Better than doing what we do in the "civilised" world: only banning one side.
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Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election
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Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election
#12> A source in Uganda’s telecom sector said the government had made clear to executives at telecoms companies that the social media ban was in retaliation for Facebook blocking some pro-government accounts. This is probably the interesting bit - a retaliatory move by a regime trying to silence the opposition. I don't think this has too many parallels (except for blocking of accounts) with the current US events, which…
Escalating retaliation between corporations and centers of political power is something that could happen in the US.
It could be argued that FAANG-type corporations are now the centres of political power.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election
#13> A source in Uganda’s telecom sector said the government had made clear to executives at telecoms companies that the social media ban was in retaliation for Facebook blocking some pro-government accounts. This is probably the interesting bit - a retaliatory move by a regime trying to silence the opposition. I don't think this has too many parallels (except for blocking of accounts) with the current US events, which…
>a retaliatory move by a regime trying to silence the opposition. I don't think this has too many parallels with the current US events
You're right, in the US the government doesn't have the right to shut down private businesses because of the political beliefs of the users, so the hard left gets Big Tech to operate as a cartel to do it for them.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election
#14It would be an interesting social experiment to see what happens if twitter turned itself off worldwide for a week.
The tiny fraction of the populous who spend hours a day on Twitter might have panic attacks, the rest of us who realize that Twitter (and social media in general) is a cesspool of toxicity and who never use it would carry on like normal.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election
#15The predictable [and unfortunate] side effect of censorship on private platforms is it creates the illusion that the truth is being covered up. I have no doubts the next surveillance and encryption backdoor bills will be based upon the incidents happening right now. It's far better for society to keep discussions in plain sight, even if they are woefully misguided.
And allow actors to spread disinformation anytime they wanted even though the megaphone was given and then amplified(on engagement metric) by these megacorporations in the first place?
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election
#16It would be an interesting social experiment to see what happens if twitter turned itself off worldwide for a week.
The tiny fraction of the populous who spend hours a day on Twitter might have panic attacks, the rest of us who realize that Twitter (and social media in general) is a cesspool of toxicity and who never use it would carry on like normal.
The bigger effect is that many journalists get their scoops from Twitter. The legacy media would have a difficult time.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election
#17Better than doing what we do in the "civilised" world: only banning one side.
That's a huge exaggeration, I'm sure you'll still find millions of Trump supporters on twitter and facebook.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election
#18Better than doing what we do in the "civilised" world: only banning one side.
Yeah seriously. Also why are they so overly concerned with US elections but not concerned with the elections of 100 other democracies in the world?
Well you have to admit that the US is the 800lb gorilla in the room, at least as far as countries that actually even pretend to hold elections that mean anything.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election
#19The predictable [and unfortunate] side effect of censorship on private platforms is it creates the illusion that the truth is being covered up. I have no doubts the next surveillance and encryption backdoor bills will be based upon the incidents happening right now. It's far better for society to keep discussions in plain sight, even if they are woefully misguided.
The crazy thing is that the Q-Anon people will inevitably see the spate of arrests and censorship as "The Storm" prophecy coming true but in reverse, an "Anti-Storm". I have a feeling this will only make many of them even more committed and possibly now that they can point to something real, could even grow the movement. Crazy stuff.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election
#20The predictable [and unfortunate] side effect of censorship on private platforms is it creates the illusion that the truth is being covered up. I have no doubts the next surveillance and encryption backdoor bills will be based upon the incidents happening right now. It's far better for society to keep discussions in plain sight, even if they are woefully misguided.
And allow actors to spread disinformation anytime they wanted even though the megaphone was given and then amplified(on engagement metric) by these megacorporations in the first place?
Indeed. It's impossible to stop the spread of disinformation completely, no matter what we do. Instead, what we need, is better education on how to parse and digest information we receive from others. To stop taking everything we hear as automatic truth and instead consider all opinions, even if they sounds wrong at first. We need another Age of Reason instead of what we're executing on now.