Other than the obvious discussions around free speech(very valid points), do we have any real studies on the actual effects of social media? What if social media platforms didn't exist. Would the world have been a better place?
I don't know the answer, but atleast from my observations it feels as if almost every country in the world has moved to the right but by bit. We have moved away from globalization and are into protectionism. Is social media to be blamed for this? I think it has certainly played it's part for sure.
One advantage of social media I see is that it has allowed people to create D2C businesses.
jerome-jh · 35m ago
Social media platforms are no more closed circles. They are platforms for advertisers and "click fishers". And people engage with content which revolt them.
As a consequence social platforms, and low quality newspapers, have converged to show the bad news from all over the world. There is no shortage of them. This affects people's morale, confidence. Have you noticed how people you talk to can be very concerned about seemingly minor events that occurred on the other side of the world, to which they cannot change anything, and which should not change anything in their life?
Turns out today I have cut access to Youtube, Google Play to my 12 years old daughter. Internet is limited to a whitelist of sites, with only Wikipedia for now. She had turned phone addict in an unmanageable way. Blame Youtube and Tiktok. Unfortunately she needs a smartphone for school, she would otherwise have a dumb phone.
Of course there is wonderful content on Youtube. But the "shorts" is a literal trap for kids. As for the adults (well, me) it is just painful to see the list of trending videos, such that I seldom go and never stay. This is a stinky place. Ask the dictator in me and I would say blocking Youtube makes more good than bad.
cosmic_cheese · 1h ago
I don’t think it’s a coincedence that both social media and conservatism thrive on viral fear and outrage. The two are most certainly connected.
The world would probably be a very different place today if instead hope and joy were the bread and butter of Twitter, Reddit, etc.
forgotoldacc · 3h ago
It's pretty strange how the floodgates opened in 2025 and seemingly every government decided to try this to some extent in unison. I wonder what their real reason is for this and how much governments discussed this together.
thisislife2 · 3h ago
It's because the rest of the world has realised how deeply tied Western and Chinese BigTech are deeply tied to US and Chinese intelligence agencies, respectively (surveillance capitalism). The active lobbying made by the US government against data privacy laws (especially to store data locally and not share it with foreign entities) is just one example of a red flag that has lead to this.
(I fully support this move - there is absolutely no way any foreign government should have control and influence over your - communication platform and your media platforms.)
Finnucane · 3h ago
you don’t really need a lot of collusion. Control of the media and communication channels is a natural impulse of authoritarian goverments.
hulitu · 3h ago
> Control of the media and communication channels is a natural impulse of authoritarian goverments.
and of surveillance capitalism. Funny how they collude with one another.
ffjffsfr · 3h ago
People in the west are so used to freedom of speech and so focused on problems with social media. They miss the fact, that many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat. They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.
tensor · 2h ago
People in the west are also incredibly naive about issues around speech, and even more naive about the effects of propaganda, which ironically is what dominates most western media these days.
For example, if you can say a thing, but someone with more money or influence can say the opposite thing so loud that no one can hear you, do you really have a voice? Yes, you have free speech in that you don't get retribution from the government, but you surely don't have fair speech. Effectively you have no voice.
If only your local independent reporter carries a story, and none of the major players do because they coordinate to limit what you see, do you have free speech in practice? When maybe 1% of the population hears the independent reporters, and 99% just listen to the propaganda?
Also as others have said, letting people have free reign to spread both home grown and foreign propaganda is pretty naive and as we've seen in the last several years, has a huge impact.
This is not to advocate for banning speech like you see in many authoritarian governments, but the west needs to be smarter and think deeper about what free speech actually means. At what volume do you get to speak? What consequences to your speech are allowed vs forbidden? Who gets a voice, citizens, everyone in the world including foreign adversaries? Who gets to speak anonymously? Everyone? Just citizens
com2kid · 1h ago
> which ironically is what dominates most western media these days.
Read up on the founding of the US and who funded printing all the propaganda flyers, newspapers, and pamphlets. That stuff wasn't cheap back then!
spwa4 · 1h ago
People who have never seen propaganda in action don't understand: it cannot work (the way these states want it to work) in the presence of real information channels, even if that's just private conversation. That's why socialist states arrest people for just talking privately to an agent about the government.
So yes, you have free speech if major news players coordinate whatever. If on social networks you get banned. Absolutely. That's problem 1 for authoritarian regimes. This is not something any authoritarian nation will relent on even slightly.
Second they have a problem with there being any "players" at all. Because you do get different perspectives, most of which don't match the governments. Compare the news in Israel with the "news" in Russia, or with Al Jazeera and you will see the difference. In Israel, there's maybe 5 major channels. But they hate each other. Pro and contra the war perspectives are represented. In Russia, there is no anti-war perspective. In Al Jazeera there is no one questioning how the government is spending money, there is no discussion on viewpoints, on anything in the middle east. There is no discussion of corruption either, in either Russia or Qatar. None.
This illustrates the problem of propaganda: everyone knows it's bullshit. Every Russian knows Russia is less democratic than a US TSA inspection. Everyone knows everything in Qatar is entirely, 100%, corrupt.
