Comment by ianleeclark

The idea that restrictions in human liberty are subject to when "a national community agrees on something" is laughable at best and evil at worst.

> Im thinking as a French I had to fight a lot with free speech absolutists abroad, while at home we're quite okay with selective censorship... it sounds scary to an American sometimes, but hell we dont care :D

I'm not surprised you're being downvoted as I've tried to make this point with American friends before and gotten the same reaction 10/10 times.

To use a very topical example: in other jurisdictions outside of the US, racism is a crime, and speaking out in favor of it or discriminating against someone verbally is not protected by free speech.

In fact, jurisdictions outside of the US often do not even have a definition for the "right to free speech" – it's obvious that you can say whatever you want.

It just so happens that by saying some of those things you may be doing something illegal, not unlike how threatening someone isn't a protected action in the US. So it's not so much a matter of censorship, but one of limits to rights. Every right has certain limitations, and free speech isn't absolute, be it in America or elsewhere.

@xwolfi Agree with you as long as majority of national community agree, it is ok. This is how democracy works the minority are suppressed one or the other way and things go the way majority wants. Indeed even on HN if a comment is down-voted it's greyed out so that people cannot read those minority views (obviously if its a hate speech can be flagged, which is already done, but then its thin line and needs tremendous restraint and transparency).

This is another slippery slope and Covid-19 will increase censorship further. Indeed India by censorship legitimize the censorship regimes around the world (including China).

Been working with Internet since it's early years in 1991 and hope it remains free. But it seems less and less likely given every country wants to create it's own Internet, as it became important for being in power.

We can respect another nation’s sovereignty without respecting their authoritarianism. I very much believe we should be disrespecting the hell out of authoritarian States, much more than we do so now because authoritarianism doesn’t stop at the borders, it stops at the practical limit that a State can enforce its laws which is why when the NBA was quite literally kowtowing to the PRC, we had a problem with that.

PRC corporations have a history of behaving in a mistrustful manner, combined with their obligations to the PRC State which treats its citizens as subjects, and sometimes not even its citizens, but anybody of Chinese descent, PRC corporations absolutely should be singled out and treated with mistrust. Our corporations have the obligation to turn a profit for their shareholders and sometimes that even means entering into a contract with the government, but theirs also have the obligation to advance the interests of the State. Dual mandates, even when not initially at odds with each other, often eventually come into conflict with each other, and State-owned or controlled corporations often don’t even have the profit incentive but are instead subject to politics. See also: the American corporations Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for examples of why they’re a bad idea, although their enterprises are domestic.

This is off topic but since you brought it up, we’re not the free speech absolutists that we believe we are. What we took issue with specifically was the idea of a central government regulating speech, assembly, the press and the establishment of churches. We still had established churches for quite some time, but they were governed by the States, not the United States. Let me quote you the First Amendment:

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Everything you really need to know is in the first five words. It’s a prohibition on Congress, not a grant of rights, and this would later come to be incorporated against the States as well such that their legislatures have the same restrictions. The reason this amendment exists at all was 1. To quell dissent from the Anti-Federalists which campaigned against the Constitution in the ratification conventions and 2. Because then and now, we’re a nation of dissenters. Many of the people that migrated from Europe to the United States were religious dissenters or penal colonists living in exile. I don’t know to what degree you studied the Huguenots in French history, but they made a few attempts to establish themselves, each time French politics seeking their resupply attempts after the initial landing, before receiving a land grant in what is now Brooklyn, and then was part of the New Netherlands.

As a french I completely disagree. These laws are harmful to everyone who dears to speak.

In France, censorship is a real problem for most intellectuals and individual citizens . Assa Traoré, the leading personality protesting against police violence has been repeatedly sued. Charlie Hebdo, the satiric newspaper that was attacked by terrorists who killed 12 people had been repeatedly sued. Eric Zemmour, a right-wing intellectual has also been condemned for speaking. Citizens who have placed a "Macronavirus" (concatenation of Macron, our president and Virus) sign in front of their house have spent a night at the local police station.

"Hate Speech" is a way too broad definition. And the censorship in France is getting bigger and bigger, notably since the highly-controversial Avia Law that forces Social Media platforms to censor "Hate Speech".

All these examples, have been made with non-evil governments. Our current president is a centrist and the last one was a leftist. Now, imagine what could happen when the far-right has to decide what "Hate Speech" is? I don't want to live that, and the Rassemblement National has been rising to dangerous levels.

We would be much better with constitutional and absolute free speech as in the US.

Gonna have to emphasize that bit where I said there are exceptions a bit louder then, but this isn’t one of them. That was an imperialist project prosecuted by United States Military under the direction of the United States civilian government.

I was thinking more about companies that have actually had militaries, the Dutch East India Company being a prime example.

