Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 216 posts

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#201

Post by throwaway894345 »

andybak wrote: post #191
throwaway894345 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a username. I'm probably every bit as active on this forum as you are. Is there something in this thread that makes you think I'm posting in bad faith?

Well. Your username didn't help for a start! EDIT - in hindsight would you like to change your username (leaving aside whether that's even possible or allowed)? Genuinely curious.

I don’t feel super strongly, but I kind of like that people don’t know which “throwaway” I am. They don’t recognize my username from prior conversations, so they’re less likely to think, “Oh that guy agreed with me last time, I’ll give him an upvote or an agreeable comment” or the inverse. People are more likely to consider my arguments on merit, the GP notwithstanding.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#202

Post by throwaway894345 »

andybak wrote: post #189
travisoneill1 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prosecutions aren't something that should be done by mob demand. In the case of Breona Taylor the police were returning fire. You can question whether they should have served that warrant, but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire.

> but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire. The USA seems to have got itself in a very peculiar place with regards to discharge of firearms by representatives of authority. Certainly in the UK and I think on most other western countries, you don't just shoot wildly into a property because someone inside has discharged a firearm. It just wouldn't have happened in an…

Agreed, but excessive use of force is an altogether different problem than the cited 'race' issues. Indeed, something like 90% of Americans support some kind of policing reform according to a Gallup survey last year. Unfortunately, in America, we have only a ~30% chance of passing a reform that 90% of Americans want passed unless the corporations also want it passed.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#203

Post by _ktx2 »

spamizbad wrote: post #199
kodah wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea who that person is. There's a number of posts on here about NeurIPS with some links to archive.org that features a Twitter feed where a number of people were encouraging harassment of each other. Watching how they postulate against each other using their various ideologies is shocking to say the least.

This is such a fascinating take to me. I feel like the problem here is the modern right has an untenable political coalition. And it needs to moderate in certain issues to regain majority support. One way would be by eschewing hard-line right wing economics. Tax cuts for corporations and wealthy elites arent going to make a dent in the left’s cultural hegemony. Why not tax the wealthy elite and pour that tax money in…

You might be right about that. To be honest, there's enough people beating on the right that I'm sure they will end up abandoning what's made them unpopular. They may even split, who knows.

I end up focusing on the left because right now, no one is paying attention to the fact that there's a back and forth war going on here between extremists that is cultural in nature. I happen to be closer to the left in politics, though I don't ascribe to the culture. Who fights this war online is the idealogues, who fights it in the streets are normal people. It's disconcerting.

It's tiring to see, hence I even bother to say anything about it. That said, my energy is just about up. If this country wants to tear each other apart, have at it.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#204

Post by philh »

philh wrote: post #200
andybak wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, you should judge their comments by the comments, not by the username. Partly yes and partly no. I spotted what appeared to be a throwaway. That led me to believe the poster had less "skin in the game" and that influenced me to some degree. Was that unreasonable?

"To some degree"? Surely. It could have influenced you to spend a few seconds checking whether the account was a throwaway. I think that would have been entirely reasonable. But it didn't influence you "to some degree". We can be more specific than that. It influenced you to accuse the account of being a throwaway without spending a few seconds to check. I do think that was mildly unreasonable. Not super unreasonable…

Welp, on a second look it turns out it wasn't you who made that accusation. I, uh, could probably have spent a few seconds checking that.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#205

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

dang wrote: post #147
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Please don't break the site guidelines by flaming other users like this, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. We ban accounts that do that—we have to, because it destroys what HN is supposed to be for: curious, thoughtful conversation. The GP already stepped in the wrong direction with name-calling rhetoric, but the thing to do in that case is to improve the thread by stepping back in the right direction.…

I find this an interesting comment, coming a day before the best company in your employer's portfolio does this [0].

It looks like your "curious, thoughtful conversation," idea only applies to the very narrow confines of HN - and only, of course, when you choose to employ your moderator authority by bumping your message to the top of the thread.