Propaganda will fail, certainly in the eyes of the government, if there is some, any way to get real information. And it doesn't matter if it's not easy. This is how it's always been in the US, because now people have some seriously rose colored glasses on how "true" US newspapers were in the early parts of the 20th century. Reality is that in the US bullshit always dominated the news cycle. This is not new.
giancarlostoro · 1h ago
If free speech in America goes away, the rest of the world will suffer for it as well.
People get worked up about "hate speech" a very arbitrary thing, that changes over time, but they don't realize the slippery slope that creates if you try to police speech.
The things I've seen Australians and even British people arrested for posting or commenting on online is absurd. The people who support it are fine with it, until they're the ones being reported and getting into trouble, and handcuffed for making a one off remark that otherwise seemed innocent at the time.
Remember, these governments eventually can and will use AI models to monitor your speech. People around the world should seriously advocate for free speech more now than ever.
Also remember, the key thing in America about free speech is that the government has no say in what speech is allowed. You still have consequences for your speech from others.
zh3 · 1h ago
Ref. the UK ('British people'), there's currently a thing where peacfully protesting a ban will get you arrested (I have a lot of sympathy for the police in this case, whatever they do will be wrong in the eyes of one side or the other).
What part of the President threatening financial sanctions and jail time for speech makes you think we have this?
To the degree the American experiment has shown anything about free speech, it’s that it may not work uncensored broadly. At the end of the day, we voted against it.
OrvalWintermute · 1h ago
I had a conversation with a talented UK startup developer about a month ago at a defense industry event.
He mentioned wanting to move to the US. I assumed smugly “must be for our business environment or contractual benefits” and said as much.
He quickly responded with his concerns about being arrested for social media posts, and mentioned how many people were being arrested in the UK.
No discussion of anything about where he was on the political spectrum or anything; he was leading with this issue.
When it becomes an issue like this, we’re going to see talent flight to more favorable climates
petralithic · 2h ago
Yes, and it's shocking to see people cheer it on. An oft-heard refrain is about the legal right of the first amendment of the US constitution preventing the government from blocking speech, but that is based on the natural right of freedom of speech, as Hobbes and Locke would differentiate. Social media platforms are at such a scale in the modern day that they are essentially the public square, so the government blocking them is akin to blocking free speech in the legal right itself.
Some might say, you can publish elsewhere on your own domain, but again, it's like barricading the public square and only allowing one to speak in the middle of a forest; if no one but the trees listen, what is the point of the natural right to free speech?
bee_rider · 2h ago
I don’t really think of social media companies as being the public square. They are more like private clubs, just with really low standards for membership.
IMO the bigger problem is the total lack of a public square these days.
The internet is more pseudonymous than we’re used to dealing with, compared to the in-person public square. People behave in ways that would normally cause their acquiescences to use their freedom of association, and avoid them. Online attempts at a public square tend to be pretty annoying, as a result.
bigyabai · 2h ago
> Social media platforms are at such a scale in the modern day that they are essentially the public square
This is a ridiculous assertion.
The local Costco is "at such a scale in the modern day" that it, too, is essentially a public square. It's still private property, though. If you show up in Aisle 6 trying to convert people to Mormonism, a Costco employee will ask you to leave and stop harassing their customers. Yes, the same principle applies to Twitter, Facebook, X, Truth Social and Instagram.
behringer · 2h ago
True but you can speak out in front of the Costco. There's no equivalent for fb.
fecal_henge · 2h ago
I think they also own the land out in front of the shop.
davorak · 1h ago
Many places in the USA, but not everywhere, have sidewalks around the parking lot that are going to be publicly owned so you can set up with signs and a megaphone there.
KaiserPro · 2h ago
> They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.
One thing the "west" ie the USA needs to understand (well they'll know very shortly) is that the right to consume propaganda from your countries enemies is not the same as being able to criticise your government for doing a bad job/breaking the law/killing it's own citizens.
Facebook et al is not a neutral platform, it is a vector for other states, and non state actors to whip up outrage and division.
> many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat
Yup, because it is a threat.
see Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia to name just a few. all have had large scale unrest transmitted and amplfied by facebook. Now are they nice governments? no. did facebook help bring democracy? also no, they helped pinpoint activists and let the government(s) kidnap them.
The indian anti-muslim movement is properly being whipped up by the BJP and others, using facebook to get to the people that don't have TVs. Facebook is a big part in why they are still in power.
davorak · 1h ago
> Facebook et al is not a neutral platform, it is a vector for other states, and non state actors to whip up outrage and division.
I would feel better about this type of activity being regulated. There is quite a bit of room for facebook to live up to higher standards and regulation to prevent that sort of behavior with out banning.
Might also be more a of a hassle to write and enforce the laws though than out right banning though.
The result of that for a country with a small market though might be facebook/similar voluntarily leaving the country/market though.
andai · 2h ago
I heard TikTok has a Chinese version which promotes educational content, has time restrictions etc.
The "export" version... not so much.
arcanemachiner · 2h ago
I have also heard (but never verified) this statement. Curious to know if it's true.
em-bee · 4m ago
my general impression is that the greatest concern for china is people getting riled up about anything, and that leading to civil unrest. like what's happening in indonesia right now for example. therefore any kind of content that could get people upset is restricted. so effectively this means no doomscrolling. wechat has something that works like tiktok, and the content there is all positive, uplifting, educational or entertaining. probably just a addictive, mind you, but never once i have seen something that i would want to keep away from my kids.
cproctor · 2h ago
I thought this [1] New Yorker profile of the chief justice of Brazil's Supreme Court was a fascinating and thoughtful analysis of how tech giants interact with less-powerful countries. Surely we all agree that free speech is not absolute (e.g. we could probably agree that there should exist some boundary with respect to libel, threats/violent speech acts, national security, corporations as legal persons with free speech rights, the right or duty of platforms to regulate content, influence of money in politics...) and that therefore states have a legitimate interest in regulating free speech.
