It is clearly imperialism pure and simple. The US uses its financial stronghold on internet companies to essentially dictate what is allowed or not in public discuss. You don't need to be very smart to see that Google, FB, Twitter are bound to US norms and regulations (and its surveillance state) and give very little thought to what other countries need/want. If you think this is normal, just think again.

> Google, FB, Twitter are bound to US norms

They're actually bound to (for the US) extreme views popular in a small part of California. Much of the rest of the US is dealing with the same cultural imperialism, and resents it quite a bit. I agree with the rest of your post.

The US government once made a microblogging service called ZunZuneo [1] for Cuba in an attempt to encourage political change there. It failed to achieve its intended outcomes, but is nevertheless quite interesting because the it shows that the US government is well aware of how electronic media has great potential for exerting political influence.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZunZuneo

This is more serious on AppStore / Google Play / Kindle. American companies effectively censor worldwide expression.

Censorship? Surely not! Isn't the USA the land of the free? Freedom of speech and all that?

The craziest part is that these internet companies are using that stronghold to optimize for "engagement" (i.e. flamebait) that looks outwardly bland enough so as not to disrupt the "advertising friendliness" that they seek to push. "Wuhan flu" is bad because some people in Wuhan might get angry and boycott your advertisers' products. "White male cis people are all racist Trump supporters!" (which weirdly enough seems to be most often posted by a white male cis person!) is not going to cause that kind of unwanted reaction so they push it. It's pretty much institutionalized trolling, it just doesn't get acknowledged as such.

> Can you imagine corporate policy of SF or Menlo Park sets what people in Mumbai or Seoul can discuss regarding SARS-Cov-2?

The thing is, for most countries, having the US policy has been far more liberal than what's allowed to be discussed locally. And the set of things you can discuss on social media is far broader than what you can get into the local media discussion. Having SF set policy has (mostly) been amazing for queer liberation, for example.

The downside is incredibly loud, toxic, inorganic propaganda wars. And it really does spread everywhere. I have NYT, WSJ, and Bloomberg blocked on Twitter and still have a very up to date sense of what's happening in US politics. And suddenly there's a big anti-"woke" movement in the UK without anyone bothering to define what they think "woke" is.

tbf the anti-"woke" movement in the UK is the decades old British "political correctness gone mad" meme with an imported name.

I think it has a lot more support than "political correctness gone mad", but maybe that's because I'm older now, and I'm 100% anti-woke.

For some of us from excolonies, this is starting to feel like neocolonialism.

We see our elected leaders bending the knee to the new east India company.

It looks like we have been recolonised before we could decolonise.

> For some of us from excolonies, this is starting to feel like neocolonialism.

Then imagine how it feels for people in countries that were never a western colony -- quite the opposite, under Russia's shoe.

It's like, if some aliens from another descended upon us and forced their morals.

Unlike Western colonialism, Russia/USSR developed the new territories. Look at Central Asia, for example. There were no cities, almost no population, no houses for the most part (other than some primitive clay huts), no education, no medical care, sometimes not even written language. Definitely no any kind of industry.

USSR invested billions to build infrastructure, schools, factories, power plants, hospitals, irrigation systems, etc. in the middle of deserts.

These countries still continue to use Soviet infrastructure. They lack resources (including human resources) to build their own. Not a single big project, even something like a power grid or a new hospital was ever built there since USSR collapse.

Also, under USSR every nation had equal rights, even more, USSR invested into building national schools, publishing books in native languages, promoting national culture (musicians, poets, writers). There was not a single Western country that ever did that in the colonies. E.g. when India was liberated, about 90% of the population didn't know how to write. Some american visiting India in the beginning of the XX century, said that the whole colonial budget for education in India is smaller than budget of one school in New York (I don't want to look for original quote, it should be easy to find).

