The Internet is being censored like never before. No, we are not referring to China, the leading surveillance state when it comes to digital technology. Instead, this is Canada which is basically eliminating news from the Internet.
Of course, the law that went into effect was not framed in this manner. Instead, it is basically a "link tax" where search engines and social media companies are required to pay Canadian news companies to link to their websites.
Like most bills coming out of governments, it has great marketing behind it. They design fancy names like Inflation Reduction Act when it does the exact opposite. Then the talking points refer to things that actually do not have anything to do with the bill. The Remove Your Freedom Act (commonly known as the Patriot Act) is an example of this.
What was not espoused is the fact that this is a way for the Canadian government to censor the information its citizens receive. Not surprisingly, both Google and Facebook blocked Canadian news content.
This is another step that shows the need for something like Hive.
Censorship Resistant
There tends to be claims of censorship on Hive due to voting. The reality is what the Canadian government is doing is true censorship. When this occurs, something is not seen.
With Hive, anything posted can always be found on Hiveblocks. There is another open source block explorer in the works that will add to this. Finally, not all front ends use voting to determine what appears on the site.
In other words, the information is always on-chain.
The fact that Canadian news is being hidden from the population since the search engines are not carrying them is telling. Naturally, this does not apply to the government funded news agency.
Certainly, a case can be made that the citizens of Canada are better off without the majors news outlets. Mainstream media is a dumpster fire for many reasons. The "news" is mostly bogus, with many "conspiracy theories" turning out true.
Nevertheless, when content is effectively prohibited by the government, regardless of what it is, there is problem. Government is not good with power and simply moves to abuse it whenever possible.
That said, we are seeing broadcast media dying. Here is another area where Hive can excel.
Decentralized Media
Hive is becoming a well rounded media platform. While the focus originally was on blogging, we are seeing more medias showing up. This is providing content creators with the tools to provide the information in many different formats.
This is part of a larger trend we are seeing. There are people who have strong following on social media and are able to establish "networks" simply by going direct to their audience.
Technology is bringing the resources to create professional productions to small groups. This is no longer relegated to the major media entities. We have YouTube sports broadcasts that rival talk shows on ESPN.
It is a trend that we will see with Web 3.0. The monetization of content was obviously a problem in the past. Web 2.0 is run by siloed systems. We all know this. The bulk of the profits from the online activity goes to major corporations (or select billionaires). The majority of content creators are earning zero.
A single upvote on Hive that has any rewards tied to it means that one made more on that piece of content than most make from everything they did on social media. Think about that for a second. Even a few cents from a post (or comment) is worth more than most channels on YouTube ever earn.
These people spend hundreds, if not thousands, of hours, developing their videos and receive nothing for it, at least not from the platform.
We need to embrace how revolutionary that is.
Now we have DNS Media forming on Hive. This is designed to take content here to another level.
All of this is happening when broadcast media is encountering issues. This is why what we do each day is vital.
Future Clampdowns
This is conjecture but it is likely that what is taking place in Canada is going to occur elsewhere. The Biden Administration tried something similar before pulling back due to backlash. However, history shows the first attempt is only a "feeler". We can expect the US Government to take another stab at this.
As we see this occurring around the world, what we are building becomes crucial. Anything that has vulnerabilities will be targeted by governments. This means that true decentralization is required. Hive has this, at least for text.
We see SpkNetwork building a protocol for decentralized node systems that can house images, video, and other forms of media. This is another nugget that will help to provide resiliency against governments and their desire to shut down information.
This is shaping up to be a perfect storm. Those platforms that have companies or a few stakeholders will be targeted. We know this. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is already after them. Do not think this is the only agency to operate in this manner.
The governments are going to do all they can to retain control. They face a major challenge due to technological advancement. Since the tools are becoming more powerful, and less expensive, they are available to the masses. This is something that pushing the capabilities further out.
We saw the distribution of content really change with the Internet. Now we are starting to see the content creation realm get altered with more advanced software tools.
All of this is going to cause governments to crack down.
This is why something like Hive becomes more important each day.
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