The "free speech" of tech platforms also comes with colonial power structures in which the tech company makes these decisions and imposes them on countries.
and the governments of the west are most supportive of authoritarian and military regimes. Why are they silent over what is happening in Pakistan? Pakistan election was stollen by Pakistan army in day light robbery. And what happened before the election is another story. Pakistan is going through worst form of its human right/freedom of speech/democratic abuses since its independence and west seems to be careless. Just because people of Pakistan support a person who is nationalist. So, for them a dictator is better than him.
Democracy/free speech/human rights are tools for west, not a moral high ground. Hypocrisy at its peak. :)
okasaki · 2h ago
Did the UK banning RT.com improve my quality of life?
Winblows11 · 1h ago
Not sure this is correct? It loads for me on Virgin Media broadband connection (although slow), also responds to pings at 70ms.
perching_aix · 2h ago
How would you know if it didn't? You'd be comparing to an alternative future that didn't end up happening.
fecal_henge · 2h ago
Very much so.
ycombigators · 2h ago
And equally, we in the west are so used to genuine free expression of ideas we assume everyone who speaks is real and genuine. Meanwhile, outside actors are weaponising social media to divide us, errode trust and spread conspiracies. There are worse things that banning American media platforms - look at what they are doing to America.
lioeters · 2h ago
> outside actors are weaponising social media
Inside actors are also spreading misinfo, rage bait, propaganda and general degeneracy of culture. They're blaming outsiders while doing the same or even worse.
isaacremuant · 3h ago
What freedom of speech? The "first world countries" in Europe are slowly turning up the surveillance state to not let people online if they don't provide their IDs, they want to surveil every private conversation you have at home, if it uses the internet in any way, they'd love banning encryption, VPNs, etc... but you have freedom of speech? Except when talking about thinks that are deemed "pro enemy" (Russia or whoever it is this time around).
Come on, we're living in extremely authoritian governments that pretend to be something else.
ycombigators · 2h ago
Democracy cannot survive unless we find a way to ensure we know when are listening to the people that are part of our demos and NOT people that are outside of it, actively trying to destroy it.
We had freedom of speech in the west before the Internet. That speech was not anonymous.
isaacremuant · 1h ago
Hahaha. Fuck off with the "it's the enemy bullshit". You'll call people "russians" if they don't agree with your jingoism.
You'll try and get people against wars fired.
Post your name right now. Real name and address. If that's what you want, right?
mkleczek · 2h ago
Anonymity is not a prerequisite to freedom of speech.
Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.
Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.
seneca · 1h ago
> Anonymity is not a prerequisite to freedom of speech.
I couldn't disagree more. The vast majority of papers the founders of the US published to argue against tyrannical government were written anonymously.
> Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.
This is a cliche "think of the children" argument. Stripping away anonymity is a gargantuan problem, and enables authoritarian regimes to punish dissent. Trolls are a very minor problem comparatively.
> Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.
This is essentially saying "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions when you do things I don't like". It's an oxymoron. The responsibilities a free populace have are moral and civil, they aren't about giving away anonymity to governments.
mkleczek · 10m ago
> This is a cliche "think of the children" argument. Stripping away anonymity is a gargantuan problem, and enables authoritarian regimes to punish dissent.
So we agree: authoritarian regimes are a gargantuan problem, not stripping away anonymity.
> Trolls are a very minor problem comparatively.
Online predator almost killed my child - this is not a "very minor problem". At least not for me.
> This is essentially saying "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions when you do things I don't like". It's an oxymoron.
It is not bout things _I_ don't like but things that _we (society)_ don't like. In my country nazi symbols are forbidden in public space and I think it is a good thing.
So yes - "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions".
> The responsibilities a free populace have are moral and civil, they aren't about giving away anonymity to governments.
Why not? There are countries which governments are elected by citizens and are _trusted_ by citizens. Why would I want to be anonymous if I _trust_ people I elected?
isaacremuant · 1h ago
> Anonymity is not a prerequisite to freedom of speech.
That's disingenous bullshit. From the likes of people who use their power imbalance to pretend their propaganda is truth and dissent is dangerous.
"Freedom of speech is ok but what you're doing is different" is the first step
> Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.
You only need to pay attention to history to see what political totalitarianism means when there's no anonymity.
It's way worse than online trolls.
> Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.
Said the dictator, who was accountable to no one. Those who hold the power shield themselves from accountability and want to use it as an excuse to prevent dissent.
mkleczek · 1h ago
Democracy for quite some time thrived in US (and for some shorter time in other western countries) even though there was no anonymity while free speech was guaranteed by the state.
In other words: anonymity is not a solution for lack of free speech. I should be free to say whatever I want without being forced to hide behind a nickname.
Secondly: I think you are happy to not being the target of online violence. I have experience with teens on the brink of suicide caused by it.
isaacremuant · 1h ago
I have experience of people disappeared because of totalitarianism. Your teens on the brink of self harm are peanuts compared to state murder.
