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Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

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Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#61

Post by stale2002 »

dleslie wrote: post #56
stale2002 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Censorship is the Government stating that person A must not communicate with person B. Your statement is not true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship "Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other…

The key, in the wiki definition, is: > controlling bodies My point still holds. Asking a company to deplatform someone under threat of boycott is not censorship; because no individual user is in control of the platform.

It listed controlling bodies in a list that also contained "private institutions".

So, according to the wiki definition, it states multiple times, all over that article, that private companies can censor people, and it fits with in that definition.

> a company to deplatform

A private institution can absolutely censor people though.

So what you are describing is an individual advocating in favor of censorship.

Here is another quote from the article " It may be carried out by governments or by private organizations either at the behest of government or on their own initiative."

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#62

Post by enedil »

lallysingh wrote: post #44
laurent92 wrote: post #31

> foreign values Not even foreign values. Only subset of foreign values which are only shared by the Silicon Valley. Beyond that, half the US people disagree with Google/Apple/Twitter/Facebook’s non-neutral stance on politics, who weighed their full weight in censoring 50% of the political spectrum. I will not call it the pied piper because Uganda weighs nothing, but the GAFA’s politics are now visible as directly ha…

50% isn't really the right number, is it? Where did you get it? If you're counting people's political beliefs, the popular vote is a good estimator.

I think this was just an approximation. Nonetheless the order of magnitude is right.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#63

Post by amscanne »

lallysingh wrote: post #44
laurent92 wrote: post #31

> foreign values Not even foreign values. Only subset of foreign values which are only shared by the Silicon Valley. Beyond that, half the US people disagree with Google/Apple/Twitter/Facebook’s non-neutral stance on politics, who weighed their full weight in censoring 50% of the political spectrum. I will not call it the pied piper because Uganda weighs nothing, but the GAFA’s politics are now visible as directly ha…

50% isn't really the right number, is it? Where did you get it? If you're counting people's political beliefs, the popular vote is a good estimator.

The popular vote is still ~50% in terms of party split — are you questioning the accuracy or precision of the parent’s 50% figure?

Edit: I wish people downvoting this question would explain. I literally don’t understand and am asking for clarification.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#64

Post by jtr1 »

jedimastert wrote: post #33
tobylane wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I’m enthusiastically against censorship and enthusiastically for deplatforming in cases like Trump? Which makes me strongly dislike the news in the post.

I'm not arguing for or against anything, but those views seem opposed to each other. Can you talk more about how you can allow for any form of de-platforming while also feeling strongly against censorship?

I'd guess you could point at the metaphor implied in the word "de-platforming." Free speech doesn't necessitate that every person gets a stage and a microphone. If we were in a physical auditorium and the president started encouraging violence among the audience, is it a violation of free speech for the theatre to cut his mic?

That said, I'm still conflicted about this. I think it's possible to believe both that 1) there is a material threat of violence from continuing to give the president the equivalent of a giant megaphone, and 2) giving private corporations unilateral decisions-making power over who gets a platform is probably not in the long-term best interests of democracy.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#65

Post by gameswithgo »

laurent92 wrote: post #31

> foreign values Not even foreign values. Only subset of foreign values which are only shared by the Silicon Valley. Beyond that, half the US people disagree with Google/Apple/Twitter/Facebook’s non-neutral stance on politics, who weighed their full weight in censoring 50% of the political spectrum. I will not call it the pied piper because Uganda weighs nothing, but the GAFA’s politics are now visible as directly ha…

left leaning calls to violence get banned on social media all the time, they just were not ever the president doing it so you don’t notice.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#66

Post by dleslie »

stale2002 wrote: post #61
dleslie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key, in the wiki definition, is: > controlling bodies My point still holds. Asking a company to deplatform someone under threat of boycott is not censorship; because no individual user is in control of the platform.

It listed controlling bodies in a list that also contained "private institutions". So, according to the wiki definition, it states multiple times, all over that article, that private companies can censor people, and it fits with in that definition. > a company to deplatform A private institution can absolutely censor people though. So what you are describing is an individual advocating in favor of censorship. Here is…

That's being overly reductive; akin to stating that Christian Mingle censors Atheist or Muslim views because they focus on a Christian market. Or that Steam censors by not approving all content. At that point "censorship" is diluted to have no meaniong beyond curation.

The company is choosing to narrow its market focus; it tried to facilitate person's B and C, but C is forcing them to choose.

That's curation, not censorship.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#67

Post by CivBase »

ajconway wrote: post #38
johndevor wrote: post #16

Time to decentralize everything

Banning (or, more precisely, disturbing operation of) a decentralized service is much easier than a big, important centralized one. You just need to obtain the DNS names or IP addresses of the nodes the same way everyone else does — by participating in the network. This way you can even selectively ban the "bad" nodes. Banning a centralized service like gmail is easier, but then you lose in productivity as 90% of you…

Wouldn't you also have to keep searching for and squashing content mirrors all the time? That seems like a pretty big investment to me.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#68

Post by mc32 »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #42

Does anyone else feel like we’re going down the path of internet Balkanization? Not in any immediate sense, but it seems like a slow rolling type of narrative that we will retrospectively see at the end of the 21st century. I don’t have any _real_ evidence to support this feeling of mine, but occasionally there are blips like this that make me wonder.

I think governments that can will for a couple of reasons. One is to maintain their own narrative, to minimize the influence of foreign players who have little stake in a country. Another is to preserve their own culture and not be overrun by the culture and politics of the service. Another is that these entities can’t be held to account locally.

After witnessing how they used their heft and influence in the US you better believe the likes of India, Russia, China, Nigeria, Brazil, etc., will evaluate their relationships with these services.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#69

Post by im3w1l »

andrewzah wrote: post #15
mimikatz wrote: post #9

If I ran was in charge of a government after watching them all ban Trump's ability to communicate at the same time, I too would think about banning them to protect myself.

Or maybe you could do some introspection and think about what would have to lead up to you being banned? Every politician on twitter has been fine except for 1 particular individual. Nevermind that 1 individual -chose- to use twitter as their primary base of operations, instead of the usual channels.

Africa is Africa, they always do coups and civil wars and shady shit. African leaders know that intervention is just a question of time.

Re: Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube

#70

Post by mullingitover »

laurent92 wrote: post #31

> foreign values Not even foreign values. Only subset of foreign values which are only shared by the Silicon Valley. Beyond that, half the US people disagree with Google/Apple/Twitter/Facebook’s non-neutral stance on politics, who weighed their full weight in censoring 50% of the political spectrum. I will not call it the pied piper because Uganda weighs nothing, but the GAFA’s politics are now visible as directly ha…

> while censoring the 50% rest of the political spectrum

Let's be clear: moderating/banning the accounts of a man and his supporters who invited tens of thousands of people to the United States Capitol, spent hours lying to them about the results of the election, and then weaponized them in an attempt to overthrow the US government is not a case of Twitter crossing some sort of threshold into tyranny.

A grave crime was committed this week, and the wheels of the legal system are dysfunctional enough that the perpetrator wasn't arrested on the spot but instead allowed continued control of the US military and its nuclear weapon arsenal. Just because Twitter is able to act quickly outside the confines of the legal system doesn't mean we're descending into tech tyranny.

I honestly don't want to hear another word about "leftist violence" or "the radical left" now that the right has unapologetically lined up behind the man who fomented a coup attempt.

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