Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election • Hacker News Board

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#41

Post by dag11 » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

benjohnson wrote: post #32

djtriptych wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I hear these comments I wonder what the recommendation is to shrink the movement. Obviously open conversations did not stop the movement from growing.

Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up.

But it's never enough proof, the goal posts never stop moving. We can't keep playing the game forever, or we'd be paralyzed as a society.

For example, there were two months of audits, recounts, and countless court cases. The skeptics wanted an additional "ten day audit" on top of this, which would have consequences for the transition. After that audit, how do we know they'd have been satisfied? Nothing in the past has demonstrated their ability to be satisfied.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#42

Post by xref » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

slowhand09 wrote: post #2

"US was a a great role model this year. We aspire to silence more dissent and ensure our elections and democracy follow the American Way."

“US was a great role model this year. We aspire to feed our citizens a steady stream of disinformation so they are ready to storm the government and overturn the election if it doesn’t go our way”

Everyone keeps making these same points in every thread, and no minds are changed.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#43

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

benjohnson wrote: post #32

djtriptych wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I hear these comments I wonder what the recommendation is to shrink the movement. Obviously open conversations did not stop the movement from growing.

Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up.

There have been audits of the voting system. They didn't believe them, and they were reported falsely in the media they follow.

It's a cult. It's like trying to convince them that aliens don't exist.

(Epstein would have been prosecuted .. if he hadn't died in extremely mysterious circumstances. Now that's a situation where absence of evidence where evidence should be expected - the security cameras - drives paranoia.)

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#44

Post by root_axis » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #23

vlunkr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a huge exaggeration, I'm sure you'll still find millions of Trump supporters on twitter and facebook.

I’m pretty apathetic about these bannings (so hopefully this comment doesn’t read as support or opposition), but “not all conservatives were banned” does not refute “only conservatives were banned”.

The latter is an obvious lie.

https://twitter.com/blm

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#45

Post by virgil_disgr4ce » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #3

The 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.

"Discussions" sounds very nice. Sure, let's keep those in plain sight. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about calls for organized violence from highly visible people who have massive, massive audiences.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#46

Post by slim » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

antiman0 wrote: post #4

> 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…

It is related to US elections. because dictators in Africa can point to USA when they get criticized. Why should Facebook have the power to police speech during elections in Uganda and not the state of Uganda ?

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#47

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #20

kiba wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's impossible to stop the spread of disinformation completely, no matter what we do

So we shouldn't try at all? It's similarly impossibleto in the near term reduce cancer, Covid or drunk driving deaths to zero. Should stop fighting them?

We have evidence, from de-platforming ISIL, that this method works in reducing radicalization. (A marginalization strategy [1] was found to be more effective.)

I want to embrace arguments promoting the most people having access to the megaphone as possible. But we need to start from a position of facts, not feeling.

[1] https://www.lawfareblog.com/marginalizing-violent-extremism-...

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#48

Post by AndrewUnmuted » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

uniqueid wrote: post #33

eznzt wrote: post #6

Better than doing what we do in the "civilised" world: only banning one side.

civilized I have trouble relating that word to the fresh memory of watching drooling, bearded gun-monkeys clambering on tables in the Capitol chanting 'hang Mike Pence!'

Both spellings of that word are acceptable. Get off of your high horse, especially if you can't even ride it yourself.

Your depictions of the very disturbed, impoverished and desperate people involved in the DC/Capitol building fiasco are heartless, cruel, and completely uncivilized. You clearly have no idea what is going on in their lives, just as so many of them were unaware of what the BLM marches were all about.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#49

Post by amznthrwaway » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

benjohnson wrote: post #32

djtriptych wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I hear these comments I wonder what the recommendation is to shrink the movement. Obviously open conversations did not stop the movement from growing.

Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up.

[dead]

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#50

Post by fangpenlin » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

kiba wrote: post #15

exabrial wrote: post #3

The 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?

Please define disinformation, and who gets the right to decide what's correct? And what if they are wrong? I still remember when experts/ CDC / WHO claimed wearing a face mask is useless. I still remember there was once a time claiming earth not flat is disinformation and could be burned to death alive.