general Doesn't it seem like the internet is becoming worse when it comes censoring stuff?

[AlicornSpell 146]

Over the years, it seems like anything on the internet could get deleted if just one person gets offended by it. It now seems like freedom of speech isn't allowed on most websites anymore. It seems like you can't have a opinion on the internet anymore.  

 

If you get offended easily, then the internet isn't for you. No matter what, you're going to eventually end up reading something on the internet that's going to piss you off. 

 

 

[AlicornSpell 146]

They're doing a good job at stripping away our liberty. Everytime I search for something it's all the same biased one sided mainstream media garbage. I like to view topics from different angles and form my own opinion but it's as if they don't want me to. 

Edited December 19, 2020 by AlicornSpell

[Fluttershyfan94 5,749]

This has been discussed many times actually and presumably you're using google it's been well known they have their own political agenda. Yet there are many other platforms that do not and I believe freedom of speech is very important as well as the freedom of association. However, these are private platforms a private business and as such they do not have to necessarily provide you a platform for freedom of speech. In a sense we just assume they would have to as they are predominately the go to platforms yet regardless most of them do a lot of things that I don't like yet you have to remind yourself these are private companies that can do what they want.

Yet that doesn't mean they should, the internet is very important for freedom of speech and by many considered the last true place where freedom of speech exists that is.

[SasQ 1,380]

Doesn't it seem like the internet is becoming worse when it comes censoring stuff?

Really? You don't say?!

That's because the Internet wasn't created for us to find informtion easier – it was created for easier finding information about us (i.e. mass surveillance & global espionage device). It originated as a military project in D.A.R.P.A., originally to connect a bunch of U.S. research facilities and universities cooperating with the military in a damage-resistant way, and soon started incorporating other subjects, companies, and the wider public, including other countries. And don't let the fact that many areas of the Internet is operated by independent, private companies, misguide you! They are still only the lower layers of bricks in the pyramid of power, because the main protocols and the key infrastructure is still in total control by D.A.R.P.A. and other U.S. government agencies.

For example, they still control the global Domain Name System (DNS) and decide what "street names" belong to whom, and they can easily take your domain away if they don't like what you do (a notable example being Alexandra Elbakyan and her project of freeing scientific knowledge, Sci-Hub, whose domain names are constantly being taken over or shut down, and recently Elsevier even got a court order that grants them ownership over every domain name that contains "sci-hub" or "scihub" in it, even future ones!).

They also still own the core infrastructure that connects the main nodes of the Internet and can monitor all the data that passes through it.

Also, whenever your web browser requests an encrypted connection with SSL/TLS protocol, it needs to connect to so-called Certification Authorities (CAs in short) to get the encryption keys of the server you're trying to connect with, so basically informing the CA that you're trying to access a particular website. Moreover, the CAs are usually cooperating with governments and can inject false keys in return (basically doing a Man-in-the-Middle attack upon you) and then they are able to decrypt all your transmission along the way without you or your peer realizing (you will still see the green padlock icon on your address bar, ensuring you that everything is OK and no one can listen, while in fact they can see everything). And there have been already examples of this trick being used by governments to spy on their citizens, or corporations to spy on their employees. If you look deep enough, you will find them.

If you study the protocols underpinning the Internet carefully enough, you will find a lot of such pesky areas. There are still parts of protocols that are "reserved" and not available to the public. Same thing if you wanted to invent a new protocol, or encryption algorithm, or addressing scheme – they won't just let you use it, because you have to register it first with those "Internet Owners" (organizations such as IANA, ICANN, W3C etc.), and prepare to put a lot of money on the table (and the other half underneath it :q ). Practically impossible unless you're some big corporation like Google.

Those big corporations cooperating with governments with their big money are slowly but steadily taking over the Internet and making it more and more centralized, and less and less free for us in effect, because that's how monopolies work. The less options you have to choose from, and the more dependent you are on one entity, the more power it has upon you. And this will only get worse in the future, because corporations have a particular advantage upon us: money. The more money they squeezed from us (often with the help of governments they pay big mulah for making laws that suits them), the more resources they can afford to do things that will always be impossible for a single human being. Long story short, they pay you for your work and brains when you work for them, and you think that you're the winner, but in reality you will give that money back to them pretty soon, by buying their stuff, paying the taxes, paying your license fees, rents, all that stuff "they" produce (with your own hands) and then sell you for that money. (BTW this includes food.)

The only way for us to get our rights and freedoms back, is to take the matters back into our hands. We need to stop supporting corporations with our money, work, brains etc., and start supporting each other instead. We should stop using their (dis)services that make us more and more dependent upon their products, and start making our own products ourselves and exchange them with others. Same goes with the Internet: it will always be theirs, unless we start building our own Cyberspace, bottom-up. We have those wireless devices, so we should start making a better use of them than just connecting to some corporate Internet providers – we should start building networks with our nearest neighbours instead, just like the good old LANs, and then connect those LANs together into bigger networks that spread over districts, cities, and farther away. Such Internet would be truly ours, because we would be the builders of it. We should also start offering our own web services in it, and thinking on ways to interconnect them with each other and cooperate. Our own instant messaging, our own websites, our own social networks (which would be truly social, because they would be created by the society itself).

Of course this might sound like a pipe dream, because it seems to require a lot of work and knowledge. But such was the original Internet a couple of decades ago, and look how it turned out. It can be done, as long as everyone, including YOU, will start working on it RIGHT NOW. (And if you don't know how, then start working on getting the knowledge required.)  If you won't, then don't count on things to ever change "by their own", because they never do. (The only thing that comes about on its own is mess, a.k.a. entropy :q ). Things change/improve only when people work on them. Every change always starts from a single man (or woman), when other people follow his/her footsteps or develop his/her ideas further. If you want free Internet, better start working on it right now, or else you might not have another chance in the future.

Edited December 20, 2020 by SasQ

[Jedishy 3,549]

3 hours ago, AlicornSpell said:

They're doing a good job at stripping away our liberty. Everytime I search for something it's all the same biased one sided mainstream media garbage. I like to view topics from different angles and form my own opinion but it's as if they don't want me to. 

What liberty is infringed on? You are going to other peoples houses essentially and have to obey their rules for entry. You don't get to dictate terms of service for something you don't own.

1 hour ago, SasQ said:

For example, they still control the global Domain Name System (DNS) and decide what "street names" belong to whom, and they can easily take your domain away if they don't like what you do (a notable example being Alexandra Elbakyan and her project of freeing scientific knowledge, Sci-Hub, whose domain names are constantly being taken over or shut down, and recently Elsevier even got a court order that grants them ownership over every domain name that contains "sci-hub" or "scihub" in it, even future ones!).

No the government does not control domain names. ICCAN does and its a nonprofit not a government entity. 

MY Opinion/Response
I dont agree with many actions taken but that does not mean you get to claim that you have a liberty to soemthing you dont own.