Government censorship and tracking of "toxic content"

[SouthWillRise]

Censorship is "the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security."

Whether the gov uses some interstate commerce or obscenity law to imprison someone for publishing a story or some other technicality in a statute, it is still censorship, just like the GCA and NFA infringe on our Second Amendment rights.

Oh, and some friendly advice, of course you do as you please, but I definitely wouldn't go around preaching this at the range or anywhere else where you aren't anonymous. Just my two cents.

 

[The Heretic]

Oh, and some friendly advice, of course you do as you please, but I definitely wouldn't go around preaching this at the range or anywhere else where you aren't anonymous. Just my two cents.

I am a heretic, a hermit with my own private range, and I really don't give a fig what other people think about my opinions - the older I get, the less I care.

 

[SouthWillRise]

I am a heretic, a hermit with my own private range, and I really don't give a fig what other people think about my opinions - the older I get, the less I care.

None of that makes you sound better in the light you've shown yourself. It's probably good you keep to yourself as a hermit. I imagine talking the way you do about the things you do probably wouldn't make you a lot of friends. And in some places, where the 1A for your type of censorship worries isn't and issue, wouldn't tolerate you at all. Hm, telling this is all you have to say for yourself. Telling indeed.

 

[The Heretic]

Yea, using grotesque child torture pornography as your one and only example in defending free speech and claiming mass censorship (there has to be at least one better example) is definitely one way to go on this topic.

Personally I wouldn't choose that route, but that's me.

I love my 2A, but I'd also prefer violent convicted felons not have easier access to firearms, maybe that makes me anti-2A in your eyes. But for me you using this gross example to defend speech and call censorship does not make me look on you with any favor. I'm totally ok with reducing the amount of child torture porn in any form to zero for the safety and well being of society and children. I guess that makes me anti-1A to you.

but at least I'm not going out of my way to defend it, call me flawed. I'll accept that.

I am not defending child porn, I am defending the first amendment. Just as when the ACLU defended the right of Nazis to have a parade, we must be careful when someone says something is too offensive to defend, because those who want to take away our rights will chew on us around the edges of what is socially acceptable.

My OP was that it sounds like the gov may be looking at ways to control what it feels is "toxic". Now as I said, I did not dig deeper, but what immediately came to mind was what the gov feels is "incitement to insurrection" - starting with the far right and moving towards the center. Along the way, oh, we better disarm those "insurrectionists".

Now I am not "far right" and I did not support Trump - I am a libertarian, and my philosophy is that as long as you do not infringe on someone's rights, I feel you have the freedom to say, do and possess what you wish.

 

[SouthWillRise]

I am a heretic, a hermit with my own private range, and I really don't give a fig what other people think about my opinions - the older I get, the less I care.

I also notice no one here coming to your defense.

I am not defending child porn, I am defending the first amendment. Just as when the ACLU defended the right of Nazis to have a parade, we must be careful when someone says something is too offensive to defend, because those who want to take away our rights will chew on us around the edges of what is socially acceptable.

My OP was that it sounds like the gov may be looking at ways to control what it feels is "toxic". Now as I said, I did not dig deeper, but what immediately came to mind was what the gov feels is "incitement to insurrection" - starting with the far right and moving towards the center. Along the way, oh, we better disarm those "insurrectionists".

Now I am not "far right" and I did not support Trump - I am a libertarian, and my philosophy is that as long as you do not infringe on someone's rights, I feel you have the freedom to say, do and possess what you wish.

Like I said, you chose your example and hill to die on for what you feel censorship is. For me that rubs wrong, there's something off about your whole thing.

I don't care about your political leanings. That matters nothing to me.

Maybe I'm old school, but when people like you show us who they are I tend to believe it. And if I had my way, well let's just say I know a few boys who'd happily join me in doing their duty keeping children and communities safe from predators.

 

[SouthWillRise]

I am not defending child porn, I am defending the first amendment. Just as when the ACLU defended the right of Nazis to have a parade, we must be careful when someone says something is too offensive to defend, because those who want to take away our rights will chew on us around the edges of what is socially acceptable.

My OP was that it sounds like the gov may be looking at ways to control what it feels is "toxic". Now as I said, I did not dig deeper, but what immediately came to mind was what the gov feels is "incitement to insurrection" - starting with the far right and moving towards the center. Along the way, oh, we better disarm those "insurrectionists".

Now I am not "far right" and I did not support Trump - I am a libertarian, and my philosophy is that as long as you do not infringe on someone's rights, I feel you have the freedom to say, do and possess what you wish.

We're done.

 

[bigbearbear]

From what I know of, the "control" aspect for US government is severely limited. These attribution system identify and track content, mostly to see how well they are received in the market.