Perhaps the problem is your guys' rules. I cannot think of a community that shows a more wanton disregard for community guidelines, than this one. Your portfolio companies all exist in stark contrast to these ideas.

[0] https://news.airbnb.com/airbnb-to-block-and-cancel-d-c-reser...

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#206

Post by jimkleiber »

dang wrote: post #152

Discussed a couple days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25704433 with an informative top comment from a Ugandan HNer.

The post discussed a few days ago was about shutting off the app stores and YouTube, whereas this new post is about an escalation to block off WhatsApp and other social media and messaging platforms. I think even VPNs have been blocked, as my Ugandan friends with VPN can't even access these platforms.

It seems significantly different to me to not be a dupe, and yet I really appreciate how you moderate HN so I leave that decision up to you. Thanks for your work!

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#207

Post by dang »

jimkleiber wrote: post #206
dang wrote: post #152

Discussed a couple days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25704433 with an informative top comment from a Ugandan HNer.

The post discussed a few days ago was about shutting off the app stores and YouTube, whereas this new post is about an escalation to block off WhatsApp and other social media and messaging platforms. I think even VPNs have been blocked, as my Ugandan friends with VPN can't even access these platforms. It seems significantly different to me to not be a dupe, and yet I really appreciate how you moderate HN so I leave t…

Ok, I totally missed that nuance—sorry, and thanks for the clarification. I'll take the [dupe] marker off the top and remove the downweight.

Do you know if what https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 says is true, that they do this every election? That seems relevant if so, and the comment sounds credible.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#208

Post by jimkleiber »

dang wrote: post #207
jimkleiber wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post discussed a few days ago was about shutting off the app stores and YouTube, whereas this new post is about an escalation to block off WhatsApp and other social media and messaging platforms. I think even VPNs have been blocked, as my Ugandan friends with VPN can't even access these platforms. It seems significantly different to me to not be a dupe, and yet I really appreciate how you moderate HN so I leave t…

Ok, I totally missed that nuance—sorry, and thanks for the clarification. I'll take the [dupe] marker off the top and remove the downweight. Do you know if what https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 says is true, that they do this every election? That seems relevant if so, and the comment sounds credible.

It's ok :-) I figure you have a lot to read and might miss things here and there.

> Do you know if what https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 says is true, that they do this every election? That seems relevant if so, and the comment sounds credible.

I don't know if they do it every election, but I'm guessing they may have started to do it in the 2016 election and this one in 2021 (they have elections every 5 years), and I could see it being a trend that may continue if the leadership remains the same.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#209

Post by belimawr »

citilife wrote: post #56
xref wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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.

You assume the steady stream of disinformation is only coming from facebook, and not the news corporations. The reality is that CNN, MSNBC, Huffington post, New York Times, FOX, etc. all are shoving fluffed up pieces with an extreme bias. Every media outlet is doing this. > Everyone keeps making these same points in every thread, and no minds are changed. I agree with this. This is why we have always defaulted to "fr…

> Currently, however, only one side's ideas are being banned; even if they don't call for violence, only if they "make people angry".

> With and estimated ~200 protestors entering the building, we've effectively silenced tens of millions in response.

Last time I checked, right-wing ideas haven't been banned from social media. Unless you're conflating those who hold extremist views and mainstream views under one category, which is a dangerous and counterproductive classification.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#210

Post by belimawr »

nawgz wrote: post #82
citilife wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume the steady stream of disinformation is only coming from facebook, and not the news corporations. The reality is that CNN, MSNBC, Huffington post, New York Times, FOX, etc. all are shoving fluffed up pieces with an extreme bias. Every media outlet is doing this. > Everyone keeps making these same points in every thread, and no minds are changed. I agree with this. This is why we have always defaulted to "fr…

Why do I see this claim that private companies refusing Parler service somehow has "silenced Conservative voices"? It's pretty facile on the face of it. No conservatives have been banned from social media for being conservative...

Victim mentality is being utilized aggressively nowadays.
Post reply on HN