Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 12:26 AM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #94

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #46

I wish there would be a societal awakening in Europe and people would boycott American services. Countries need to reclaim their digital sovereignty if they hope to preserve their culture. Back in college everyone I knew browsed reddit, 9gag, facebook, etc for hours every day. The european youth is getting raised by America and fed its political ideology one meme/discussion thread at a time. It took me a long while t…

I think the problem is language. English offers a far wider platform to engage people, but it also means that discussions/engagements will be dominated mostly by Americans. Computer use also favors using English. As a result, American influence is kind of inevitable. At the same time though, America also feels the influence from all those other cultures.

There's also lots of inertia around English. For better or worse, my default heuristic is that if I read something in Polish that isn't hyperlocal (e.g. country news, or research that's only done here), I'm better off looking for a text on it in English. In my experience, it'll universally be better. People doing best-class work usually do it in English, or are republished in English, due to sheer inertia of the economical and scientific dominance of English-speaking world.

So I for one would not be very interested in more balkanized Internet, simply because this limits my options to mediocre sources, whereas knowing English and having access to a global platform lets me find better material.

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

#192

Post by michaelmrose » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 12:28 AM UTC

tetrometal wrote: post #103

mullingitover wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I feel bad for the people who were duped into doing the ransacking. They thought their leader was telling them the truth. The fact remains that the President gathered tens of thousands of people and, with a torrent of lies, weaponized them into an attack on the United States. Just because it failed doesn't make it any less grave of a crime.

> The fact remains that the President gathered tens of thousands of people and, with a torrent of lies, weaponized them into an attack on the United States. Just because it failed doesn't make it any less grave of a crime. I cannot fathom why you keep saying this. Please present some evidence.

If you believe Trumps claims of malfeasance are true then the burden of proof lies with you. These matters were addressed in courts throughout the nation and 60 lawsuits failed to prove them.

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

#193

Post by jimkleiber » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 12:28 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #172

jimkleiber wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think sometimes we judge events based on the outcomes not on the intent. If one of those people who got inside the building gained access to one of the members of Congress or Vice President Pence and took them hostage or harmed them, would you think that it were closer to a coup attempt? There were reports of how the National Guard seemed to be getting delayed because of not having the approval of, I believe, the P…

For starters, a right-wing coup that kicked off by taking outgoing-VP Pence hostage would be beyond ridiculous. Instead of own goals we'd all be using "Pence-d" as an idiom. If they'd taken Congresspeople hostage that would have been terrorism not a coup. The mob was totally unprepared, unimaginative, achieved no strategic outcomes and half of them are going to be in jail from now to forever. This is a coup in the sa…

Well, if they may have believed that if he didn't certify the election, then Trump would not have been the outgoing President.

Maybe you're right in that the word "coup" is not the most precise one to use, I think what I meant more than anything is that sometimes we see something as less serious violence because the action didn't result in as severe of an outcome as was intended. So maybe not coup, but terrorist attack or insurrection or whatever word portrays the gravitas but aligns better with the meaning of the action.

On a second note, I think we do this a lot in law as well—if I get into a tussle with someone and push them softly and they trip and hit their head and die, I will probably go to prison for much longer than if I repeatedly and angrily punch someone in the face and they don't die. I guess I'm just curious about how that works in our psyche.

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

#194

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 12:29 AM UTC

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 feel that way too. I'd say we're at a precipice of visible exponential growth of Balkanization. Why do I feel so? Possibly because this headline didn't surprise me. My reaction wasn't, "oh, that's horrible!" but "oh, another country doing that". National bans of social media platforms became normalized.

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

#195

Post by jcranmer » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 12:29 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #172

jimkleiber wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think sometimes we judge events based on the outcomes not on the intent. If one of those people who got inside the building gained access to one of the members of Congress or Vice President Pence and took them hostage or harmed them, would you think that it were closer to a coup attempt? There were reports of how the National Guard seemed to be getting delayed because of not having the approval of, I believe, the P…

For starters, a right-wing coup that kicked off by taking outgoing-VP Pence hostage would be beyond ridiculous. Instead of own goals we'd all be using "Pence-d" as an idiom. If they'd taken Congresspeople hostage that would have been terrorism not a coup. The mob was totally unprepared, unimaginative, achieved no strategic outcomes and half of them are going to be in jail from now to forever. This is a coup in the sa…

> For starters, a right-wing coup that kicked off by taking outgoing-VP Pence hostage would be beyond ridiculous.