Being someone who grew up in Singapore, which practices an extreme form of censorship, I can tell you that the experience is very unpleasant. You will not know it if you grew up in the country like I did, but once you start living in other western countries such as Australia and US, it is like waking up from a nightmare which you never knew you were sleeping and dreaming.

Censorship is a terrifying weapon and can be used to control thoughts of citizens who are under the control of government who practice it. Thankfully, this is minimal here in US and I hope no Americans will ever experience the nightmare of living in such an environment.

 

[Lilhigbee]

I didn't come to @The Heretic 's defense because he didn't need it. His points are well-stated and valid. Limiting distribution through commerce laws is censorship just as surely as prohibiting production is. Child porn is an abomination, just as censorship is. Given a choice I would rather have people writing abominable books, than the government enforcing abominable policies. The books I can ignore, the government I can't.

 

[ATCclears]

I concur with @The Heretic and his general sentiment. I've been doing tech and data for a long time.

First, it is not news to anyone that enormous amounts of data are being collected and collated on individuals.

The terrorist events of 9/11 brought us OFAC (or enhancements to it). People may think that they are reported if doing a financial transaction larger than $10K. Sure, but it is much more. Banks are required to report on accounts and ownership. Airlines report on passengers. Healthcare insurers report on members having insurance (yes, I saw this first-hand back in 2009 for a quarterly data dump to the Feds). All of this data goes direct to the Feds.

Cellular providers collect the tower pings (location) for your device, SMS messages (not the message, but the to and from), and even API calls used by an app on your device to a website. On the API calls, it is not the payload but simply that app X on your device called the API abc for the website say baddawg.com.

Then you have Google, Facebook, blah blah blah.

Second, affiliation via data. It's happening now.

It may be direct affiliation (e.g. you entered into the US via your passport, you opened a bank account with your SSN) with a high confidence interval. It may also be indirect affiliation (e.g. ) with a reduced confidence interval. The latter (indirect) is the one to watch - they're getting better at it. Indirect affiliation has Orwellian implications.

If you run a web browser that doesn't block ads or cookies then you may see it too. Go visit a few types of sites, and not long after you'll be seeing ads for relevant content on completely-unrelated sites.

Third, usage of the collated information. It will happen, and it will be used for political purposes.

We saw Lois Learner and the IRS used in 2013 to shutdown non-Democrat organizations. That was easy.

Watch to see how indirect-affiliation data is weaponized in the next five years for political purposes. I don't want it to happen, but somewhere someone will have a wet dream on how to utilize the data for their crusade.

The boiling of the data frog.

 

[The Heretic]

The terrorist events of 9/11 brought us OFAC (or enhancements to it). People may think that they are reported if doing a financial transaction larger than $10K. Sure, but it is much more. Banks are required to report on accounts and ownership. Airlines report on passengers. Healthcare insurers report on members having insurance (yes, I saw this first-hand back in 2009 for a quarterly data dump to the Feds). All of this data goes direct to the Feds.

Cellular providers collect the tower pings (location) for your device, SMS messages (not the message, but the to and from), and even API calls used by an app on your device to a website. On the API calls, it is not the payload but simply that app X on your device called the API abc for the website say baddawg.com.

Then you have Google, Facebook, blah blah blah.

And no POTUS or Congress since 9/11 has reigned in the "patriot act" since, only expanded it.

Second, affiliation via data. It's happening now.

And has been for a while; I am mostly retired now, but I have been writing software for 30+ years. About 15 years ago I worked on a small cog in the apparatus of analyzing data and making sense of it - an ontology/taxonomy repository (classification of data - basically metadata about metadata). Like any technology it is mostly used for good things, like understanding natural language, understanding data (e.g., when someone uses "blue" in a sentence, are they talking about blue paint, blue jeans or blues music), but the government uses it for those same purposes, in surveillance for example.

Affiliation - the s/w architect on the repo team explained to me how he used to work on relationship tracking software for casinos in LV: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/how-to/a5226/4341499/

And how the government uses this along with its huge NSA run ELINT collection to know who talks to who (phone, email, etc.) and extracts financial data to know where money goes, to whom, for what (if possible). The NSA collects huge amounts of data on every electronic transmission, extracts and analyzes that data into a profile on persons of interest. If you have contact with someone who is in their active interest classification, then you are person of interest too, and so on out about 4-7 levels removed depending on various factors/criteria, beyond which you are of passive interest.

But passive or not, the gov knows your interests, your purchases and your habits (including where/when you travel and who you see or talk to) much more so than Google does.

Now for the vast majority of people, we are in the passive category, but should the gov ever decide they want to exert more control, they have the start of the means to do so.