Now, quite on the opposite, Baltic states and Ukraine made it explicitly forbidden to speak Russian, for example. I don't know where else in the world it's explicitly forbidden by law to speak some language. I think that wasn't even true in Nazi Germany, so they surpassed even their masters (Baltic states and Ukraine supported Hitler and still celebrate soldiers that joined German nazi army)

These are mostly rehashed Soviet propaganda talking points. The Baltics cannot be compared to Central Asian republics, and Soviet occupation was greatly detrimental to the Baltic nations, not to mention unwanted. Much more economic wealth was taken by the Soviet Union than ever received. The Baltics were more than capable of building hospitals, schools, etc and had fine examples of all of these. Many atrocities were committed in the Baltic nations by the Soviet Union (as indeed many atrocities occurred in all parts of the Soviet Union) Indeed, today the 14th of June is the memorial day for the mass deportations from Latvia to the Soviet Union https://www.mfa.gov.lv/en/policy/society-integration/history...

The USSR was quite literally an evil empire which rightfully belongs in the trash bin of history

Also it is not illegal to speak Russian, how ridiculous. Please stop watching whatever garbage TV propaganda you are doing.

This is a nonsensical comparison. Those were constituent republics in a federal system. The US built infrastructure in its “new territories” too. It’s practically unremarkable.

A better comparison would be how the USSR handled its foreign occupations. Like Afghanistan for example, where they managed to kill 10% of the population to prop up a fraternal socialist government.

How many civilians in Afghanistan and Vietnam were killed by US troops? About 10% of Vietnam population at the time, as far as I remember.

Also, USSR didn't try to occupy Afghanistan. It was a pointless war, but reasons for it are not as simple as "prop up a fraternal socialist government" and it wasn't fought to occupy Afghanistan.

Also, where the number "10% of the population" originate from? It definitely seems and exaggeration.

BTW, unlike US, USSR build roads, tunnels, power plants and hospitals in Afghanistan. Some of them are still used today.

> BTW, unlike US, USSR build roads, tunnels, power plants and hospitals in Afghanistan. Some of them are still used today.

The US and allies have done that, with varying results.

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1871/201...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_in_Afghanistan

https://www.wsp.com/en-US/projects/afghanistan-infrastructur...

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/in...

For us, the still colonized, we're used to it.

It is cultural imperialism. Just because the people participating in it do not notice that it is doesn’t make it not so.

Yeah, its a joke:

"… What about Twitter? I have no idea what Twitter is good for. But if it flips out every tyrant in the Middle East, I'm interested." - Michael Rogers, Founder, Practical Futurist; Futurist-in-Residence, New York Times Company[0]

Best thing that could happen is that these centralized social media platforms keep kicking people off, for them to pursue other tools to use that fit their needs better.

[0] http://web.archive.org/web/20140531073143/http://www.cfr.org...

> Can you imagine corporate policy of SF or Menlo Park sets what people in Mumbai or Seoul can discuss regarding SARS-Cov-2?

You don't have to imagine of course, it already does.

Also, last year someone mentioned here that joebiden.info (which AFAICT is just a website with a collection of inconvenient clips and reports on Biden, maybe misinterpreted to fit an agenda in some cases) was censored in Messenger, seemingly worldwide. Crazy stuff.

Was quite shocking the first time my message got blocked.

I am part of autoimmune support groups where plaqunial is a normal treatment. Pre pandemic.

Get constant warnings and fact checks about plaqunial.

Friends regularly have their post “fact checked” of course always by liberal sources.

Full blown 1984 / animal farm these days.

I have stopped posting to Facebook when they would just randomly kill my posts. Just things I thought were funny or sarcastic (all before covid). Now I am just interested in peoples life events. My timeline is devoid of anything.

It’s long past time to start thinking about social media systems as publishing platforms, not communication platforms. You post things there and the companies decide whether or not they want to publish them. As much as we may want them to be neutral pipes like telephones, they are not, and complaining about it is just pissing in the wind. If you want a neutral pipe, use the telephone or email, not social media.

So it’s okay for a handful of companies to control most of the commutation in the country?

Perhaps home / auto loans should he decided on how “truthful” these companies decide you are. Surely no sane country “cough China” would do such a thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

Not saying it is okay, but that it is this way, and we shouldn’t be surprised when publishers exercise editorial control or moderation on their platforms.

