This is becoming less and less true. Removing people from social media. Removing entire websites. Even denying people the ability to participate in financial systems.
As the OP wrote:
Is is easy to suppress a centralized operation like Bing, Facebook, YouTube, WeChat, a school or The Seattle Times. It is impossible to censor the entire Internet.
Because the article already rebuts your argument. Before the internet, fringe voices would not have anywhere to go. You are right that some fringe voices get removed from a few big platforms, but you can always start a blog or go to a smaller platform.
This is a good, fair point (unlike the person who wrote me and told me I was spreading Nazi propaganda). Thank you.
I confess I am not tech savvy enough to validate these arguments, but I have heard that Piratebay is much simpler (text files that point to other files) and is much easier to keep play cat and mouse games than, say, a social network.
But, either way, you are right to point out that a determined opponent can keep up a fight for awhile.
I think both claims are true but on different time scales: (1) yes, the information and discourse readily available to the median internet user is less free and diverse today than it was a decade or two ago, but also, (2) this information and discourse is still more free and diverse than what the vast majority of people would encounter anywhere in the media pre-internet.
There are discussions to be had about which of these trends are more important, for “society in general”, or in more specific context, or how things will play out in the future, but I find it very hard to believe that these facts are not both true.
This is becoming less and less true. Removing people from social media. Removing entire websites. Even denying people the ability to participate in financial systems.
As the OP wrote: Is is easy to suppress a centralized operation like Bing, Facebook, YouTube, WeChat, a school or The Seattle Times. It is impossible to censor the entire Internet.
As I wrote: that is becoming less and less true.
I’m surprised that that was taken so negatively. I’m not exactly sure why.
Because the article already rebuts your argument. Before the internet, fringe voices would not have anywhere to go. You are right that some fringe voices get removed from a few big platforms, but you can always start a blog or go to a smaller platform.
Except blogs have been removed from the internet. And entire, smaller platforms are wiped from the internet.
It’s becoming less true that you can always move to a blog or a smaller platform. That’s what I said. Seems true and not in the article.
But I suppose I will live to fight another day.
And yet, Piratebay stays online.
This is a good, fair point (unlike the person who wrote me and told me I was spreading Nazi propaganda). Thank you.
I confess I am not tech savvy enough to validate these arguments, but I have heard that Piratebay is much simpler (text files that point to other files) and is much easier to keep play cat and mouse games than, say, a social network.
But, either way, you are right to point out that a determined opponent can keep up a fight for awhile.
I think both claims are true but on different time scales: (1) yes, the information and discourse readily available to the median internet user is less free and diverse today than it was a decade or two ago, but also, (2) this information and discourse is still more free and diverse than what the vast majority of people would encounter anywhere in the media pre-internet.
There are discussions to be had about which of these trends are more important, for “society in general”, or in more specific context, or how things will play out in the future, but I find it very hard to believe that these facts are not both true.
This makes a lot of sense. Thanks.