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

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#121

Post by mikestew » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

Dig1t wrote: post #69

tehjoker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People seem not to realize that every action spawns a reaction by the other side, especially extreme ones. All this censoring will almost undoubtably cause some people on the other side to double down, unfortunately. :/

People seem not to realize that every action spawns a reaction by the other side

A change in wind direction would cause a reaction by this "other side". I would argue that the most recent actions are not those of completely mentally well folks who are going to respond well to rational discourse. And I don't think we should take marching orders from the mental delusions of insurrectionists. "I'm not going to do the right thing because the nutters on 'the other side' might take it wrong." Umm, no, I don't think so. We can just arrest the nutters later.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#122

Post by uniqueid » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #96

uniqueid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both spellings of that word are acceptable Because I was quoting a single word, I just typed it into my phone, which 'autocorrected' it. There's nobody, and I mean 'nobody' literally, whose actions I cannot empathize with, if I take into account their limitations and life experiences. It's impractical to do that in everyday life. One would never be able to pass judgement on anybody. And I pass judgement on these dang…

You've had an entire year to understand that people's lives are being wrecked senselessly and needlessly by unprecedented, totally illegal government mandates. The lockdowns caused the madness of the BLM summer, and it caused this thing that happened last Wednesday. People are at their buckling points, and that is a thing ripe for malicious actors to take advantage of. Even you: > drooling, bearded gun-monkeys clambe…

Even that short reply suggests we have very different views on about five big issues. Let's just agree to disagree.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#123

Post by ardy42 » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:31 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.

> Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped.

Both of those things happened. The prosecutors indicted Epstein, but he killed himself before the trial could proceed. The voting system has been audited many times this cycle.

> Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up.

The real issue is "the movement" doesn't like the true result. It doesn't matter to them how fair the process is, they'll reject it unless they get what they want.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#124

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

chalst wrote: post #103

Dig1t wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem not to realize that every action spawns a reaction by the other side, especially extreme ones. All this censoring will almost undoubtably cause some people on the other side to double down, unfortunately. :/

What kind of a follow-up to insurrection constitutes doubling down? Launching a nuclear missile?

[deleted]

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#125

Post by majormajor » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #116

pjc50 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when the right asks, “how do we know that racism and not crime rates belies police shooting disparities?” This question isn't asked in good faith. Besides, it's actually irrelevant; those deaths are statistics. What was demanded was prosecutions of specific police for specific shootings of specific, named people such as Breonna Taylor. It's up to the white community to decide if police shootings of white people are…

> This question isn't asked in good faith. Why not? It seems like a perfectly reasonable question. You have a lot of people who are protesting and some who are even rioting on the pretense that racism is driving police to kill blacks in greater proportion than other races--surely they must have a good reason to think that it's racism and not crime rates or some other factor that correlates with race? It doesn't seem…

The "but what about these stats" question has been asked a million times. Any population-level stats for crime rate, income, education, etc, are affected by unequal starting positions, and in the US those unequal starting positions were enforced by racism in leadership for decades. And in some places still are.

You can't punch someone constantly until they're covered in bruises and then say "look, they aren't in pain because of anything bad anyone did, they just have more bruises."

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#126

Post by spamizbad » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

_ktx2 wrote: post #110

spamizbad wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ashley Babbitt, the woman who was shot by capitol police, was in a polyamorous relationship. So the notion that people are turning to these tactics to free themselves from a perceived left-wing cultural hegemony doesn’t seem likely.

I don't really understand this point other than that you think only left-wing people are polyamorous? The first poly person I ever met in tech was conservative.

My point is I don't find it plausible the mob that attacked the capitol was motivated by liberal college professors or race crime statistics, or various progressive cultural victories. I think it's reasonable to assume a bisexual poly woman would not be concerned with those specific matters to the point where they'd be willing to participate in mob violence to overthrow the government.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#127

Post by belorn » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

djtriptych wrote: post #21

tehjoker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

There are research on the topic of how to deescalate conflict among groups, along lines of race, religion and nationality.

Minimize the displaying of symbols, especially those that symbolize difference in values.

Treat people equally. Same laws, same rules, same methods of handling people.

When there is an absolute need for borders, make the border distinct and obvious.

Symbolic actions of understanding can often be more important than practical actions.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#128

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #95

throwaway894345 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I think these movements are the natural result of pivoting our epistemological institutions from truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy. The right in particular has less reason to recognize these institutions as “truth authorities” as even when the right has a good point (e.g., when the right asks, “how do we know that racism and not crime rates belies police shooting disparities?”) , they can rel…

>Personally I think these movements are the natural result of pivoting our epistemological institutions from truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy. What institutions are you claiming have shifted from "truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy"? It seems to me that the reason these institutions appear more progressive is that American conservatism is becoming less and less in touch with the truth. The…

> What institutions are you claiming have shifted from "truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy"? It seems to me that the reason these institutions appear more progressive is that American conservatism is becoming less and less in touch with the truth.

I think it's a feedback loop at this point, but as for "which institutions", the media and the academy are pretty prominent institutions that have largely come to describe themselves as activist institutions, including making arguments like "objectivity props up the status quo". Obviously these aren't monolithic institutions, and you still have a lot of variety within (especially the academy) with respect to the degree to which they've become progressive orthodoxies.

> The problem is that when these questions are answered "the right" just dismisses the answers as biased.

Again, I posit that's because the media and the social sciences have a track record of progressive bias. If they made a concerted effort over time to demonstrate good faith and a commitment to the truth wherever it leads (as opposed to outright identifying themselves as activists, although their honesty is worth something), I think far fewer on the right would reject a given claim as 'biased'. Even if I'm wrong, it must be something. There are a lot of people arguing that it's hopeless to interact with the right because they're fundamentally worse people or something, but clearly we haven't always had such a large contingent of "the right" who have completely divorced themselves from mainstream epistemology, so something is driving this change, and there's no reason to believe we can't stall or even reverse the phenomenon.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#129

Post by jermeh » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:36 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #26

Opposition candidate Bobi Wine had his home raided by the Ugandan military in the middle of a podcast: https://citizentv.co.ke/news/bobi-wine-cuts-short-interview-... https://www.dw.com/en/uganda-presidential-candidate-bobi-win...

I haven't listened to it yet, so I can't speak on the quality of it, but Spotify is currently running a podcast series titled "The Messenger" about Bobi's efforts here. The two most recent episodes were uploaded yesterday, so the information should be relatively current.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#130

Post by jancsika » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:36 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.

The central problem is this:

Social media in its current form is essentially an enormous, unregulated casino that now encompasses the entirety of the U.S.

This unregulated casino essentially monopolizes people's time and expression through addictive patterns, tested and re-deployed with realtime feedback, pushing people more and more toward destructive ends.

If we're not talking about regulation-- and again, casinos are heavily regulated and most people I've met do not object to the idea of casinos being regulated-- then we're not talking about the core problem.

As for speech:

If there were suddenly an enormous uptick in larger and larger groups of people doing 3-day coke benders, I think it goes without saying that I would defend their right to free speech. But why would I be talking about their free speech in the first place? More to the point-- if the dealers fueling those benders only ever wanted to talk about free speech-- while at the same time doing piecemeal censorship of the most shocking things their addicts say-- shouldn't I surmise it was a cynical, last ditch effort of drug dealers only looking to cash in and avoid responsibility?

Edit: clarification