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Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

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11–20 of 67 posts

Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

#11
post #2

Interestingly my girlfriend has been using What's App to communicate with her family in Venezuela cheaply throughout the last week since they've been unable to get any news. It's really sad to see the government act this way and hopefully the realize that they're causing a lot of unrest in their citizens. It's always inspiring to see citizens standing up to the government in all these other countries. you see some pr…

Let's hope Whatsapp doesn't have a deal with the Venezuelan government for access to its data, too, then?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/07/messaging-apps-gove...

If I were them I wouldn't take the risk, and use something more secure. Here's a list of open source secure messaging apps she or others could use:

http://missingm.co/2014/02/fighting-dishfire-the-state-of-mo...

Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

#12
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you trying to say? You can check more than one... i) Maduro's government is right and the opposition wrong? ii) The opposition is [even partially] right but they are using the wrong methods? iii) Maduro's government is not using propaganda as a way to gain the favor of the people? iv) Other. Please elaborate.

OP provides an interesting fact. There is no need to extrapolate more meaning than what's given: that there is media manipulation going on. To answer to your points more data points would be needed.

The fact is either irrelevant to discussion (in which case it is off-topic) or it isn't (in this case we have to extrapolate more meaning to link those two).

Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

#13
post #2

Interestingly my girlfriend has been using What's App to communicate with her family in Venezuela cheaply throughout the last week since they've been unable to get any news. It's really sad to see the government act this way and hopefully the realize that they're causing a lot of unrest in their citizens. It's always inspiring to see citizens standing up to the government in all these other countries. you see some pr…

Let's hope Whatsapp doesn't have a deal with the Venezuelan government for access to its data, too, then? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/07/messaging-apps-gove... If I were them I wouldn't take the risk, and use something more secure. Here's a list of open source secure messaging apps she or others could use: http://missingm.co/2014/02/fighting-dishfire-the-state-of-mo...

From my experience, I can tell that they have irrestricted access to whatsapp and facebook.

Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

#14
post #5

I saw this post yesterday http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=180977 It shows how leaders of opposition are using images from protests from Egypt, Bulgaria and other places as if they were from Venezuela

Actually the government has done this kind of practice before. They wait until an opposition's leader retweet those images and then they claim that is the opposition who is faking the news and that nothing is happening. After a while the opposition had learn to identify those things but unfortunately people still is retweeting those.

The conflict is real though: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/beauty-queen-genesis...

I saw her picture and I didn't believe it until broke the news.

Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

#15
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you trying to say? You can check more than one... i) Maduro's government is right and the opposition wrong? ii) The opposition is [even partially] right but they are using the wrong methods? iii) Maduro's government is not using propaganda as a way to gain the favor of the people? iv) Other. Please elaborate.

OP provides an interesting fact. There is no need to extrapolate more meaning than what's given: that there is media manipulation going on. To answer to your points more data points would be needed.

There are many interesting facts. i.e: you may look outside of your apartment window, and see thousands of folks protesting, closing roads, fighting the police, etc. Then turn on the TV for more info, and voila! no news, everything is fine according to local TV.

Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

#16

You'd think that after 10 or so such major protests in the past few years, the dictators would learn not to repeat the same mistakes everyone else did before them. Someone should write a "10 commandments" of sort for how dictators should react in case of major protest. Maybe do what American presidents do: promise major changes and tell them everything they want to hear , and then do cosmetic changes at best over a l…

Maduro isn't a dictator, he's the democratically elected head of a weak government. The government had been run as a cult of personality, that personality died, and the professional class smelled blood.

These protesters are ultimately demanding that the police shoot more people, not fewer. They feel their country is spinning out of control, and needs a strongman to save it. Paging Dr. Pinochet?

Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

#18
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP provides an interesting fact. There is no need to extrapolate more meaning than what's given: that there is media manipulation going on. To answer to your points more data points would be needed.

The fact is either irrelevant to discussion (in which case it is off-topic) or it isn't (in this case we have to extrapolate more meaning to link those two).

Or the listener can decide how relevant it is, because this thread is about Venezuela, the protests, and the internet, and the fact is about Venezuela, the protests, and the internet.

Every fact shared isn't required to be an explicit part of a marketing campaign, is it?

edit: it's depressing that this whine is floating above video of police actually kicking unarmed people in the head and (possibly) shooting at cameramen.

Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

#20

You'd think that after 10 or so such major protests in the past few years, the dictators would learn not to repeat the same mistakes everyone else did before them. Someone should write a "10 commandments" of sort for how dictators should react in case of major protest. Maybe do what American presidents do: promise major changes and tell them everything they want to hear , and then do cosmetic changes at best over a l…

Maduro isn't a dictator, he's the democratically elected head of a weak government. The government had been run as a cult of personality, that personality died, and the professional class smelled blood. These protesters are ultimately demanding that the police shoot more people, not fewer. They feel their country is spinning out of control, and needs a strongman to save it. Paging Dr. Pinochet?

I know nothing of the issue, so please educate me, but isn't Maduro the one who currently controls all media and just shut down his people's acces to the internet? Sounds pretty dictator-y to me.
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