It was the word "control" that made me take notice when the interviewer mentioned "toxic content". It wasn't "track" or "awareness", it was "control". As I said, I am not interested in working on software that is used to that end by the government, and it was alarming. I know the government tracks content, but I was not aware that they were using anything to control it - FB, etc., sure, but not the government. Maybe there is a partnership? I don't know.

As I said, they nibble around the edges of what is socially acceptable. Porn is generally not socially acceptable - most of it has been somewhat legal though, but when the federals took on someone for writing a porn story about children, then I think that was a test case - up until that time, the general legal consensus was that simple text could contain anything, even child porn. Which was why I mentioned it; it is an extreme edge case - not because I was defending it, I was using it as an example.

The other edge cases we have seen so far has been "hate speech" - which verbally can seem threatening, but lately even using certain words in a non-threatening manner has become "hate speech", and we are all seeing the push to transform our language in ways that are increasing becoming controlled politically - and that is a powerful tool. Not that I disagree with some of it, but some of it is just ridiculous IMO. Again, nibbling at the edges. Control.

Worrisome when put in the context of everything else that the government is doing - left or right.

 

[The Heretic]

Another example; 3D printing files. The gov would really like to control those, among other things.

 

[Certaindeaf]

This is just messed up. Video from the WH today. Everything on the internet is opinion but here's the government working with Facebook to quell/steer "misinformation".

 

[The Heretic]

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twitter.com

 

[Provincial]

ATC Clears said:
"Second, affiliation via data. It's happening now.

It may be direct affiliation (e.g. you entered into the US via your passport, you opened a bank account with your SSN) with a high confidence interval. It may also be indirect affiliation (e.g. ) with a reduced confidence interval. The latter (indirect) is the one to watch - they're getting better at it. Indirect affiliation has Orwellian implications.

If you run a web browser that doesn't block ads or cookies then you may see it too. Go visit a few types of sites, and not long after you'll be seeing ads for relevant content on completely-unrelated sites.

Third, usage of the collated information. It will happen, and it will be used for political purposes.

We saw Lois Learner and the IRS used in 2013 to shutdown non-Democrat organizations. That was easy.

Watch to see how indirect-affiliation data is weaponized in the next five years for political purposes. I don't want it to happen, but somewhere someone will have a wet dream on how to utilize the data for their crusade."

Since the Data firms select the ads you "see" they actually are the ones creating many of the indirect-affiliation data links! Using those links to create an excuse to pursue a person is a setup. As Beria said, "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."

 

[Certaindeaf]

ATC Clears said:
"Second, affiliation via data. It's happening now.

It may be direct affiliation (e.g. you entered into the US via your passport, you opened a bank account with your SSN) with a high confidence interval. It may also be indirect affiliation (e.g. ) with a reduced confidence interval. The latter (indirect) is the one to watch - they're getting better at it. Indirect affiliation has Orwellian implications.

If you run a web browser that doesn't block ads or cookies then you may see it too. Go visit a few types of sites, and not long after you'll be seeing ads for relevant content on completely-unrelated sites.

Third, usage of the collated information. It will happen, and it will be used for political purposes.

We saw Lois Learner and the IRS used in 2013 to shutdown non-Democrat organizations. That was easy.

Watch to see how indirect-affiliation data is weaponized in the next five years for political purposes. I don't want it to happen, but somewhere someone will have a wet dream on how to utilize the data for their crusade."

Since the Data firms select the ads you "see" they actually are the ones creating many of the indirect-affiliation data links! Using those links to create an excuse to pursue a person is a setup. As Beria said, "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."

Preach it. I typed in Doggy Style and got nothing but pictures of dogs wearing smoking jackets.

 

[The Heretic]

And then there are still the remnants of the prudish Puritans who think they can legislate "obscene" speech:

Executive summary: guy is arrested for having a decal on his truck that says "I eat A**" or "I eat " and face actual jail time.

 

[kmk1012]

And then there are still the remnants of the prudish Puritans who think they can legislate "obscene" speech:

Executive summary: guy is arrested for having a decal on his truck that says "I eat A**" or "I eat " and face actual jail time.

I saw a guy walking along the road wearing a sweatshirt that said the exact same thing this morning. I thought it was pretty funny (and gross), but to each their own.

 

[Provincial]

Do you suppose that the guy was arrested not for his sticker, but because he told the butcher shop what he had brought in for them to cut up was really a donkey?

 

[Flymph]

Another that comes to mind is the illicit sale of goods and services...

 

[The Heretic]

Do you suppose that the guy was arrested not for his sticker, but because he told the butcher shop what he had brought in for them to cut up was really a donkey?

I didn't catch that, but AFAIK it is not illegal to butcher donkeys or horses? We used to feed our dog horse meat from the local slaughterhouse -she loved it - and in Japan they import horses for restaurants.

Horse meat - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org