I never thought I’d see the day when China started to look more inclined to allow free speech than the US. Yet, here we are.
You never thought the country which bombs other countries and kidnaps their presidents would become more restrictive/authoritarian than the one which generally doesn’t?
Seems pretty predictable to me idk. People are so steeped in American exceptionalism mythology.
I know, what China did to Tibet was so wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedhun_Choekyi_Nyima
Edit: oh you were talking about the US. Yes they have also kidnapped leaders and attacked other nations just like China has.
You had to reach back to 1995.
I can reach back to last week.
The point stands, sorry Sinophobe.
China has killed more of it own citizens than the US, please keep apologizing for China.
At least we can both agree the US sucks.
Edit: calling me a sinophobe about a fact just shows you act like a fucking asshole btw.
I have had many candid interactions with real Chinese citizens.
A lot of them have a deep understand of the blood that has been shed and the ethics required to maintain a functioning society. And it’s this ethical and historical understand that leads their quality of life advancements.
Current day China is objectively better than current day US.
Oh so they are proud their government murdered a bunch of citizens and then killed millions more through bad policies and they openly talk about this in their schools and personal life?
I am being facetious so don’t bother answering.
Currently China is pumping out more billionaires than the US, they are also openly selling arms to war torn countries. They are imperialist through and through.
What part of China is better? Because peasants probably aren’t happy with billionaires polluting their environment and the two-tired society they have developed.
You are clearly not objective.
They’re humans, you arrogant prick. Calling people you don’t like peasants certainly proves your point. Way to beat the racism allegations.
[citation needed], don’t forget to include the Civil War in the US’s figures. Let’s also go “per capita” to make it fair.
It wasn’t “about a fact”, it was about your framing of the fact. “Yeah China did this 30 fucking years ago while America has never stopped doing this over the last 30 years, these two entities are equivalent!” It’s less bad when white people do it, right?
I’m not pro-CCP for the record. I’m just realistic about my criticisms, like their restrictive social measures. There is zero doubt they are vastly less of an international menace than the United States.
No citation needed, it is common knowledge how many people died not only from their violent revolution but also policies that led to the great famine. To think all those people died fighting “fascists” just to turn around and embrace fascism is a very sad story.
China is the fourth largest producer of arms. They are actively selling weapons to war torn nations. You are clearly carrying water here.
The US is by far the most destructive nation in the history of the world. No debate from me here.
Don’t bother, he likes to eat his propaganda by the spoonful. China kills 100000000000000000000000000x 10*9 yogurts every minute, etc. Every accusation is an admission of guilt, what they blame China is exactly what the USA has done, still does, and will do
Man you pro-chinese losers are weird and misinformed.
We are not even close
Debatable. The UK is already there, followed very closely by Australia, and then the US.
I can’t find it now but a while ago I read a very interesting article about a guy who worked for the Chinese censorship service, tried to blow the whistle on them violating their own laws and eventually fled the country.
I also read about the wallbleed hack that exposed the sort of data China gathers from internet users as well as how their DNS interception system works to stop users from accessing forbidden domain names.
I think there are definitely many in the UK who WANT China’s level of censorship. But even as the situation in the UK is becoming dire, the scale of internet policing, scope of topics that are censored by the government, and the severity of punishment dealt out are still well behind that of China.
(I remember the guy who fled China being at risk of a 15+ year sentence, for example. Worst I have seen in UK is 4 years… Which is still insane enough to start a riot, but not equal to China).
I agree that the punishment for people breaking those laws in China are way beyond anything in the UK, and probably most other countries. The thing is that it’s happening, that is the problem. Free speech, privacy, the right to disagree and be vocal about it, it’s all being removed, at an alarming speed, and it’s only accelerating.
This is from ‘democratic’ countries, countries that love using the word freedom. We have become so hypnotized with the bullshit on the internet and all the comforts in our lives that we lost sight of what is important. Now the rich and powerful, politicians or corporate, have taken advantage of that willful ignorance, and I say willful because we chose to take the breadcrumbs they gave us in exchange of our freedom and dignity, and now, if we don’t do something fast, the only way to regain any fraction of that will be by swimming on rivers of blood.
That is what I’m concerned about. I’m 51 years old, so I certainly already lived over half of my life. However, younger folks, I think 30 or less today, will have to live most of their lives without any real freedom, just going through their lives existing under the oppression of these governments and the mega-rich corporate owners and executives. Having to take whatever they want to give them, and not being able to dissent without certain repercussions, and repercussions that we don’t yet know how hard and bad.
I honestly hope it doesn’t come to that, but go do some research, things all over the world are unhinged right bow, and we’re all living mostly on the decisions of a select few, however they see fit.
