Comment on US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere
XLE@piefed.social 12 hours ago
The United States already funds the Tor Project, but despite this looking similar at first blush, it’s far more centralized and thus easier to surveil anybody who uses it.
Portal team includes former DOGE member Coristine
Aka Edward Coristine, aka “Big Balls”, aka the guy who helped compromise your social security number, aka the reason the US put stormtroopers into DC.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 11 hours ago
In a world with tightly regulated Internet this might start making sense. Tor and its traffic won’t make it through AI-assisted censorship systems like China’s GFW and Russia’s whatever-it’s-called-but-they’ve-started-breaking-everything-here. While a portal managed by foreign superpower’s government might be allowed simply because of diplomatic pressure.
Not too different from how radio became regulated all over the world.
It’s a shame, but what can you do. We are not demiurges, we are grains of sand flying with the wind and floating with the current. Sometimes we get melted, sometimes split, sometimes wet, cold, hot.
I’m not ashamed of dreaming of a different future and arguing in favor of it many years ago. But I’m also not ashamed to admit I was likely wrong.
XLE@piefed.social 11 hours ago
I’m not sure I follow your logic. If countries are getting more authoritarian and nationalistic, and China is already blocking Tor, why would they feel compelled to not block something that even more blatantly a nationalistic American project?
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 8 hours ago
Because it’s all trade and balance, so it’s probable that such a window into the world (which will have its own censorship) might be allowed. Probably throttled. Probably allowed and throttled depending on some kind of social rating and individual permissions.
Unlike Tor, it’s not escaping censorship, it’s one portal (it’s in the name) somehow allowing access to a few select “free speech” (quotes mandatory no matter how you feel about actual free speech) directions.
USSR had tourist permissions and allowed directions, and friendly socialist countries for which it was easier to get such a permission, and unfriendly capitalist countries for which it was pretty rare and involved state security following you, and so on.
This might be similar.
If you don’t see how something can be divided into levels of access for different citizens, then that’s just lack of imagination. They will think of a way.
XLE@piefed.social 8 hours ago
As I understand it, that’s already the way it is in China, where the working class has to contend with the great firewall, while the capitalist class can enjoy an internet that allows their trade.
It would be pretty funny if the “uncensored” portal provided by the US state, using a logo of Paul Revere, catered exclusively to the elite class, though.