Well let me ask you then. What is the difference between companies lobbying for their own interests, often in competition with other corporate interests, and companies taking marching orders from the State?

I think there’s a difference, but if you don’t think so, why?

These are not even remotely equivalent things.

Advertisers are not a homogeneous block. YouTube et al can afford to piss off some advertisers; if they're pissing off all advertisers, the material is probably extremely objectionable to most humans.

I challenge you to point out an example of content that has been banned from youtube because it offends advertisers, that you really think the banning of which is a significant issue. There's no shortage of material on YT hypercritical of Goldman "Vampire Squid" Sachs.

Whereas there is a long litany of material banned from Chinese networks for obvious political reasons. Furthermore, if you don't like YT's policy, you can use other video sharing sites or even gasp host your own videos. Try doing that in China and see how long it takes for men with guns to show up.

While private corporations also have incentives and private individuals bring their own biases into play, there remain extremely important differences between the capabilities of corporations and states. State actors can effectuate arrests within their own territory, deploy military assets, make territorial claims, conduct assassinations, and generally use their information-gathering and influence to support significantly more violent goals.

Like, I get that the milquetoast world advertisers want to live in is some kind of lens that colors the views and opinions presented by their platforms. It's just that the worst that happens from being influenced by it is it that you live a more boring life and consume more product. That's not nearly as worrying as being influenced to hating racial minorities in an attempt to distract from the South China Sea or something.

The concern is the coordination between Chinese foreign affairs/security services and the commercial sector.

For US-based firms, that’s simply not the case.

Yes, YouTube needs to make sure Nike is happy. But Nike didn’t just kill two dozen Indian soldiers.

Certainly there’s privacy related concerns with US companies - as with Chinese companies. But nobody had accused the DoD of manipulating YouTube search rankings.

If the DoD wants to conduct a YouTube propaganda campaign, they can buy advertising like everybody else.

>> This might be a shock to most people in the western world, but if you go on almost ANY news website in china, the headline news is dedicated to government propaganda.

>> The reality is that Chinese firms and government operates together intimately. Nearly all sizable firms have a party secretary that is involved in board level decisions, and steps in when things get political. You can ponder who has the final say.

> No, I get this, but here's the thing: YouTube and, more specifically, it's advertisers do everything that you're accusing China of. There are material consequences if YouTube doesn't keep in line. What this means is that a status quo that pleases advertisers will be maintained.

You're basically saying: "YouTube has to please group X, TikTok has please group Y. Since they both have to 'please groups,' they're doing the same things!" That's a flawed comparison, because the the devil is in the details: the relevant differences between group X (YouTube advertisers) and Group Y (the Communist Party of China) get obscured when you're reasoning about such high level abstractions.

Here's one difference: the CCP is a totalitarian dictatorship that exerts direct control over Chinese corporations. Youtube, flawed as it is, is not that.

YouTube and, more specifically, it's advertisers do everything that you're accusing China of

YouTube and its advertisers aren't countries, and aren't engaged in recent, deadly military skirmishes with India.

YouTube does simply not send people to concentration camps and torture them for uploading "wrong" videos. They get demonetized. If you don't see the difference I am not sure how to convince you.

Here's the thing, all those corporations you suggest are pulling strings and controlling things do not have a nuclear arsenal or national state security operations. There are material consequences if you do not toe the Chinese party line. As in you can pay for that with your freedom or your life.

YouTube doesn’t have concentration camps.

You're not wrong - and I'm extremely distrustful of the "ends" that commercial interests optimize for - but to be honest I feel like the commercial interests are at least more transparent.

Unless or until they approach the scale of a nation-state (and to be fair, many do) it seems like commercial interests are at the very least clear (and arguably market-driven and subject to competition).

For a specific if arbitrary example: I don't think Facebook values privacy (or YouTube free speech) but that's a side effect of their primary objective. Maybe it's a distinction without a difference, but it sure feels more sinister when the app is purpose built for privacy-invasion or opinion-manipulation.

The difference is that in Canada, I’m Canadian, I can say practically anything I want about the government and nothing bad would happen to me. If I were to be crazy and slander Trudeau calling him a pedophile or something I’d be ostracized socially by many people but I wouldn’t end up in jail. If you really want to test equivalencies I challenge you to fly to Beijing and accuse Xi Jinping of that in public and that would be the last anyone would see of you. The police would probably plant drugs on you and put you in a hole.

And in Canada, corporations are not exactly actors which perform rigid functions outlined by the government.. the liberals, who are currently in power, don’t have party members sitting at the top of companies whose function is to literally oversee compliance to liberal propaganda.

China isn’t quite as bad as western media makes them out to be, I’d argue that in many ways they have been improving and loosening up, but it’s silly to pretend that YouTube is no different than TikTok or that Amazon is no different than Alibaba.

Currently, the advertisers seem to be pulling back from "evil" and have done so in the past.

