The most pervasive censorship is who and what social media companies decide to block or suppress. Even in places like China. It's deliberately harder to measure, but any censorship measurement that omits it is like measuring war casualties, but ignoring those on the front lines.

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geraneum 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Not to minimize the impact of social media censorship, but one should really live in a country like Iran to grasp what pervasive censorship is. Most people born and raised in the relative freedoms provided in modern democratic systems have no clue what it feels like when you have such dictatorships. I say this because, looking at the current trends, we _could be_ heading in that direction, and the comparison is apt.

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howunfortunate an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I'm curious what trends you see towards censorship?

Elon presumably being an exemplar for current trends: Twitter is unarguably far less censored than it was before (though censorship is still present). And Meta took note and also turned down its censorship significantly in response.

The Epstein files, while far less than hoped for by many, are another example of a trend towards sharing far more sensitive info than has been typical by past administrations.

There are many good examples you could point to of increased authoritarianism, but censorship in particular seems to be on the backswing, if anything.

Edit: oof, it's extremely concerning that the comment below was flagged

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geraneum 38 minutes ago | parent [-]

It’s too soon for such a conclusion IMO. The pervasive Iran-like censorship I was talking about will rear its ugly head when those authoritarian regimes are established. It’s a tool and I can assure you it will be used extensively. This is nothing new really.

P.S. the Epstein files were just a cruel joke! I wouldn’t list it there.

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howunfortunate 29 minutes ago | parent [-]

It doesn't add up for me. If the goal is simply authoritarian control, why would they employ less censorship than their predecessors?

Surely they could get away with at the very least the same amount?

	▲	geraneum 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> simply authoritarian control There’s nothing simple about authoritarian control. Who says we have less censorship? Sure people can tweet all kind of stuff without getting banned. Fine, but at the same time US president is removing news networks he doesn’t like from press briefings. That’s just one example. To say the censorship is in decline is baffling.

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cindyllm 4 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

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like_any_other an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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geraneum an hour ago | parent [-]

> You don't know what it feels like not because you're so free, but because you agree with the ruling regime on what it considers the most important questions.

We don’t know what it feels like because we collectively participate and decide what should be considered and what not _periodically_ and it’s possible to change it, evidently, with various degrees and velocity by voting.

> I would much prefer the dictatorship-style censorship, because our censorship is far, far more effective.

Case in point!

I’ve lived under both and can guarantee you don’t know what that dictatorship you so much yearn for has in their bag for you until it’s too late.

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aaa_aaa 34 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I guess he is not yearning for dictatorship, the style of censorship is the question. Preventing access to information is bad, but likely less harmful than deception.

	▲	aaa_aaa 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It is a shame OP's comment is flagged. Talk about censorship

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theendisney 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Its true, all usually highly conplex world events are dumbed down to an insanely infantile level that carefully omits anything that may poorly reflect on corporate interests.

Also obvious is that all news is made in a short list of countries. Everywhere else the best you can hope for are terrible events.

You will only get opinions from a small list of talking heads.

One might imagine populating the media with nothing but professors. Each field has new stuff every week. In stead you get Adam Savage. The name isn't by acident.

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like_any_other 27 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> by voting

Not a single one of my examples was committed by the government (except if you count funding Carnegie Mellon and MIT). But even in cases when they are, voting rarely helps: https://www.woes.blog/p/tgr-democracy

> you don’t know what that dictatorship you so much yearn for

Re-read my sentence. I don't yearn for a dictatorship, I yearn to blunt and make obvious the current secret, subtle censorship regime.

> has in their bag for you

Is it jail?

“White Lives Matter” Slogan Earns Two Dutch Men Imprisonment for Racism - https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news-corner/nether...

Activist ran race-hate sticker library, court told - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51zn2l33r9o -Stickers with text like "It's OK to be White" and "We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066". For which he was later convicted and jailed - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-68448867

I repeat - you agree with the regime. You're floating in the river, letting it carry you where it pleases, while telling those swimming upstream that there is no current, nothing to struggle against.

	▲	geraneum 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Not a single one of my examples was committed by the government. Interesting! How did all of these social media companies made a 180 suddenly after power shifts in Washington? > You're floating in the river,… Of course but this doesn’t have any bearing on what I said. We are talking about severity and type of censorship not its meaning.