It’s grim, but we need to stop trying to cover the sun with one finger and risk being called lunatics when we bring this shit up. I see things happening that I’ve been telling people about for over 10 years, only worse than I thought they would be, and some people are finally starting to see it, however still choose to do nothing about it. Still using windows, Facebook, X, iPhones, buying Samsung phones. It’s wild how we’ve become numb to our own demise.
Chinese governments like speech that is friendly to China. US governments like speech that is friendly to the US.
We call it censorship when a government censors self-criticism, but a big part of that calculation hinges on how much criticism a government is subjected to at any given moment.
If you’re seeing a lot of Chinese criticism - and a lot of second-order “China is censoring the criticism!” stories - that’s more often the result of a national media push to divorce the US public and economy from China. If you’re seeing a lot of US self-criticism and resulting domestic government backlash, that’s more often the result of a divided US populace that’s lost sight of it’s Overseas Enemy Cold War fixation.
The day Trump leaves office, you’re going to see a tidal wave of “China Bad!” articles slam into your news feed, like the Red Sea after Moses squeezes it shut again. Then we won’t see “US censorship!” hand-wringing until the political scene starts polarizing again.
if your reporting it, it’s already too late
The 2nd amendment has failed
Anyone who’s been chucked off Reddit knows we’re already there.
slow your roll.
getting kicked off Reddit, a private entity, is not a violation of your free speech.
having FBI agents show up at your door asking threatening questions about your Reddit history is.
Facebook, twitter, YouTube, Google Search, and Amazon Books accepted a vast quantity of secret, backdoor censorship “requests” from the US government, mostly during Biden’s administration. Facebook had a private web portal for requests and bragged about handling millions of requests per year. Private emails with Mark Zuckerberg lament that they have been processing requests that are very clear free speech, and are not even misinformation, such as statements of opinion. Facebook in particular, closed this portal before Trump took office. Reddit is not named in this document but I am personally certain they took similar requests.
Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
You realize you’re citing the absolute most insane fascists right now, right? What you’re saying is likely true, but that document is about the furthest possible thing from a credible source.
your point being?
just because there are insane people doing insane things that break the law doesn’t mean anything. they can blur the lines all they want but at the end of the day banning or silencing people on a privately owned platform does not violate constitutional rights.
and if Reddit is silencing voices based on requests from the federal government, that still amounts to Reddit executing their rights as a private platform. they have the right to refuse the request based on the constitutional crisis.
it only becomes a violation of your rights when you can prove the government attacked your right to free speech. anything less is just hearsay.
I’m dead sick of hearing this argument. One, it’s completely legalistic. The holocaust was legal too. Two, it’s incorrect. The government has been in trouble for coercing private entities like this before. I’m sure it would not pass in the current supreme court. They only got away with it for so long because they did it secretly from the public.
Given the choice, this is obviously behavior that should be stopped by legal intervention or possibly green Mario. There was no punishment because the worst of it passed before it was made public, much like nobody got imprisoned for various CIA crimes or whatever. Thats it.
I’m dead sick of hearing this argument.
boo hoo
One, it’s completely legalistic.
That’s because the constitution and the bill of rights are legal doctrines…
The holocaust was legal too.
True, but that was because a fascist government took power and made it legal. so far the current admin hasn’t made things legal, they’re just simply illegally ignoring the laws they are required to uphold.
sorry if that was too…legalistic for you.
Two, it’s incorrect.
so your first point us that the concept of the constitutional violations I described are too legal (assuming you mean logically), and now you’re saying it’s wrong? first time I have ever heard of something being incorrectly legal.
The government has been in trouble for coercing private entities like this before. I’m sure it would not pass in the current supreme court.
am I being punk’d by an LLM right now?
They only got away with it for so long because they did it secretly from the public.
Imagine how many crimes we would know about if our government would come out and openly admit to them 🤣.
Given the choice, this is obviously behavior that should be stopped by legal intervention or possibly green Mario.
I literally cannot even take your opinions seriously anymore. you make reference to Luigi as “green Mario” as if this is Reddit.
you’re still too much of a child to understand how the world works. you’re probably what, early to mid 20s? you lack proper perspective that only life experience and time can teach you. you still have your rose colored glasses on and believe that you have the power to “change the world”. it’s admirable but you feel that way because it’s a social mechanism that has been installed to keep people like you busy spinning your wheels on frivolous bullshit while the wheels spinning the grinder spin on.
justice, like history, is written by the victors. when was the last victory for the righteous? I mean a real legal victory.
Reddit is a community of millions, and I can no longer talk there because they do not like my politics. It is not illegal to do this, I agree entirely. This is not a violation of the constitution. I am not even an American.
But it is a violation of my ability to speak freely, inflicted by a billionaire because he is politically allied with Israel.