So they actually have a good influence, redirecting marketing dollars for "marketing" ( since it looks good on the outside).

China doesn't care, they even block Winnie the Pooh.

In China, all headlines are designed to propogate the SAME propoganda. In other parts of the world, all headlines are designed DIFFERENT propagandas.

Not even remotely true. The West has myriad choices to choose from in comparison. I don't think you understand how in sync the media is there. They'll literally run identical stories at the same time on every major network, and publish the same set of stories in their papers day after day.

Is it though? At least you can see different sides, different voices.

Which FAANG has nukes?

One is a private corporation in a relatively progressive and free country, the other is a company controlled by an authoritarian nation-state. There's clearly a difference...

Because one attacked and killed Indian Soldiers, and has a active border dispute with India.

China bans every app ? Xenophobic nonsense ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...

protectionism.

I'd guess that double-standards are inevitable and desired when there is an armed conflict between nations.

If Indian government sees no harm in US apps whilst banning Chinese apps, this is the definition of diplomatic pressure. Asymmetry is the tool used to apply this pressure.

Your point is valid - we have no way to know Facebook algorithms and it is a blackbox, but this isn't supposed to be a symmetric comparison for aforementioned reasons.

Never intended for this to mean it was easy or anything. As you noted already it isn’t always. However this also admits it can be done as I mentioned too.

You can’t pass legislation that makes another government open itself up to transparency though. That’s the fundamental difference

I agree that "shootouts" is the wrong word, but "melee" doesn't quite capture the gruesomeness of human beings beating each other to death with spiked clubs.

20 Indian soldiers died just two weeks ago: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/asia/china-india-border-clash...

It's about harm and risk reduction. All other things held equal, you would expect your enemies to be doing more to undermine you than your allies would.

I can’t say what India’s motivation is for sure. Maybe there’s a credible threat in a way that Facebook isn’t. Maybe it’s just anti-Chinese fervor. But saying anything outside of India should be treated the same is not taking into account geo-politics and individual country’s behaviors.

Using opportunity to actually perform a good thing for privacy (tiktok at least was found snooping all it can from users phones, not sure about the rest but given how chinese run things that would be expected).

No tear will be shed for those apps, regardless from which country they come from (I know this is very targeted due to recent tensions, but its still a step in the right direction re privacy)

Ah, people love to trivialize comparisons and disregard all context, especially intent.

By analogy you're basically equating tortute in order to prevent the detonation of a bomb to torture in order to detonate a bomb.

Yes, ethically all sides are compromised but as things stand they are by no means all the same.

Also, no one included SA as part of the West.

> refer handwaveingly as "western"

There is a reason why I used the word hadwaveingly.

>B) If the "western world" is the bar, the bar is low.

And yet China manages to fail this low bar stunningly. To the point that they are running actual concentration camps for Muslims. Something no Western government has done, and the last one to do finished paying reparations to the victims 4 years ago, 70 years after it happened.

But they are white and Anglos so it is OK.

> The "western world" created PRISM and Five Eyes

What do you think PRISM and Five Eyes are? It is my experience that people who bring them up as huge evils have no idea what they are. They typically think that PRISM allows the NSA to read anybody's email (as opposed to being an ingestion system for data collected by the FBI) and that Five Eyes allows governments to indirectly spy on their own citizens, both of which are ridiculous ideas that are legally impossible.

Trying to draw a parallel between Google and a country that literally tortures and murders its citizens for "unsanctioned beliefs" is disingenuous. Cut the bullshit.

Maybe, but on the surface a lot of moralic values seem to somewhat align.

Also I wouldn't say that YouToube is controlled by an " fascist-lite corporate oligarchy". It something different then fascism, maybe even worse.

It's also off topic in that TikTok being banned doesn't mean YoutToube is better or shouldn't be banned. India just didn't have to fear a militaristic invasion of the US corporate oligarchy...

I'm from a western country and I know for a fact that homicide rate in US is 6 times worse than China

(6/100,000 in US VS <1/100,000 in China)

Maybe US has some problems on its own...

Please do look into what the East India Company did, I'm in no way qualified to list out the very long list of crimes/misdeeds this company did.

But one large difference is that they had a private army and used it to force through their ways in any non EU country.

It is not absurd to say that the East India Company did occupy India like a country would have occupied another country they won against in a war.

They where also one of the main driving force behind the Anglo-Chinese War (see Opium wars).

You probably got the top point on the subject of "Compare the youtube with X, What about youtube they are Y" award with this one in the thread. There are quite a few of them with a spectrum of insanity, but this one is just hilarious.

For one, YouTube does not have a private army.

No one in the entire world with half a brain trusts the US, or any state for that matter. Too much backstabbing. Ask the Kurds.

I would think that the reputation of the creator becomes even more critical when considering a black box algorithm.