131–140 of 206 posts
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> It's entirely common for the government to wipe their ass with the first amendment during wartime. Happens even without a war, just saying...
Let me rephrase that: it's entirely common for the government to wipe their ass with the first amendment using war as a pretense.
> publishing information deemed harmful to state interests Is the charge, which I think kind of speaks for itself. Full on: "You embarrassed us, straight to jail." In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest and shared by the media then we'd reflect on if our routing is safe/correct and make proportional changes for safety. Not a big deal, nobody is fired, life moves on. I feel like actions li…
That's exactly it, and the UAE admits it. The Atlantic covered this last month.[1] Dubai uses influencers as part of their strategy to market Dubai as a safe place for rich people. There's an influencer visa. There's a government Creators HQ office to help with relocation and permits. Dubai requires an “Advertiser Permit”, which include a ban on publishing anything that “might harm the national currency or the economic situation in the State.”
The BBC showed several influencer videos side by side, all with the same message: "Are you scared? No, because we know who protects us."[1] They're as on-message as Sinclair in the US.
So is AlJazeera, now. Earlier in the war, attacks on Dubai were reported. Now, they don't seem to be, although coverage on hits outside the UAE is good. AlJazeera is run by the UAE government.
The UAE has been cracking down on this for a while, according to Bellingcat.[3] "Think before you share. Spreading rumors is a crime."
The hits on the Burj Al Arab hotel, the Fairmont hotel, and Dubai's airport were too big to hide completely, but UAE authorities did take action against people who posted videos. That was back in late February - early March. News of later hits appears to have been successfully censored.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/03/dubai-...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-giBHZ31RMU
[3] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/04/02/war-uae-iran-infu...
If you think WhatsApp is encrypted, I have a handful of magic beans to sell you.
Care to back that up? We know they don't encrypt metadata - that's not a secret. Message content however is E2EE - thankfully these things get audited: https://blog.cloudflare.com/key-transparency/
Anything else is just theater. Anyone who is worried that their communications could get them arrested or attacked cannot safely use something like WhatsApp. There is no way to trust that a third party's keys haven't been added to a conversation, or that the client isn't leaking message content through some other means.
> publishing information deemed harmful to state interests Is the charge, which I think kind of speaks for itself. Full on: "You embarrassed us, straight to jail." In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest and shared by the media then we'd reflect on if our routing is safe/correct and make proportional changes for safety. Not a big deal, nobody is fired, life moves on. I feel like actions li…
Honest question. The UAE is well known for very questionable imported labor. Do you think they or the people who live there care?
> publishing information deemed harmful to state interests Is the charge, which I think kind of speaks for itself. Full on: "You embarrassed us, straight to jail." In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest and shared by the media then we'd reflect on if our routing is safe/correct and make proportional changes for safety. Not a big deal, nobody is fired, life moves on. I feel like actions li…
> Is the charge, which I think kind of speaks for itself. Full on: "You embarrassed us, straight to jail." That's exactly it, and the UAE admits it. The Atlantic covered this last month.[1] Dubai uses influencers as part of their strategy to market Dubai as a safe place for rich people. There's an influencer visa. There's a government Creators HQ office to help with relocation and permits. Dubai requires an “Advertis…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honest question. The UAE is well known for very questionable imported labor. Do you think they or the people who live there care?
When did Americans care so much about the poor laborers from India? Honest question. The United States is well known for funding a genocide and protecting pedophiles. Do you think they or the people who live there care?
I don’t think it matters one way or another what Americans think.
Edit: I see your post history and it makes sense now.
It's informative to look at history, and see how censorship as effective, as it was here in the US during WWII.[1] The Japanese were floating bombs into the US, which were effectively unguided intercontinental weapons. The censorship campaign kept all knowledge of the effects from reaching back to Japan, which factored in their decision to abandon the effort as resources ran short toward the end of the war.
So, yes... publishing information can indeed be directly harmful to state interests. I'm generally opposed to censorship, and it shouldn't be allowed unless there's been an ACTUAL declaration of war. Far too often, censorship is used to cover up war crimes, and other abuses of public trust.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb#Censorship_...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Gaza_war
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>In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest and shared OTOH, anyone remember "loose lips sink ships?" Beyond the famous poster, it was backed up by robust censorship laws.[0][1] You might say it's different since we were at war, but this ignores how the threat model and immediacy is very different in the UAE vs here in the (geographically well protected/isolated) US. Battle damage assessment,…
Iran is going to be getting constant satellite date. They not only have their own satellite surveillance systems, but also will be getting support, probably covert, from a variety of other countries which also have robust satellite networks. This is solely for "domestic" (which extends well beyond the UAE) PR purposes, and I expect the US is actively encouraging these countries, behind the scenes, to keep losses unde…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that means anything as the author of the article almost certainly has no clue about anything but what the Government there told him. They're just quoting general knowledge and speculation by other equally-uninformed third parties.
Well, how would you a) obtain the incriminating photo, then b) determine that it had been transmitted? An OS exploit and stat() for an atime would do it.
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The poster is right, it's very unlikely that WA has been backdoored/cracked, and it seems obvious why. A backdoor to the world's largest messaging app would be extremely valuable: while it can exist, it's unlikely that it'd be so widely available the UAE police can use it for such insignificant cases. And because of its value, no one with access to it (the US, the UAE, Meta) would want it to become public knowledge t…
It’s weird that the notification backdoor never gets talked about, but your Whatsapp messages are decrypted in plain sight when the text content is shipped through the notification services. This is mentioned always for Signal but Whatsapp always gets a pass even though it’s a way more malicious company and indeed probably using that hole to profile/track it’s users. The only response is “oh no Whatsapp cant leak any…