The places we treat like public agoras in the modern day are controlled by private citizens, based entirely on their wealth. Zuck, spez, Ellison, Musk, and a few more; these handful of white men control who is allowed to interact in the defacto public arenas of the internet.
Sure, I can come here, and this is exactly why Lemmy and all the other forums of the Fediverse were made. I hope this gets big.
But right now, what opinions and ideas the vast majority of people are exposed to are quietly being limited, so quietly they mostly don’t know.
Is that good? Should I shrug and say “Oh well, it’s a billionaire, not the government, so it’s okay that they have all this power.”?
You are failing to draw a distinction between the 1st amendment and the concept of free speech.
There is no single “concept” of free speech.
Smokescreen. My point is that whatever “free speech” means, it’s not limited to the scope of what’s protected by the US Constitution.
But this is about US companies and US law, not hypothetical philosophy.
No it isn’t. It’s about Reddit. Read up the chain.
Yeah Reddit the private US company that is not beholden to preserving your free speech. That’s the context. Are you functionally illiterate and cannot infer the meaning unless explicitly stated?
I got shadow banned on Reddit for Luigi support and I just got shadow banned on facebook for Albania support this week.
Who bans for Albania support? Wtf did you say?
I got my ability to comment back today. I didn’t get any notifications but I was on all the Albania feeds saying stuff like…✊🏼🇦🇱Albania saving the world, ✊🏼🇦🇱we need a global revolution. Make the guillotine great again! Ect
Albania eh? I see the Wag The Dog timeline is in full swing.
If it’s not the government the. it’s big tech. You can’t even
fuckfrick online anymore.Genuinely, when online ID starts being rolled out, I will no longer be an inside person. I will just have to do woodworking, mechanical, or literally anything else. I refuse to partake in such stupidity.
We will still have centralized/defederated platforms that won’t comply, mesh networks and protocols like i2p but I can absolutely understand wanting out.
Same here. I might end up spending a good chunk of my free time at the local park with a chess board and a music player with two sets of headphones, inviting strangers to play, listen and chat. If they take away my ability to broadcast shitposts and critique of the regime on the internet, I’ll dedicate myself to individually turning my neighbors into angry leftists one long afternoon at a time.
Like, there are other, better ways to get involved, yes; but I’m talking about how I spend my free time, what I do for shits and giggles. This is normally filled with video games and internet shitposting, and so help me the last thing this government wants to do is give more people like me, more free time.
I’ll pitch in. I saw this coming in 2023, sold a lot of PC hardware and pivoted to Cameras and bought some hard drives to fill up with media, and I’ve done tons of hiking, almost every trail on my side of my state and some that aren’t. Picked up pipesmoking, made some buddies there in that community, branched away from the hustle and bustle, started a massive ebook collection and I’ve read anything I can find that doesn’t start with “Nutrition Facts”.
If anyone is worried about the internet, now ain’t the time to worry, now’s the time to get moving and get done what you need done before the gate closes for good.
“we lost?”
Like a piss in the wind, there wasn’t even a fight.
I mean you could shitpost from the park while you wait for someone to play too
not if I have to give someone my ID to shitpost, I’m not
Dude it’s the park. Play chess with each other’s identity as the pot, and you sign in under the loser’s ID if you win
I’m afraid I don’t like to live that dangerously/I’m not that good at chess
would require users to disclose personal information before accessing lawful speech online
That’s a relief, as I fully intend to break whatever law it is and continue discussions with you gentlefolk unlawfully.
The Internet inherently routes around malfunctioning network segments.
Any law like those mentioned will be used to legitimize selective enforcement, only against those who upset the wrong important person.
Stay anonymous and locked down, don’t comment from your point of origin. Don’t use corporate services.
Don’t use corporate services.
The vast majority of the ethernet, cable, and fiber that connects people is owned by a corporation.
I hate this argument because it misses the bigger point that the infrastructure of the internet is not publicly owned but is privately owned by corporations.
Build community LANs that aren’t connected to the internet. Use sneakernets to share information via USB. Use encrypted LoRa for messaging among community members.
Yes, I see a future of two “internets”. One corporate and another for the people. The People’s Internet will be deemed illegal and hunted down. Seems like there’s a movie there somewhere…
A move with a lot of “I’m in”.
HACK THE PLANET!!!
We need an Internet 2.0 invite only. no bots, governments, or companies allowed.
So, like onion?
Onion is good, but it isn’t stopping corporations or bots. It just reroutes traffic and tries to make every user look the same. Onion on top of public infrastructure would be nice.
Meshtastic is not a good type of infrastructure for these kind of workloads though… and I don’t see how we’re going to lay lines as a community, unless it’s sponsored by the government via taxes. What would be the best way to kickstart a network like the Internet, but separate from it?