Try some other shitty propaganda.
aleatorianator · 3h ago
another read is that they're not banning Facebook nor anything like that
but the Trump administration and the current USG.
it's a move against the American Culture AND government
ToValueFunfetti · 2h ago
This is an enforcement of legislation passed in 2023, so unlikely to be connected to Trump.
e: Well, unlikely to be connected to the current admin; it does target misinfo which was a big media focus surrounding the elections in 2016/2020
ktosobcy · 2h ago
on the grandour... yes, USA is the pinacle of "freedom" whole world should aspire to! /s
IAmGraydon · 3h ago
>They are not banning Facebook to improve quality of life, they want to limit freedom of speech.
Please post your evidence of this regarding Nepal. Also, are you suggesting that Nepal has an authoritarian government? Picking up a book may be helpful, as they literally abolished their authoritarian government in 1990 and their monarchy in 2008.
whatsupdog · 3h ago
Americans: social media is bad! It should be banned.
Americans, after an Asian country does it: free speech!!!
Fade_Dance · 3h ago
It's almost like it's a country of 300 million people with a diverse set of views.
The group that outright wants social media banned in the US, talks down Zuckerberg, etc, by and large will be perfectly fine with other countries banning it if not celebrate it. You have built a strawman.
The "free speech" cohort is largely anti-banning. They want platforms like X, where anything goes, and are often quite militant about their views on this subject.
DangitBobby · 3h ago
I for one think both "social media is bad" and "free speech is important" which puts me in a real bind. Turns out when you let bad faith actors accumulate billions, the outcomes of the systems they create aren't always great.
scrollaway · 3h ago
It's just people here deciding pretty blindly that the two are mutually exclusive, but they're not, any more than eg "Nestle is a bad company" and "I like Nescafe" would be mutually exclusive.
And there's always the question of who gets to be the arbiter of those things.
monkaiju · 3h ago
If the latter were consistent it'd be much more interesting. X banned most large leftist accounts after Musk took over, so like most "free speech" advocates they really mean they want to be able to say hateful rightwing speech.
Bender · 1h ago
I was just thinking the same thing. This looks like a healthy dose of intervention. I am biased however in that I believe smaller groups of people should run their own forums and chat servers to slightly minimize the Corporatocracy social manipulation especially before AI gets a strong foothold. Most have a few geeks in their own social circle that can run a tiny forum and chat server. Less birds of a feather [1]
Social media causes active harm to people, we know that. Social media has also been demonstrably used to help overthrow authoritarian governments. Thus you have a context-dependent dichotomy in how we view it, and if you eschew the context (and pretend it is purely nationalistic / ethnic), it feels a bit like you are intentionally trying to derail an otherwise productive conversation that could be had instead.
KaiserPro · 2h ago
> Social media has also been demonstrably used to help overthrow authoritarian governments.
It triggered the arab spring, but after that its pretty much used to pinpoint activists and destroy them before they get a chance to organise.
Sad to see anti free speech sentiments all over the world. It was constrained to only some areas but now it’s normalized even in places like the UK. I guess with all that’s happening, Nepal doesn’t surprise me.
owisd · 3h ago
Free speech existed before social media, so banning social media can't be any less free speech than how things were then. Also the USA has for decades been an outlier in taking an extreme interpretation of free speech that considers, say, Fox News an acceptable use of free speech. Plenty of countries where the regulator would find Fox News unacceptable rank higher than the USA on freedom & democracy indices, so there was always going to be pushback from other countries if the USA attempted to impose the Fox-Newsification of social media on others.
mopenstein · 57m ago
Freedom of speech existed before almost everything. Before the wheel, before the airplane, before newspapers, before radio and TV, and even before pen and paper. I wonder how much less free we'd feel if those things were banned as well?
mschild · 3h ago
I'm conflicted.
On the one hand, curtailing free speech is a problem and a lot of governments have started doing it to a massive degree.
On the other hand, social networks are a cancer that are used to spread misinformation, steal information, and invade privacy like nothing else before.
In that regard I do believe that banning them is a net benefit to society, but I fear that for the most part it is done out of the wrong intentions with more sinister goals.
busymom0 · 4m ago
> On the other hand, social networks are a cancer that are used to spread misinformation, steal information, and invade privacy like nothing else before.
There're plenty of things far worse than social network which society has found to acceptable for many decades if not centuries. Things like alcohol, carbonated drinks, sugar etc are all consumed by people in whatever amount they want knowingly full well how much damage it might cause them. We don't need a few people baby-sitting our consumption of diet, be it food or information.
Fade_Dance · 3h ago
That has always been a feature of having free speech. If only "good" free speech is allowed, it's not free speech. Much of it is going to be disagreeable to some people's views and/or objectively harmful in some ways. There is allowance for a red line, but it only covers a sliver of the universe. That of course begs the parallel to social media being harmful and over the red line - the equivalent of "yelling fire in a movie theater" - and this worthy of a ban within a free speech framework, but I think that is disingenuous, and it's more like banning harmful political tabloids and misinformation (which is at the root of the history of free speech itself).
Moving the red line of acceptability back essentially results in a China style state controlled system, where maybe social media is allowed, but "harmful" aspects are banned by the state. (An outright band of all social media would be quite a bit more extreme than China).
