07.28.20
Gemini version available ♊︎The Internet in 2020 is Really Bad for Free Speech
It used to be possible to surf almost anonymously; now they have ‘free’ Wi-Fi that tracks your MAC address and much more (to hold you accountable)
Summary: It has been getting a lot harder to publish the truth on the World Wide Web because of growing levels of censorship, general demise of journalism as a profession (with special legal protections), and surveillance that’s used to discourage essential speech/communications
THE older days — be it any arbitrary time after the invention of prints or mere language — had information disseminated on papyrus/paper (like newspapers) and in books. It was hard to have stuff retracted or all copies of papers/books recalled. Censorship in the age of the Internet — and Social Control Media in particular — is another matter. See, the Internet was originally made to be robust to nuclear strikes, less so to DDOS attacks (which came much later). Then there’s SLAPP and other methodologies geared towards censorship. The net effect is misinformation or lack of access to accurate information. We’re not talking about fake (as in fabricated) news here but suppressed reports, typically about people with a lot of money and power (and of course legions of lawyers). Over the years we’ve had a number of encounters with them, including two law firms that EPO under Benoît Battistelli hired to bully me and spy on me. António Campinos is the same; he’s still blocking this site and has done so for over 2 years. Campinos is probably what his late father would have fought. If he didn’t die in Africa, he would likely have suffered a heart attack seeing what a dictator his son became, fighting for corporate imperialists.
“The net effect is misinformation or lack of access to accurate information.”We’ve just reproduced 4 blog posts which in a typical fashion a patent troll (through lawyers) tried to water down or altogether remove. The EPO demanded that we remove several blog posts as well. They’re all in tact though. One was unpublished only temporarily (until the dust settled). This was unprecedented for us. We’ll soon publish our 28,000th blog post; the only other post we unpublished (and remains unpublished) is one that conflated one company with another because they have identical names. We weren’t forced to remove it but chose to remove it because of this confusion. That’s one in almost 28,000.
The Internet added the “Web” (WWW) less than 30 years ago and it became a large-scale spying operation
There’s this antiquated notion or false assumption that on the Internet everybody gets a voice; in practice, however, it’s a little more complicated than that because there are multiple levels at which sites can be gagged, blocked, or forced to cease operations. Then there’s stuff like platform liability and corporate profits/shareholders, which motivate Social Control Media giants to censor posts if not terminate entire accounts (along with everything they ever posted).
Web browsers are typically monopolies (Netscape, MSIE, now Chrom*). Even without the WWW there are still cellular networks and the Internet, which are turning into 'Stalin's Dream' in 'Corona Times'.
Free speech in today’s World Wide Web is a complicated subject. It’s worldwide, but it’s mostly controlled by the US; it’s a Web of imperial and corporate censorship. There are multiple levers, ranging from DNS lookups to blacklists (denylists, whatever) and from Web hosts to litigation (or even threats of it). At present, blowback (backlash) associated with censorship is one of the few things that can still make various parties hesitant to muzzle critics. And it’s far from ideal a situation. Free speech Utopia does not mean death threats everywhere; it’s a crime to threaten to kill someone, just as Free software that directly assists crime or encourages criminal behaviour would likely be banned by sites like GitHub. Never mind if GitHub itself is assisting violence actively committed by the state (for profit even!) whilst it distracts us with some “Arctic” fantasy (PR ploy).
“A lot of stuff we publish here is based on material and information submitted anonymously.”Anonymous speech remains very valuable; it’s not just for Internet trolls. Whistleblowers need it too and in that sense anonymous speech can help stop or prevent crime. So the state and its media come up with demonising terms, which insist on accountability no matter the risk of reprisal/retribution from corrupt officials.
The media uses terms like “Dark Web” (or even worse words) for anything that’s not under surveillance; we’re being persuaded to associate privacy with crime
A lot of stuff we publish here is based on material and information submitted anonymously. Are the submitters criminals? No. They typically expose crimes they’re aware of. Corruption thrives when mass surveillance becomes a form of a ‘solidarity’ (as if all states are inherently benign and their exposers are malicious actors, saboteurs). █
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