Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet

#251

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:16 AM UTC

cheese4242 wrote: post #223

anigbrowl wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utter BS, a specious argument we've heard a million times before (often from Larry, who has been here a long time). You should go for a more subtle sty;e, right wing trolls are always endorsing pithiness, perhaps because of Andrew Anglin's fondness for that adjective in his Daily Stormer trolling guides. I'm sure you would not wish to be mistaken for keeping such noisome company.

Sounds like you are the expert. Will have to take your word on it. It's interesting phenomena though, isn't it? Those who praise diversity and immigration the loudest are often those most insulated from it. Why is that? Why don't those people move to those diverse, ethnic neighborhoods they claim to love so much? They seem to only care for the abstract idea of it all, not the reality.

Doesn't sound like anyone I know. Perhaps you have had a different experience.

Re: Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet

#252

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:18 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #224

anigbrowl wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utter BS, a specious argument we've heard a million times before (often from Larry, who has been here a long time). You should go for a more subtle sty;e, right wing trolls are always endorsing pithiness, perhaps because of Andrew Anglin's fondness for that adjective in his Daily Stormer trolling guides. I'm sure you would not wish to be mistaken for keeping such noisome company.

Oh my, have we met? I don’t recall commenting on this particular topic previously, let alone often. I don’t see how my comment would be misunderstood as trolling, to be honest. I’m also far from right wing. My conservative friends, of which I do have a few, give me a hard time for being a lefty, so being called a Nazi is rather perplexing. I do have a bit more exposure to this issue than most Americans, and admittedl…

Thank you for clarifying, and I'm sorry for having misread your position. I do in fact live out these values in very concrete fashion.

Re: Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet

#253

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:20 AM UTC

cheese4242 wrote: post #219

anigbrowl wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your country is a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees then yes, it is your problem whether or not you feel happy about that.

And what will the UN do if we chose not to comply because the original intent of said convention is now being abused as an excuse for mass third-world immigration? No, I'm serious, what will the UN, a cabal of unelected bureaucrats who I have never voted for, do to my country if we don't comply with said convention?

Treaties like are predicated on the will of the signatories to sanction each other for non-compliance, which can take subtle or overt forms. While that by itself is no guarantee of change, it may be that you have underestimated the depth of others' political feelings on the topic.

Re: Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet

#254

Post by utrack » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:20 AM UTC

HNLurker2 wrote: post #250

yorwba wrote: post #122

I recall reading somewhere that internet shutdowns during protests are usually counterproductive. People who were previously only voicing their frustration online or passing the time with entertainment are suddenly left with a lot of free time on their hands. While a shutdown can prevent coordination on the national scale, it can't stop people from taking to the streets and organizing spontaneously. EDIT: Found my so…

Except when Russia does it: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/08/08/russian-s...

They didn't really shut it down for the whole city though - they only took down cell stations for a couple of blocks around the protest; wired connection and cellular for those in the rest of the city was just fine.

Re: Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet

#255

Post by kungito » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:21 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #3

georgeburdell wrote: post #2

Starlink can’t come soon enough. Imagine internet beyond the grasp of control freak governments

> Imagine internet beyond the grasp of control freak governments Radio jammers. There are very few technological solutions to political problems.

An interesting social effect could be that currently by default there is no internet. Then you get a device that provides internet and the government takes it a way. If there was starlink lets say there is internet by default. Then the goverment gets a device to jam that internet and the protestors can take it away. It kind of switches the local on ground dynamic I would say and makes it way more interesting for the protestors. They can occupy jammers like they do airports and get internet back

Re: Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet

#256

Post by sgift » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:31 AM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #245

dwoozle wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iraq is a basket case country whose government is hanging on by a thread. China is a superpower with clear aspirations to unipolar hegemony. They are not comparable and cannot be held to the same standard.

Iraq used to not be a basket case country until it was invaded by the unipolar hegemony.

If you were not part of the governing minority you got brutally suppressed. If you dared to voice a different opinion you got send into prison for a nice round of torture. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The invasion of Iraq was a shit show, but let's not get into history rewriting here: Living in Iraq before the invasion was not some kind of utopia. He was a brutal dictator. And people suffered for it.

Re: Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet

#257

Post by mschuster91 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:36 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #102

markovbot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deploying and maintaining radio jamming devices is _way_ more difficult and expensive than telling an ISP to shut down service.

Depends on the frequencies and types of antennas used. Doesn't take much to disrupt a radio-based service (people do this by accident, that's why RF regulations exist everywhere). It's not that much of an expense for a government to set up a few antennas and make them put out half a megawatt of noise each.

Such antennas however are an easy target for rockets, grenades, IEDs, car bombs... in a riot situation good luck defending the jammers.

Re: Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet

#258

Post by ur-whale » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:40 AM UTC

Merrill wrote: post #108

There will continue to be unrest in Iraq until an all-Shiite government is in control. At the time of Gulf War II under W, the population was about 20% Sunni, 20% Kurdish, and 60% Shiite. So if you disarm the minority ruling Sunni establishment and instead pledge to install a democracy, a Shiite government is the logical conclusion. Since realizing their mistake, the US has attempted to patch together some multi-reli…

>There will continue to be unrest in Iraq until an all-Shiite government is in control.

There will continue to be unrest in Iraq and the rest of the middle-east (and I'm including Israel in this, they are as bad as the others on this point) until A) tribalism and B) religion is taken out of politics once and for all.

A democracy is simply not possible unless it's built on an ethical bedrock that has entirely done away with both of these primitive and childish moral systems.

Re: Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet

#259

Post by 4gotunameagain » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:50 AM UTC

georgeburdell wrote: post #2

Starlink can’t come soon enough. Imagine internet beyond the grasp of control freak governments

Suggesting that revolted populace protesting about basic life amenities will have the ability to purchase and operate a starlink antenna is uneducated at best

Re: Iraq blocks Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Instagram, shuts down internet

#260

Post by divbyzer0 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 7:55 AM UTC

Cui bono?

Whom would benefit from a social media organised protest/riot against the government?

This comes as the Iraqi president Mahdi anounces a potential arms deal with Russia as part of a diverification of strategic allies.

Until now, arms deals were exclusively with US.

Mahdi has campaigned on a theme that US invlovement in Iraq has not been entirely positive.