I'm not saying that the latter is necessarily a bad solution, to be clear. There are benefits and drawbacks to both approaches. I certainly don't have the authority or cultural knowledge to project views onto Nepal. On the other hand, I do feel quite confident in saying that the Chinese state control approach to social media is incompatible with any western democracy that is built with values of freedom and free speech. There are other good options for western democracies though, such as Britain and the BBC (before they went through the privatization wave specifically) - state sponsored options don't have to be the only option, stronger regulations for children, and even strong legal restrictions in certain specific areas like dangerous misinformation on public health (which quite arguably passes the red line test even in a liberal free speech framework) or knowingly making up disparaging statements about other people that hurts them. Of course sanctity of the democratic process itself has always been an area where democracies have tighter regulations, and necessarily so. Now for a country like America especially, most of that may be idiologically "off the table" in the views of some, but if we take a more moderate European democracy for example, when I'm ultimately getting out is that there is a lot of middle ground to explore. Ban vs allow is too black or white, especially after being realistic about the fact that bans don't work - people will move to the next paradigm after TikTok/after VR gains mass scale, etc.
exe34 · 3h ago
this one has nothing to do with free speech though. they want to know who's providing the megaphone. they requested for a named employee to be responsible for what the business chooses to do in their country.
SilverElfin · 24m ago
That’s the strategy Brazil used to stop free speech. They then arrest whoever the representative is when they don’t comply with government censorship.
sonicggg · 3h ago
Ironic to read about free speech here where a bunch of stuff gets "[flagged]" when it does not agree with the hive mind.
perching_aix · 3h ago
i believe a true(tm) free speech platform would allow itself to be flooded with spam. few spaces like that exist sadly, and they're rarely intentional :(
the worst part is that im only half joking.
DangitBobby · 3h ago
Lol. Every fucking forum has people constantly bellyache about the moderation systems. Hivemind is a dead giveaway for thoughtless criticism. It's so tiresome. If it's flagged on HN it's almost always lowest common denominator mindless drivel or flamebait. No one serious would advocate for a system where comments can't be flagged as such.
DaSHacka · 36m ago
You should enable showdead in your user preferences, I think you may be surprised to see what gets flagged.
I think the big issue is new accounts aren't allowed to downvote posts, but can flag them. In effect, the "flag" merely becomes the new downvote, leading to unpopular but relatively high-efffort coments becoming dead and invisible rather than downvoted.
Honestly just switching the two around (anyone can downvote, but only 500+ karma can flag) would go a long way to ensure only actual low-effort posts and spam get flagged, and unpopular posts get downvoted. As it is now, I rarely see an unpopular opinion that was downvoted and isn't already flagged.
"Its free speech when I talk, but if you, someone who says things I disagree with talks, then you're merely an asshole being shown the door"
I wonder what his opinion on pro-Palestinians getting banned on twitter is? Is it different then? What about the canning of Stephen Colbert?
I love these smug posts about how "free speech as a concept only applies to the government censoring people" that were made a couple years ago, where now the same figures are unbelievably opposed to sites like Twitter "excercising their right" to ban dissidents.
Turns out this free speech thing might be a pretty useful ability to have, huh?
perching_aix · 2m ago
> Turns out this free speech thing might be a pretty useful ability to have, huh?
> "Its free speech when I talk, but if you, someone who says things I disagree with talks, then you're merely an asshole being shown the door"
Did you mean to demonstrate this with that strawman of a quote? Not exactly a stellar display of free speech's utility and benefits I'd say.
dyauspitr · 3h ago
Social media is cancer. Let’s go back to expressing free speech in the old fashioned way- at town squares and leaflets.
sobkas · 2h ago
You mean free speech zones...
perching_aix · 2h ago
Yeah, like a "public space" or something.
Dwedit · 2h ago
I heard it was a DNS-based block, and picking any other DNS server would bypass the block.
xyzal · 3h ago
This paragraph should be emphasized.
> The government now requires platforms to register for a license and to appoint a representative who can address grievances. “We requested them to enlist with us five times. What to do when they don’t listen to us?” said Gajendra Kumar Thakur, a spokesman for the ministry.
I wonder what were the platforms expecting, ignoring local government.
You have to play by the rules society agrees on. Or do the companies think they are too big for consequence?
Weren’t only the platforms that failed to register with the government banned? As I understand it, if they comply with the new regulations, they should be unblocked.
egypturnash · 3h ago
Good for them.
perching_aix · 4h ago
I'm doing basically the same, but voluntarily. It's a calmer life. YouTube is still going strong for me though, I have to admit.
geocrasher · 3h ago
Facebook for a couple things, IG for keeping up with friends, sharing pics with friends. And a carefully curated YouTube subscription list. Only stuff that's worth watching: People I can relate to, have no ego, and are just having a good time sharing what they do. I gravitate toward hackaday worthy stuff and off-road exploration type videos. I limit intake of news sites, and instead try to focus on living my own life, accomplishing goals that I have set, and focusing on improving myself so I can help others.