Edit: Guifi.net is interesting.
Guifi.net is a massive, citizen-driven community telecommunications network primarily based in Spain. Operating as a shared resource, it allows volunteers, local businesses, and municipalities to pool infrastructure and build a free, open, and neutral network outside traditional commercial ISPs.
How it Works
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The Commons Model: Participants agree to the Compact for a Free, Open, and Neutral Network (FONN). You build or connect a node to share connectivity; in return, you get access to the broader mesh network. [1, 2, 3, 4]
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Infrastructure: The network relies heavily on point-to-point wireless links, but also includes widespread fiber optic deployments. [1]
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The Foundation: The Guifi.net Foundation provides governance tools, manages critical infrastructure, and ensures legal operation as a registered telecommunications operator. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guifi.net
[2] https://www.apc.org/en/guifinet
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1389128615003436
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/Barcelona/comments/2is9gf/do_you_guys_know_the_free_wifi_mesh_network/
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The People’s Internet!
…with blackjack and hookers…?
Start downloading and stockpiling all the porn you can!
Way ahead of you
If that headline is true, it’s allresdy too late
Dude you’re already fucked. Have been for decades at this point.
Well, too bad; Donny is good at bad deals.
I guess Heinlein was like armed society is Luigi society or something
They may make their law, but can they enforce it?
Edit2 : I misunderstood the breadth of that bill and you can ignore the rest of my post below. I suggest reading my last comment on this post that links to the EFF report on the No Fakes Act.
Sorry !
The NO FAKES Act create a broad, new right to restrict AI-generated depictions of a person’s voice and likeness — and in the process expose users, creators, platforms, and developers to lawsuits for everyday speech like memes and parodies.
For the other two laws I completely agree that they are dangerous.
But for the NO FAKES act, in my opinion it’s actually a useful one. AI fakes in my opinion serve no purpose and can very easily be used to spread misinformation. And as far as I can tell as long as you meme without using generative AI you can caricature and mock your politics as long as you want.
I’m surprised a community that is very much anti-AI seems to oppose this NO FAKES act ?
Bear in mind that I’m commenting from the perspective of an European so our conception of freedom of speech and its limitations is culturally different.
I’m certain AI fakes will be used nefariously to manipulate voters and if the cost is AI memes, so be it.
It’s too bad this article conflates privacy invading laws with a law restricting the use of generative AI which is pretty much completely unregulated as of now ?
Edit : We have an EU regulation for this type of AI fakes coming into effect in August 2026 for anyone interested :
The EU AI Act is the world’s first comprehensive law on Artificial Intelligence and applies across all EU member states. It doesn’t ban deepfakes but imposes strict transparency obligations to ensure citizens are not unknowingly deceived. It is set to take effect on August 2, 2026.
Without dogging too far, it seems like the law is broadly worded enough to open the door for all sorts of SLAPP-type takedowns, a bit like how DMCA is weaponized against people that don’t have armies of lawyers.
Also, the other source (not the bill itself, mind you, so might be wrong) says “digitally generated”, not “AI generated”, which could be stretched to apply to any image manipulation, like cropping.
Then of course there’s the question of reliably differentiating between AI and non-AI. Which basically means whoever has the biggest legal cannon to fire at the other guy wins.
I tried checking the actual bill and it seems you are correct and its target is not only limited to AI generated fakes but everything digital.
I have now found a summary of the EFF about the NO FAKES act and I’m most likely misunderstanding the breadth of that bill :
https://www.eff.org/files/2024/09/12/2024.11_no_fakes_one_pager.pdf
I almost blindly trust the EFF on these types of questions, they have been an invaluable ressource even in Europe to protect citizens.
I suppose the European approach is probably safer here since it doesn’t limit speech but mandates transparency on AI fakes.
Unless there’s also a flawless system that can decide what is and isn’t AI generated, it will just be used to shut down anything anti government, while keeping pro government slop up. The way EU did it sounds better, but could still be abused in the same manner - just take down anything the government doesn’t like and say it was because they didn’t label it as AI generated, have fun going through the court system trying to prove it wasn’t.
I have since edited my original comment.
AI fakes will always be an issue. Nothing will ever prevent someone from creating AI content and passing it as real. Especially with the complete lack of regulations on AI model makers. At the same time AI fakes are inherently dangerous for democracies in the sense that anybody could anonymously spread misleading fakes all over social network to disrupt the democratic process and it would be very difficult to fight.
I don’t know what solutions we can find for that. I guess we will see in the EU if our approach is effective or not. Or if it is abused to censor speech. Considering our own lawmakers are also digitally illiterate I wouldn’t be surprised if there is loopholes to exploit.