If I wrote the N-word here on HN, it would be downvoted until it disappeared, and if not, the mods would disappear it. Is this surprising to anyone? They don’t want that crap here. Facebook doesn’t want its definition of crap there. Twitter doesn’t want it’s definition of crap there. If you want to communicate without a filter, use a communication system without editorial filters.

You seem to be experiencing it right here. People down voting you, your personal experience does not fit their politics.

I wish people always use quotes as in "liberal"

"Plaqunial"/"Plaquenil" seems to be a brand name of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). To some extend this makes it understandable why it is being censored at the moment because the unfounded claims going around that it would help against Covid-19.

This does not mean that it does not have its uses but only that there might be too many people spreading bad medical advice/misinformation at the moment. Combine that with social media' inability to scale content moderation and you end with a blanket ban of the term. This might have gone better for you and your group if these companies could only differentiate if someone is suggesting improper or valid use of HCQ.

So you might consider yourself a victim/collateral damage of an unfortunate coincidence of both Trump spreading misinformation on hydroxychloroquine in the first place and tech's inability to scale moderation and quality of it at the same rate as their growth.

Now why is this comment being downvoted. The last few nooks of the internet are being invaded by thought police.

Unsubstantiated claim, followed by a seemingly unrelated segue into US political commentary.

> Unsubstantiated claim

YouTube among others censored so much content surrounding SARS-CoV-2 (rightly or wrongly, I’ll remain neutral here), Apple and Google’s app stores straight up rejected apps for unofficial COVID info, including quite absurd cases like xscreensaver being rejected for including 3D renderings of the virus, or maybe just the word covid.[1] You really didn’t pay much attention if you’re unaware of these pretty extreme editorial decisions hotly debated last year.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25384689

Edit:

> seemingly unrelated segue

The censored worldwide part is related.

(Also removed a swipe in my edit, it didn’t add anything.)

Removal of SARS-CoV-2 content seemed at my end to be mainly driven by international calls to block disinformation [1], and certainly not driven by US corporate policy as claimed.

Censoring US content worldwide still seems unrelated to exporting America's political culture. Maybe you could make an argument that is hindering the export, or providing a biased view of the export.

[1] https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/counter...

WHO really dragged their feet before admitting that (1) it is a pandemic, (2) masks work and people should use masks, and (3) aerosols are the primary mode of transmission. They have been a notable source of misinformation themselves.

So your evidence that joebiden.info was censored is to point to something completely different that was censored?

That undermines the original claim in 2 ways. First it shows that you don’t have evidence for your original claim. Additionally, it also shows that it’s possible to present evidence for the kind of claim you’re making.

I did not make any “original claim”. You need to start checking who you’re responding to and what arguments they were responding to, not somehow assuming there’s exactly one person on each “side” arguing about only one thing. The “unsubstantiated claim” part I was responding to was clearly about COVID discussions outside the U.S. censored by U.S. corporations.

Also, are you asking for evidence that joebiden.info was censored? Took me half a minute to find: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23110664

It is a very interesting case of perspective. It probably needs a bit of a perspective shift for the typical Twitter political influence to realise that they are, in fact, foreign political interference.

Not that there is anything wrong with American political thought being exported. Would that their methods of free political debate were a little bit more widespread. It is a pity that social media is such a biased sample of the US political world.

> Not that there is anything wrong with American political thought being exported.

I strongly disagree. The vitriol, demonizations, oversimplifications, "every issue has exactly two sides - ours and theirs" limitations of the space of thought, virtue signaling, bullshit / distraction issues, puritanism, etc... There is much wrong with exporting these. These things are happening especially on social media.

There's nothing specifically American about these. It's just the kind of political discourse that gets structurally amplified by social media sites that are clearly maximizing mass "engagement" with posted content.

It's a mix of many things, some of which are more specifically American (e.g. puritanism) and others less (e.g. two-party system effects). Twitter is present everywhere, but the importance it is granted also varies a lot from country to country. That is again local culture.