Also, being a Gen-X-er who grew up without any of this stuff, I have to snicker just a little bit at people being up in arms about a ban on things that didn't exist 20-30 years ago. I know there is FAR more nuance to it. I simply found the thought humorous at a simplistic level.
mdp2021 · 2h ago
If it is clear to you that it is simplistic, why do you publish it anyway?
geocrasher · 2h ago
I only mentioned that I know it's simplistic so that the pedants would not attack my character for being so naive. But, I guess it takes more than that to keep the pedants from finding fault.
perching_aix · 2h ago
Why shouldn't they?
mdp2021 · 2h ago
"Hunger in Abysland" // "Ah, right, I just started a diet" // "Immediately I thought it funny to remember that once we also had little to eat"
Appropriateness.
perching_aix · 2h ago
Right. Well, I think they were being perfectly appropriate and that your comparison is asinine: starvation is about as indisputably bad as one can think of, whereas missing out on social media really isn't. Almost as if highlighting that was my damn point, which they then found appreciable, and you clearly didn't.
Coincidentally related is why I withdrew myself from most online community spaces. Pretty much the only alternative to constantly and pointlessly arguing, or being reliant on content sorting and filtering. The latter two of which will constantly receive some (but on occasion a lot?) of commentary about being biased in some way, automatically or manually (how would one know?), fairly or unfairly (according to who?), and repressing dissent or giving a voice (usually both, but never to satisfaction).
geocrasher · 2h ago
My comment was not about suffering, war, starvation, or anything of the like. You've clearly added your own context and then judged me for it. Great job.
victor22 · 1h ago
Social media is 2025's opium and we're all on it.
coffeefirst · 47m ago
Yeah. YouTube being both effectively the modern public airwaves and dictated by an engagement algorithm is a big problem.
iancmceachern · 3h ago
Same here,youtube is getting to be more like the rest as time goes on.
mdp2021 · 2h ago
You have simply heavily missed that you are keeping yourself on voluntary diet while the submission context is that, within a complex frame of reasons and regulation attempts, somebody has placed a population on enforced lack of service.
perching_aix · 2h ago
I didn't miss it, but thanks.
pelorat · 2h ago
When something like this happen the companies affected should terminate the accounts of all government officials under the guise "if the population can't use our site, neither can you who work in the government"
One advantage of social media I see is that it has allowed people to create D2C businesses.
As a consequence social platforms, and low quality newspapers, have converged to show the bad news from all over the world. There is no shortage of them. This affects people's morale, confidence. Have you noticed how people you talk to can be very concerned about seemingly minor events that occurred on the other side of the world, to which they cannot change anything, and which should not change anything in their life?
Turns out today I have cut access to Youtube, Google Play to my 12 years old daughter. Internet is limited to a whitelist of sites, with only Wikipedia for now. She had turned phone addict in an unmanageable way. Blame Youtube and Tiktok. Unfortunately she needs a smartphone for school, she would otherwise have a dumb phone.
Of course there is wonderful content on Youtube. But the "shorts" is a literal trap for kids. As for the adults (well, me) it is just painful to see the list of trending videos, such that I seldom go and never stay. This is a stinky place. Ask the dictator in me and I would say blocking Youtube makes more good than bad.
The world would probably be a very different place today if instead hope and joy were the bread and butter of Twitter, Reddit, etc.
(I fully support this move - there is absolutely no way any foreign government should have control and influence over your - communication platform and your media platforms.)
and of surveillance capitalism. Funny how they collude with one another.
For example, if you can say a thing, but someone with more money or influence can say the opposite thing so loud that no one can hear you, do you really have a voice? Yes, you have free speech in that you don't get retribution from the government, but you surely don't have fair speech. Effectively you have no voice.
If only your local independent reporter carries a story, and none of the major players do because they coordinate to limit what you see, do you have free speech in practice? When maybe 1% of the population hears the independent reporters, and 99% just listen to the propaganda?
Also as others have said, letting people have free reign to spread both home grown and foreign propaganda is pretty naive and as we've seen in the last several years, has a huge impact.
This is not to advocate for banning speech like you see in many authoritarian governments, but the west needs to be smarter and think deeper about what free speech actually means. At what volume do you get to speak? What consequences to your speech are allowed vs forbidden? Who gets a voice, citizens, everyone in the world including foreign adversaries? Who gets to speak anonymously? Everyone? Just citizens
Read up on the founding of the US and who funded printing all the propaganda flyers, newspapers, and pamphlets. That stuff wasn't cheap back then!
So yes, you have free speech if major news players coordinate whatever. If on social networks you get banned. Absolutely. That's problem 1 for authoritarian regimes. This is not something any authoritarian nation will relent on even slightly.
Second they have a problem with there being any "players" at all. Because you do get different perspectives, most of which don't match the governments. Compare the news in Israel with the "news" in Russia, or with Al Jazeera and you will see the difference. In Israel, there's maybe 5 major channels. But they hate each other. Pro and contra the war perspectives are represented. In Russia, there is no anti-war perspective. In Al Jazeera there is no one questioning how the government is spending money, there is no discussion on viewpoints, on anything in the middle east. There is no discussion of corruption either, in either Russia or Qatar. None.
This illustrates the problem of propaganda: everyone knows it's bullshit. Every Russian knows Russia is less democratic than a US TSA inspection. Everyone knows everything in Qatar is entirely, 100%, corrupt.
Propaganda will fail, certainly in the eyes of the government, if there is some, any way to get real information. And it doesn't matter if it's not easy. This is how it's always been in the US, because now people have some seriously rose colored glasses on how "true" US newspapers were in the early parts of the 20th century. Reality is that in the US bullshit always dominated the news cycle. This is not new.
