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Interesting contrast to Arab Spring. I wonder if blockage has to do with Iran govt or US Intel agencies. My assumption is that the latter is more influential. If Iran is inducing the blockage, the spies agree for some reason.
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360056052052-Pr...
I'm an Iranian living in Italy and have an Italian phone/WhatsApp number. Couldn't call anyone or receive WhatsApp calls to/from Iranian and non-Iranian numbers yesterday afternoon when the internet blocking started in Iran. It was like all numbers somehow in touch with Iranian contacts were blocked from completing calls. As soon as either side of the call would answer, the call would end with a message like you are…
Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32937782 links to claims that the Iranian government hacked WhatsApp or one of its networking providers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Culture moves both ways. I would rather American companies not get so comfortable with blatant censorship. While we do still have some degree of censorship (and a whole lot pf privacy violation), it’s still generally seen as a taboo and not as a moral or necessary thing. Once the social standards change however, the goalpost moves and it becomes harder to maintain the same freedoms we had before.
I would rather the American people elect a government that will protect their rights through laws. Meta will not violate American law. As citizens, our most effective tool is our government of the people. The idea that we rely on culture or corporate benevolence to maintain our freedoms, and not our representatives and laws... it's insane, to the say the least. I'd prefer to elect the people to protect my freedoms, n…
> I would rather the American people elect a government that will protect their rights through laws.
I would also like a world where problems don't exist, but that doesn't change the real world. It's a naive take. The world is complicated.
> Meta will not violate American law.
This is both demonstrably false and borderline meaningless.
False because they have and will, unless you're suggesting Meta/Facebook has NEVER broken a law. It's just a question of whether they got charged/sued for it.
It's meaningless because laws can be highly interpretable, unenforceable, impractical... and the playing field is constantly changing, so there's always a new opportunity for new types of violations.
That isn't to say laws are meaningless, obviously they are extremely necessary and must be enforced, but the public response to those ambiguous situations is what would help determine the next set of laws/norms.
> The idea that we rely on culture or corporate benevolence to maintain our freedoms...
Parent comment doesn't suggest this. "Corporate culture" has little to do with it. American culture is what would change, has changed, and is changing. When the tooling is developed to carry out efficient, sweeping censorship, it will be used. With more use, we become more comfortable with it and even see it as a necessary evil. Currently there is public outrage when a tech company censors information. How long will this remain interesting enough to draw our attention? TSA in airports after 9/11 is a good example of this.
Google pulling out of China instead of catering to censorship was a principled move, but fairly obviously did not lead to more freedom of speech in China. It helped kickstart a domestic, government-obedient tech industry. I don't know what the right move here is. Nobody who thinks there's an obvious right answer is worth listening to.
The right move is letting countries govern themselves in whatever way they see fit and leaving them alone. Or would you like to have Iran or Pakistan or whatever intervening in the domestic issues of the West?
I can't go to a museum, admire the bravery of, say, Sophie Scholl, and then go "ah yes, but at the end of the day it's not really anyone's business", and you cannot both have the dignity of a person who accepts the responsibility they have just by virtue of being human and shut yourself off.
At the end of the day, it's just a rationalization for kicking away the ladder. You don't care what happens to them as long as it doesn't happen to you or people you love. That is what it is, and all it is.
Google pulling out of China instead of catering to censorship was a principled move, but fairly obviously did not lead to more freedom of speech in China. It helped kickstart a domestic, government-obedient tech industry. I don't know what the right move here is. Nobody who thinks there's an obvious right answer is worth listening to.
Culture moves both ways. I would rather American companies not get so comfortable with blatant censorship. While we do still have some degree of censorship (and a whole lot pf privacy violation), it’s still generally seen as a taboo and not as a moral or necessary thing. Once the social standards change however, the goalpost moves and it becomes harder to maintain the same freedoms we had before.
Starlink iPhones can’t come soon enough.
Let's hope the prosters are successful this time.