censorship

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Show HN: Distilling DeepSeek into GPT-OSS doesn't transfer censorship. Try it
2 months ago
- Political censorship from a Chinese frontier model (DeepSeek V4 Flash) did not transfer to a US model (GPT-OSS-120B) distilled on financial reasoning data.
- Self-distillation, where the model corrects its own mistakes, achieved the same performance as teacher-distilled models on financial reasoning tasks.
- The resulting 120B model outperforms larger frontier models like Kimi K3 and Inkling at realistic token budgets, with lower cost per query.
- The experiment used a rigorous evaluation framework (LineageEval) with matched pairs and multiple judges to measure censorship transfer.
- The findings suggest that political alignment may not survive distillation through unrelated data, but this may differ with shared initialization.
Help I'm being persecuted
2 months ago
- A major category on Substack involves writers portraying themselves as victims of persecution or censorship.
- Titles like 'DR. BOB’S POLITICALLY INCORRECT HOEDOWN' and 'The Cancelled Gardener' exemplify this trend.
- The text critiques the performance of victimhood, suggesting it is a common rhetorical strategy.
Who Controls the Internet? And should they? - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- Governments like China, Russia, the UK, and the US attempt to control the internet through censorship, legislation, or sanctions, but with varying effectiveness and often limited due process.
- Big tech companies (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple) operate opaque 'kangaroo courts' that arbitrarily block content or services without transparent appeal processes, shifting control away from accountable institutions.
- Increased encryption and privacy measures make it harder for less sophisticated governments to control the internet, but also empower tech firms to hide their actions from users and regulators.
- The speaker warns that unaccountable mega firms are gaining more control over the internet, replacing democratic due process with arbitrary private decisions that can lock users out of essential services.
Orthodox Privilege
2 months ago
- Orthodox privilege: conventional-minded people assume it's safe for everyone to express opinions because it's safe for them.
- Historically, there have always been true statements that would get you in trouble to say.
- It is statistically unlikely that our current era is the first without such unsayable truths.
- Those with orthodox privilege are often sincere, not pretending, in their disbelief.
- Overcoming orthodox privilege requires becoming more independent-minded, not just learning more facts.
- One possible solution is to appeal to politeness: take others at their word when they claim unsayable truths exist.
Indian govt orders GitHub to block Bitchat
2 months ago
- Indian government ordered GitHub to block Jack Dorsey's Bitchat app.
- The order comes amid a crackdown on protests related to the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP).
- India's Cybercrime Coordination Centre claimed the app could evade surveillance and facilitate unlawful assemblies during internet shutdowns.
I Regret Migrating to Codeberg
2 months ago
- The author left GitHub due to enshittification and Microsoft's control, seeking a free, non-profit alternative.
- Codeberg's new terms of service ban LLM-driven and cryptocurrency projects, which the author views as a shift away from freedom.
- The author criticizes Codeberg's argument that solo developers lack community, noting most FOSS projects are one-person efforts.
- The author fears that categorical bans set a precedent for censorship and a slippery slope of ideological enforcement.
- The author proposes a solution: labeling and tiered infrastructure with quotas instead of outright bans.
- Despite not being affected by the bans, the author plans to leave Codeberg due to the way the terms were changed without user input.
I co-founded Wikipedia, but an anonymous mob runs the show – and now I'm banned
3 months ago
- Larry Sanger, Wikipedia co-founder, was permanently banned from editing Wikipedia for attempting reform.
- A small clique of anonymous administrators wields immense power, arbitrarily blocking users without substantive justification.
- Wikipedia's neutrality is compromised by anonymous demagogues, paid editors, and coordinated special-interest groups manipulating content.
- Paid editing and external influence, including from governments and PR firms, raise transparency and ethical concerns.
- The site's governance lacks accountability, with vague rules enforced by intimidating leaders rather than a community charter.
Mexico Speech Laws for Protecting the Powerless Instead Used to Silence Critics
3 months ago
- Well-meaning progressives often argue for speech-suppressing laws to prevent authoritarianism, but history shows these laws are eventually weaponized by the powerful to silence critics.
- In Mexico, laws designed to protect the marginalized, such as against gender-based political violence, are being used to imprison journalists and suppress satire, as seen in the case of politician Mara Chama Villa and Radio Teocelo.
- The chilling effects are widespread, with fines, mandatory apologies, and registry placements used against reporters, while activists and crime reporters also face sanctions under similar laws, leading to self-censorship.
- Such laws are defended as combating unacceptable acts like gender-based violence or terrorism, but their broad application makes them tools for abuse, as no one can oppose them without seeming to support those evils.
- Historical examples, like hate speech laws in Weimar Germany, demonstrate that speech restrictions fail to stop authoritarians and are instead co-opted by them once they gain power, turning laws intended for protection into weapons of oppression.
- The key test for any speech law is to imagine it wielded by the most distrusted politician, as power inevitably shifts, and relying on good actors to hold it first is naive wishful thinking.
- Strengthening elections, institutions, and public education is a more effective way to combat authoritarianism than outlawing speech, which risks abuse by those in power.

censorship

Show HN: Distilling DeepSeek into GPT-OSS doesn't transfer censorship. Try it

Help I'm being persecuted

Who Controls the Internet? And should they? - Bert Hubert's writings

Orthodox Privilege

Indian govt orders GitHub to block Bitchat

I Regret Migrating to Codeberg

I co-founded Wikipedia, but an anonymous mob runs the show – and now I'm banned

Mexico Speech Laws for Protecting the Powerless Instead Used to Silence Critics