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Discussion on: Facebook agreed to censor "anti-state" content in Vietnam

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Yufan Lou

I believe will have the effect of users in tightly-regulated countries moving to other platforms for fear of what happened in Vietnam to happen to them.

In tightly-regulated countries, either there are no other platforms to move to in the first place (blocked without even a chance for negotiation), that other platforms are already more tightly-regulated than Facebook (local platforms fully under governmental control), or that they are more vulnerable than Facebook against such coercion (emerging small platforms that can be blocked when reaching a threshold).

The Internet itself is intrinsically unbiased

The Internet is intrinsically biased towards openness and freedom of association. That's what makes censorship especially standout on the Internet.

it gives nations more power than ever in imposing ideologically dangerous regulations on their people.

Nations have the same power before and after this. The whole debacle started with Vietnam blocking access to Facebook, which is already a more powerful move than allowing a compromised Facebook.