People get worked up about "hate speech" a very arbitrary thing, that changes over time, but they don't realize the slippery slope that creates if you try to police speech.
The things I've seen Australians and even British people arrested for posting or commenting on online is absurd. The people who support it are fine with it, until they're the ones being reported and getting into trouble, and handcuffed for making a one off remark that otherwise seemed innocent at the time.
Remember, these governments eventually can and will use AI models to monitor your speech. People around the world should seriously advocate for free speech more now than ever.
Also remember, the key thing in America about free speech is that the government has no say in what speech is allowed. You still have consequences for your speech from others.
[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rvly00440o
What part of the President threatening financial sanctions and jail time for speech makes you think we have this?
To the degree the American experiment has shown anything about free speech, it’s that it may not work uncensored broadly. At the end of the day, we voted against it.
He mentioned wanting to move to the US. I assumed smugly “must be for our business environment or contractual benefits” and said as much.
He quickly responded with his concerns about being arrested for social media posts, and mentioned how many people were being arrested in the UK.
No discussion of anything about where he was on the political spectrum or anything; he was leading with this issue.
When it becomes an issue like this, we’re going to see talent flight to more favorable climates
Some might say, you can publish elsewhere on your own domain, but again, it's like barricading the public square and only allowing one to speak in the middle of a forest; if no one but the trees listen, what is the point of the natural right to free speech?
IMO the bigger problem is the total lack of a public square these days.
The internet is more pseudonymous than we’re used to dealing with, compared to the in-person public square. People behave in ways that would normally cause their acquiescences to use their freedom of association, and avoid them. Online attempts at a public square tend to be pretty annoying, as a result.
This is a ridiculous assertion.
The local Costco is "at such a scale in the modern day" that it, too, is essentially a public square. It's still private property, though. If you show up in Aisle 6 trying to convert people to Mormonism, a Costco employee will ask you to leave and stop harassing their customers. Yes, the same principle applies to Twitter, Facebook, X, Truth Social and Instagram.
Freedom of speech is great, but not if its used by your neighbours to stir up trouble. (the civil war was long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepalese_Civil_War)
One thing the "west" ie the USA needs to understand (well they'll know very shortly) is that the right to consume propaganda from your countries enemies is not the same as being able to criticise your government for doing a bad job/breaking the law/killing it's own citizens.
Facebook et al is not a neutral platform, it is a vector for other states, and non state actors to whip up outrage and division.
> many authoritarian governments in Asia see freedom of speech in social media as a threat
Yup, because it is a threat.
see Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia to name just a few. all have had large scale unrest transmitted and amplfied by facebook. Now are they nice governments? no. did facebook help bring democracy? also no, they helped pinpoint activists and let the government(s) kidnap them.
The indian anti-muslim movement is properly being whipped up by the BJP and others, using facebook to get to the people that don't have TVs. Facebook is a big part in why they are still in power.
I would feel better about this type of activity being regulated. There is quite a bit of room for facebook to live up to higher standards and regulation to prevent that sort of behavior with out banning.
Might also be more a of a hassle to write and enforce the laws though than out right banning though.
The result of that for a country with a small market though might be facebook/similar voluntarily leaving the country/market though.
The "export" version... not so much.
The "free speech" of tech platforms also comes with colonial power structures in which the tech company makes these decisions and imposes them on countries.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/14/the-brazilian-...
Democracy/free speech/human rights are tools for west, not a moral high ground. Hypocrisy at its peak. :)
Inside actors are also spreading misinfo, rage bait, propaganda and general degeneracy of culture. They're blaming outsiders while doing the same or even worse.
Come on, we're living in extremely authoritian governments that pretend to be something else.
We had freedom of speech in the west before the Internet. That speech was not anonymous.
You'll try and get people against wars fired.
Post your name right now. Real name and address. If that's what you want, right?
Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.
Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.
I couldn't disagree more. The vast majority of papers the founders of the US published to argue against tyrannical government were written anonymously.
> Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.
This is a cliche "think of the children" argument. Stripping away anonymity is a gargantuan problem, and enables authoritarian regimes to punish dissent. Trolls are a very minor problem comparatively.
> Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.
This is essentially saying "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions when you do things I don't like". It's an oxymoron. The responsibilities a free populace have are moral and civil, they aren't about giving away anonymity to governments.
So we agree: authoritarian regimes are a gargantuan problem, not stripping away anonymity.
> Trolls are a very minor problem comparatively.
Online predator almost killed my child - this is not a "very minor problem". At least not for me.
> This is essentially saying "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions when you do things I don't like". It's an oxymoron.
It is not bout things _I_ don't like but things that _we (society)_ don't like. In my country nazi symbols are forbidden in public space and I think it is a good thing. So yes - "freedom needs to come with punishments and restrictions".
> The responsibilities a free populace have are moral and civil, they aren't about giving away anonymity to governments.
Why not? There are countries which governments are elected by citizens and are _trusted_ by citizens. Why would I want to be anonymous if I _trust_ people I elected?
That's disingenous bullshit. From the likes of people who use their power imbalance to pretend their propaganda is truth and dissent is dangerous.
"Freedom of speech is ok but what you're doing is different" is the first step
> Broken lives of people harassed by anonymous trolls on social media are the dark side of anonymity.
