable when it couldn't be more obvious that those so-called democracies do anything but represent the will of their peoples. do you know anyone who'd voted for having to scan their face to access verboten webseites? to have encryption backdoors in their messengers? to have state-mandated spyware preinstalled on their phones?
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upvoteby armchairhacker2 hours ago|
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They don’t represent the people’s will, but unfortunately many people believe in censorship, so even if they were true direct democracies we may still see some.
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upvoteby troupo2 hours ago|
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> if they were true direct democracies we may still see some.

I think we would see more.

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upvoteby zaik2 hours ago|
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Yes, I do know people who voted for the party that pushes things like this in my country.
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upvoteby nephihaha1 hours ago|
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In the UK, both of the main parties push internet censorship. As do the third party and the SNP.
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upvoteby snowram1 hours ago|
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Plenty of people are happy to surrender their freedom for a feeling of security.
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upvoteby dartharva1 hours ago|
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...you'd be surprised, plenty of regular people actually want these things to happen. State is God for reliably the majority of the population of the world (seeing as the majority resides in China and South Asia).
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upvoteby qerghnui8 hours ago|
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I would only use the term "censorship" to refer to the prevention of speech based on its content. Content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions aren't censorship according to the way I use the word, and neither is copyright protection.

Note that censorship isn't necessarily bad and restrictions on speech that aren't censorship aren't necessarily acceptable. The prohibition on child pornography is censorship but I support it, while I am opposed to IP law in its entirety.

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upvoteby Gathering66788 hours ago|
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Anna's Archive is prevented by some countries from visiting because of its (presumably illegal) content. All restrictions are based on its content.
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upvoteby qerghnui8 hours ago|
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Is that in fact the reason? I'm not familiar with what's happening outside the USA.
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upvoteby Gathering66788 hours ago|
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See "Spotify lawsuit" in the wikipedia article. Also:

"In January 2024, Italy's ... ordered major internet service providers (ISPs) in the country to block Anna's Archive due to a copyright complaint..."

"In March 2024, ... ordered major ISPs in the Netherlands to block Anna's Archive and LibGen due to a request by advocacy group BREIN (which represents the interests of the Dutch entertainment industry)."

"In December 2024, the UK Publishers Association won an order from the High Court of Justice requiring major ISPs to block Anna's Archive... under section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna%27s_Archive

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upvoteby asdfaoeu8 hours ago|
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I don't think they are disputing it was blocked more the reason was copyright not other reasons.
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upvoteby Gathering66787 hours ago|
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My point is - copyright is also a "content related" reason: some site is banned because the content of the site is infringing the copyright of someone else.

In the end, all censorship is content related. One could definitely argue along the spectrum of "all" to "none" censorship is appropriate, but I would guess most people actually hold the belief that "some" censorship is okay, while disagreeing on "which" censorship is okay.

If this is the case, then the bias problem is indeed relevant.

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upvoteby Gathering66787 hours ago|
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Plus, this sentence in the original post I replied to really struck me as absurd: "Content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions aren't censorship".

Let's imagine a country bans the distribution of all writings by authors in another country/region disregard of the content. It would not be censorship according to the original post.

The fact that a ban encompasses a wide variety of content could mean simply that it is difficult/undesirable to limit the scope of the ban, but the censorship always originates from the content.

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upvoteby WillPostForFood4 hours ago|
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You are misunderstanding time/place/manner restrictions. The rule must apply equally to all speakers regardless of topic, opinion, or political stance. If you banned "the distribution of all writings by authors in another country/region" you aren't applying the restriction equally.
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upvoteby mitxela8 hours ago|
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Copyright is a content-based reason.
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upvoteby kurthr7 hours ago|
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It all depends on what you're censoring.

Is it a bad sign if CSAM, Personal (medical, financial, etc) Records, Snuff, and Malware/Ransomeware are censored? What about manufacture of WMDs, terrorism, hate speech? Free software, and copyrighted music? Historical records of genocide?

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upvoteby nottorp27 minutes ago|
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Is there any authority in any country in the world that can be trusted to censor just what it's supposed to censor?

Doubt it. Besides malice there's also incompetence.

See the article that's also on the front page right now about Spain blocking Cloudflare (i.e. half the internet) during football matches.

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upvoteby SV_BubbleTime7 hours ago|
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As an aside… the if there was a real system out there that was trustworthy, it would have all of this and it would be the evidence you actually need to trust it.

If someone had a secure system for some of the worst stuff out there and it lasted more than a minute, pay attention because they might have actually solved some real problems.

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upvoteby fsflover2 hours ago|
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> if there was a real system out there that was trustworthy, it would have all of this and it would be the evidence you actually need to trust it.

Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I2p

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