Are you aware that Trump through Pence under the bus Wednesday morning for being unwilling to use his (nonexistent) unilateral authority to discard electoral votes? In the (brief) time between Trump's speech and the seditious mob's invasion of the Capitol, there was already some commentary about increased threats to Pence's life as a result of the speech. As far as that mob and its supporters are concerned, Pence is a traitor as much, if not more, than the entire Democratic Party.

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

#196

Post by mc32 » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 12:30 AM UTC

franklampard wrote: post #182

mc32 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ransacking through the capitol like imbeciles was very ill advised, but that’s not how a coup is executed. You need dedicated backers [cause oriented willing to sacrifice] high up in the armed forces as well as the intelligentsia. Rag tag groups do not execute coups. That’s a willful exaggeration and further evidence of how narratives tilt people’s thinking. This is the media and social media calling it that -they ca…

> high up in the armed Command-in-Chief not high enough?

Do you mean all he needed to do was set up a con-call with the generals? Holy idiocy, did he fuck it up!

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

#197

Post by trident5000 » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 12:30 AM UTC

alisonkisk wrote: post #150

trident5000 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyway, my point here is not to defend trump. Just to point out that both sides caused riots over the past 6 months with leaders egging them on and 1 side was penalized.

Show me where both sides' leaders egged on rioters.

Id say the biggest thing was the void of dem leadership even acknowledging the riots. I dont have a rolodex of statements but the theme was encouragement of the protests despite them turning into riots time and time again. Thats specifically the reason they even went on for an entire summer. Can look to twitter trends which were never/rarely censored. Flip side is "walkaway" is not even allowed. Perhaps one example is AOC saying "protests are made to make people uncomfortable" If T said something like that after Jan 6 what would the reaction have been? Any sober person sees the double standard. Dont fight me here I'm just pointing out why so many people are pissed.

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

#198

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 12:32 AM UTC

selfhoster11 wrote: post #120

klodolph wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think so, but my guess is as bad as anyone else’s. People have too many family members, coworkers, friends, etc. across country borders. There’s a high cost to cutting your country off from the rest of the internet in any real way. The cost of intercepting / controlling / severing internet communication is high and gets higher as communication volumes get higher, the economy relies more heavy on international…

This was the narrative before Brexit, and yet that didn't ultimately stop it. Game theory rarely helps when the actors aren't perfectly rational, which they aren't.

I honestly don't understand Brexit. My usual assumption when strange things happen in politics is game-theory-compatible: there are strong incentive structures driving the behavior. A roughly equivalent statement: some (possibly large) group of people is going to get rich off it, and they're directly or indirectly driving the change.

But here? I can't point to obvious actors with enough pushing power that would benefit from this. Not on the UK side, at least. Brexit feels to me like a meme that got out of hand and drove behavior that's against everyone's self-interest.

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

#199

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 12:32 AM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #94

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #46

I wish there would be a societal awakening in Europe and people would boycott American services. Countries need to reclaim their digital sovereignty if they hope to preserve their culture. Back in college everyone I knew browsed reddit, 9gag, facebook, etc for hours every day. The european youth is getting raised by America and fed its political ideology one meme/discussion thread at a time. It took me a long while t…

I think the problem is language. English offers a far wider platform to engage people, but it also means that discussions/engagements will be dominated mostly by Americans. Computer use also favors using English. As a result, American influence is kind of inevitable. At the same time though, America also feels the influence from all those other cultures.

I agree completely, language plays a huge part which is why I'm always advocating for a European lingua franca. I've started writing all the learning resources I produce solely in German and French (whereas I'd always write them in English before for the sake of openness) but it's a drop in the bucket. Honestly I don't know how we're gonna get there.

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

#200

Post by design-material » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 12:32 AM UTC

trident5000 wrote: post #104

mullingitover wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I feel bad for the people who were duped into doing the ransacking. They thought their leader was telling them the truth. The fact remains that the President gathered tens of thousands of people and, with a torrent of lies, weaponized them into an attack on the United States. Just because it failed doesn't make it any less grave of a crime.

I'm not really a fan. But I must say, he asked for a protest, not for them to storm the Capital. He probably wanted to stir it up, but never thought it would go that far. I have not seen any explicit tweets where he asked for that. The other thing I want to mention (in demonstrating the two standards) is that the dem leadership cheered on protests in the summer with battle like language which turned into far larger a…

If you're attempting to equate the contexts of systemic, on-going race-based manslaughter to someone fabricating a conspiracy theory (while offering no evidence, threatening other elected officials, rallying supporters, etc) then that is - purely in an academic sense - stupid.