You only need to pay attention to history to see what political totalitarianism means when there's no anonymity.
It's way worse than online trolls.
> Freedom must be accompanied by responsibility and accountability.
Said the dictator, who was accountable to no one. Those who hold the power shield themselves from accountability and want to use it as an excuse to prevent dissent.
Secondly: I think you are happy to not being the target of online violence. I have experience with teens on the brink of suicide caused by it.
Try some other shitty propaganda.
but the Trump administration and the current USG.
it's a move against the American Culture AND government
e: Well, unlikely to be connected to the current admin; it does target misinfo which was a big media focus surrounding the elections in 2016/2020
Please post your evidence of this regarding Nepal. Also, are you suggesting that Nepal has an authoritarian government? Picking up a book may be helpful, as they literally abolished their authoritarian government in 1990 and their monarchy in 2008.
The group that outright wants social media banned in the US, talks down Zuckerberg, etc, by and large will be perfectly fine with other countries banning it if not celebrate it. You have built a strawman.
The "free speech" cohort is largely anti-banning. They want platforms like X, where anything goes, and are often quite militant about their views on this subject.
And there's always the question of who gets to be the arbiter of those things.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Xxi0b9trY [video][documentary][44 mins]
It triggered the arab spring, but after that its pretty much used to pinpoint activists and destroy them before they get a chance to organise.
On the one hand, curtailing free speech is a problem and a lot of governments have started doing it to a massive degree.
On the other hand, social networks are a cancer that are used to spread misinformation, steal information, and invade privacy like nothing else before.
In that regard I do believe that banning them is a net benefit to society, but I fear that for the most part it is done out of the wrong intentions with more sinister goals.
There're plenty of things far worse than social network which society has found to acceptable for many decades if not centuries. Things like alcohol, carbonated drinks, sugar etc are all consumed by people in whatever amount they want knowingly full well how much damage it might cause them. We don't need a few people baby-sitting our consumption of diet, be it food or information.
Moving the red line of acceptability back essentially results in a China style state controlled system, where maybe social media is allowed, but "harmful" aspects are banned by the state. (An outright band of all social media would be quite a bit more extreme than China).
I'm not saying that the latter is necessarily a bad solution, to be clear. There are benefits and drawbacks to both approaches. I certainly don't have the authority or cultural knowledge to project views onto Nepal. On the other hand, I do feel quite confident in saying that the Chinese state control approach to social media is incompatible with any western democracy that is built with values of freedom and free speech. There are other good options for western democracies though, such as Britain and the BBC (before they went through the privatization wave specifically) - state sponsored options don't have to be the only option, stronger regulations for children, and even strong legal restrictions in certain specific areas like dangerous misinformation on public health (which quite arguably passes the red line test even in a liberal free speech framework) or knowingly making up disparaging statements about other people that hurts them. Of course sanctity of the democratic process itself has always been an area where democracies have tighter regulations, and necessarily so. Now for a country like America especially, most of that may be idiologically "off the table" in the views of some, but if we take a more moderate European democracy for example, when I'm ultimately getting out is that there is a lot of middle ground to explore. Ban vs allow is too black or white, especially after being realistic about the fact that bans don't work - people will move to the next paradigm after TikTok/after VR gains mass scale, etc.
the worst part is that im only half joking.
I think the big issue is new accounts aren't allowed to downvote posts, but can flag them. In effect, the "flag" merely becomes the new downvote, leading to unpopular but relatively high-efffort coments becoming dead and invisible rather than downvoted.
Honestly just switching the two around (anyone can downvote, but only 500+ karma can flag) would go a long way to ensure only actual low-effort posts and spam get flagged, and unpopular posts get downvoted. As it is now, I rarely see an unpopular opinion that was downvoted and isn't already flagged.
I wonder what his opinion on pro-Palestinians getting banned on twitter is? Is it different then? What about the canning of Stephen Colbert?
I love these smug posts about how "free speech as a concept only applies to the government censoring people" that were made a couple years ago, where now the same figures are unbelievably opposed to sites like Twitter "excercising their right" to ban dissidents.
Turns out this free speech thing might be a pretty useful ability to have, huh?
> "Its free speech when I talk, but if you, someone who says things I disagree with talks, then you're merely an asshole being shown the door"
Did you mean to demonstrate this with that strawman of a quote? Not exactly a stellar display of free speech's utility and benefits I'd say.
> The government now requires platforms to register for a license and to appoint a representative who can address grievances. “We requested them to enlist with us five times. What to do when they don’t listen to us?” said Gajendra Kumar Thakur, a spokesman for the ministry.
I wonder what were the platforms expecting, ignoring local government.
You have to play by the rules society agrees on. Or do the companies think they are too big for consequence?
Also, being a Gen-X-er who grew up without any of this stuff, I have to snicker just a little bit at people being up in arms about a ban on things that didn't exist 20-30 years ago. I know there is FAR more nuance to it. I simply found the thought humorous at a simplistic level.
Appropriateness.
Coincidentally related is why I withdrew myself from most online community spaces. Pretty much the only alternative to constantly and pointlessly arguing, or being reliant on content sorting and filtering. The latter two of which will constantly receive some (but on occasion a lot?) of commentary about being biased in some way, automatically or manually (how would one know?), fairly or unfairly (according to who?), and repressing dissent or giving a voice (usually both, but never to satisfaction).