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Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

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Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#31
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? What are the fines for using a banned service in the US?

The only ways for a service to be banned in the US are by court order (i.e. judge says the site has to come down) which carries no penalties for visitors, and sanctions in which case visiting is generally still OK but paying the site is a no-no. In general, users never face fines in the US even for visiting "banned" pages.

Can you visit a Pro North Korea/ISIS/Iran website? You are kind of paying/circumventing sanctions with potential ad revenue.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#33
post #15
post #6

Look up what for people in Belarus are being locked up daily since 2020. Emojis, likes, simply caught with preview of the news cached on their phone... We call border crossing, either on land or thought airport, a "Belarusian roulette", because your never know... And it is not prominent people, just regular folks. And it is not in completely different culture - it is a very close to western traditions country, right…

I work on an organisation that does anti-corruption reporting. We have some software for that and the search box has "Vladimir Putin, TeliaSonera" as a placeholder example. Few months back a new hire quit on his second day when he saw that, because he was afraid he might get into trouble since he has to regularly travel to Russia (he was from, eh, somewhere in Eastern Europe or the Balkans or some such – I forgot). W…

If he was from the balkans his reason was definitely false and he just didnt wanna work at your place. We dont have that here, especially not for leaders not from our countries

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#34
post #2

And if you dare to use Twitter in Brazil, you will be fined a year's salary. ... how authoritarianism shapes public discourse

Yet there is bipartisan action to ban TikTok in the US. We have effectively banned the import of Chinese electric vehicles. Does that make us authoritarian?

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#35
post #15
post #6

Look up what for people in Belarus are being locked up daily since 2020. Emojis, likes, simply caught with preview of the news cached on their phone... We call border crossing, either on land or thought airport, a "Belarusian roulette", because your never know... And it is not prominent people, just regular folks. And it is not in completely different culture - it is a very close to western traditions country, right…

I work on an organisation that does anti-corruption reporting. We have some software for that and the search box has "Vladimir Putin, TeliaSonera" as a placeholder example. Few months back a new hire quit on his second day when he saw that, because he was afraid he might get into trouble since he has to regularly travel to Russia (he was from, eh, somewhere in Eastern Europe or the Balkans or some such – I forgot). W…

Unfortunately his concerns are all too reasonable. Here's a recent case where Putin's people had a dual Russian-American citizen arrested while visiting her family, and then slapped with a 12-year jail term for the crime of donating $51 to a humanitarian charity (from within the US):

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/08/15/us-russ...

While small, the chance of getting caught up in these shenanigans is far higher than that of buying a winning lottery ticket. And the potential penalties much worse than could be alleviated by most any prize won in the lottery. (If they were from one of Russia's allies, such as Serbia or Hungary, they probably wouldn't have much to worry about. But if they're from a NATO country, then definitely so).

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#36
I'm not defending Iran over this, I fully expect his imprisonment to be for a reason I would consider bullshit, but this article doesn't present much evidence that the two events in the title have any connection. He tweeted a dot, at some point after was arrested.

Technically the article never says the dot is related to the arrest, but it's certainly implied.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#37
post #29
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only ways for a service to be banned in the US are by court order (i.e. judge says the site has to come down) which carries no penalties for visitors, and sanctions in which case visiting is generally still OK but paying the site is a no-no. In general, users never face fines in the US even for visiting "banned" pages.

> In general, users never face fines in the US even for visiting "banned" pages. You might be oversimplifying. Yes, the US does have particularly free speech, and especially for listening to it. But using kiddie porn sites, president threatening sites, ISIS recruiting sites, US govt leaked secrets sharing sites, perhaps ghost gun or bomb making sites, stalking ex girlfriends... I think a good bit of that has legal co…

The only one of those that's illegal just to visit in the US as far as I know is the child porn one, and even that only if you receive or attempt to receive actual child porn, as opposed to some other random content that might be on the site.

Some of the things you list are actual criminal acts, not Web sites. Yes, if you stalk your ex, that's criminal, but simply visiting some Web site is not in itself illegal.

If there is some US law that might purport to forbid just visiting a Web site, I've never heard of any attempt to enforce it.

What the hell is a "president threatening site"? Threats to public officials as a service?

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#38

I've been thinking a lot recently about where I would personally draw the line on what sorts of speech should be criminal. If someone publicly called for specific violence (ex: "let's all meet at Joe's house to burn it down—I'll bring the lighter") that feels to me like the sort of thing that would be useful to do something about instead of waiting for the actual crime to be committed. But publicly stating that you s…

What do you think of a domineering bully who demeans, berates, and manipulates a vulnerable partner? It's not hard to find examples of relationships where over years a person preys on someone else's insecurities and tells them every day that they are worthless, that no-one else will take them, and responds with anger to every minor irritation, often unpredictably. Or they may gaslight them and leave someone with a less sure sense of reality, doubting and undermining themselves.

To me, these kinds of injuries are worse than many kinds of physical violence. People who have been extracted from, and recover from, situations like this (as much as anyone can) often say they would have preferred to be beaten. And they don't mean this lightly.

This is all "just" speech; the perpetuators and victims often agree that they "never laid a finger on them". But it hardly about beginning or preventing new ideas. In some countries, this kind of speech and pattern of abuse is criminal. But it's not universally so. Should it be? The way these countries frame it is that rights - like freedom of speech - are not absolutely, but must be balanced with the harm they may cause, and to assess things almost case by case with balancing tests. This seems to me a very workable system of law with good outcomes.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#39
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on an organisation that does anti-corruption reporting. We have some software for that and the search box has "Vladimir Putin, TeliaSonera" as a placeholder example. Few months back a new hire quit on his second day when he saw that, because he was afraid he might get into trouble since he has to regularly travel to Russia (he was from, eh, somewhere in Eastern Europe or the Balkans or some such – I forgot). W…

Unfortunately his concerns are all too reasonable. Here's a recent case where Putin's people had a dual Russian-American citizen arrested while visiting her family, and then slapped with a 12-year jail term for the crime of donating $51 to a humanitarian charity (from within the US): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/08/15/us-russ... While small, the chance of getting caught up in these shenanigans is fa…

She's definitely unlucky that Putin was looking to replenish his supply of prisoners he can exchange for gun runners, etc, in Western prisons...

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#40

I've been thinking a lot recently about where I would personally draw the line on what sorts of speech should be criminal. If someone publicly called for specific violence (ex: "let's all meet at Joe's house to burn it down—I'll bring the lighter") that feels to me like the sort of thing that would be useful to do something about instead of waiting for the actual crime to be committed. But publicly stating that you s…

Aren't there plenty of examples of the kind of speech you talk about in your second paragraph already on Twitter? There are plenty of hot takes to pick from, with some being censored more or less based on the current owner.

I'd also be interested to have some examples of the current set of ideas that you believe we are stuck with. It's an interesting phrase, and it begs to be enumerated.

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