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Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

blog.coursera.org

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Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#131

Post by betterunix »

mavdi wrote: post #66

As an Iranian I can't really blame them. They are forced to comply with the law, and unfortunately the law is very broad. Can't really blame the US government for this sort of blanket ban either because exceptions to laws create loopholes. It won't take long until people find ways to ship missile chips as educational material. Maybe if our government didn't threaten other nations with annihilation, this sort of shit…

"It won't take long until people find ways to ship missile chips as educational material."

We already lived in fear of that sort of thing once before:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/061399china-chips-revi...

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#132

Post by bromagosa »

accurrent wrote: post #118
hrktb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps because it does some extra effort to detect VPNs and accurately block people accessing it from blocked regions? I'd imagine he's frustration is that Google isn't just reluctantly putting a dumb block to obey some external injunction, but seems to put some effort in it.

Honestly, living in China where blogspot/wordpress.com was blocked without a VPN was particularly annoying, I fully support the Iranian guy who says its a pain. USA should realise that people don't give a damn who's at the other end. Speaking of which, look at the freedom USA gives trade and tourists: No Cuba, no iran, no N.Korea, etc. Come off it, most passports are not half as restricting its almost as if your gove…

Exactly! The US (or the land of freedom), doesn't let you in if they find out you've as much as visited Cuba. That's why Cuba gives you your visa in hand (as opposed to stuck in a page in your passport), so that you can still go to the US if you want to.

That is, unless you're Cuban. In that case you can go to the US and they'll welcome you to Miami with a red carpet and fool you with what freedom and cars and big houses and laptops you'll be able to have.

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#133

Post by wobbleblob »

vdaniuk wrote: post #97
rikacomet wrote: post #2

This is ridiculous! What is the use of being the premier institute in the world, and do just about nothing about such a obvious immorality!? The kids in these countries are already suffering under oppression/war/famine/ you name it.. things you won't want upon yourself, much less on your kids.I know a guy who plays a rpg with me who is from Syria, he is 14 year old, and his school is defunct. Just few months back I r…

Please recommend your RPG acquaintance the following mooc platforms that won't have those absurd regulations: Open2Study - Australian universities alliance MOOC platform. Futurelearn - UK universities alliance MOOC platform. Iversity - European coursers. Content is still limited as these platforms are younger, but they are getting more courses and polishing their platforms.

If these services don't block students from Iran, it may just be a matter of sloppiness rather than policy. When the sanctions started, our (Europe based) university was forced to remove Iranian postgrads from sciences like Physics, presumably to prevent them from gaining access to the kind of knowledge that ends up being published in magazines if it's any good. I don't see how it could serve any purpose other than to annoy and harass.

This university wasn't based in the US, but was threatened with sanctions: US based companies and institutions would have been banned from doing business with this Europe based university if they didn't comply. The irony is that US based universities are not restricted in this manner.

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#134

Post by jakosz »

smnrchrds wrote: post #44

As someone who lives in Iran, this is sad but not news. I have gotten used to see half the websites blocked by my government(Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, WordPress, etc) and the other half by your government(Java SE or anything else from Oracle, Google Code, Google Play Store, anything from Xilinx, etc). If one of my favorite websites was blocked, I may have considered not using it anymore. When virtually all websites…

If you're going to perform a comprehensive scan (i.e. not just to sample alexa's 1M), there's a lot of crap waiting for you in the long tail -- you may want to use my subset of alexa's rankings instead, which contains only names that have been on the list for the last 322 days (it's ~700K rows): http://www.szejda.pl/pub/alexa-20130313-20140128.bz2

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#136

Post by smtddr »

testrun wrote: post #125
bambax wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means you don't surrender your conscience to your government. So for example if your superiors, some official from some agency, or the President, asks you to torture suspects, or to monitor the private conversations of every citizen, or to keep so-called "National Security Letters" secret, and they say you have to do it "because it's the law", you can either hide behind authority or try and think for yourself. It…

Interesting. So what it means is that depends on my believe system I can do whatever I want? If I am a psychopath I can kill people, if I believe in saria law women need to cover up their faces and so on. What makes my believe system superior to yours or anybody else?

Why these extreme examples? OP said "not always" and we are talking about viewing webpages here, not killing people. Nobody is saying to just do whatever you want but sometimes you should reflect on what you're being told to do.

Remeber this? http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870411730... >>Google Defies China on Web. Search Giant Stops Censoring Its Results

Did you know the excuse "I was just following orders" is no longer a valid defense 100% of the time? That means you need to consider sometimes not following rules/orders if it seems unethical.

Also, if you're protesting something you believe is unethical there can be situations[1] that breaking the law on purpose brings about progress. I think Google alm

1. http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/11/jackson-ms-sit-in.jpg

____

P.S. I don't understand how anyone doesn't already know this. The law is not absolute. You don't just follow it unquestionably & unthinkingly. There are countless examples of people breaking laws that are unethical to bring about progress in a society. I suspect you're just trolling.

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#138

Post by testrun »

smtddr wrote: post #136
testrun wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. So what it means is that depends on my believe system I can do whatever I want? If I am a psychopath I can kill people, if I believe in saria law women need to cover up their faces and so on. What makes my believe system superior to yours or anybody else?

Why these extreme examples? OP said "not always" and we are talking about viewing webpages here, not killing people. Nobody is saying to just do whatever you want but sometimes you should reflect on what you're being told to do. Remeber this? http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870411730... >>Google Defies China on Web. Search Giant Stops Censoring Its Results Did you know the excuse "I was just follow…

>>Laws are not always meant to be respected; they're meant to be broken and challenged in court.As quoted from parent.

So if I ask the OP to explain, that is trolling? What do you define as discussion?

And my question still remains, who decides what is good or bad?

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#139

Post by [deleted] »

testrun wrote: post #138
smtddr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why these extreme examples? OP said "not always" and we are talking about viewing webpages here, not killing people. Nobody is saying to just do whatever you want but sometimes you should reflect on what you're being told to do. Remeber this? http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870411730... >>Google Defies China on Web. Search Giant Stops Censoring Its Results Did you know the excuse "I was just follow…

>>Laws are not always meant to be respected; they're meant to be broken and challenged in court. As quoted from parent. So if I ask the OP to explain, that is trolling? What do you define as discussion? And my question still remains, who decides what is good or bad?

[deleted]

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#140

Post by smtddr »

testrun wrote: post #138
smtddr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why these extreme examples? OP said "not always" and we are talking about viewing webpages here, not killing people. Nobody is saying to just do whatever you want but sometimes you should reflect on what you're being told to do. Remeber this? http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870411730... >>Google Defies China on Web. Search Giant Stops Censoring Its Results Did you know the excuse "I was just follow…

>>Laws are not always meant to be respected; they're meant to be broken and challenged in court. As quoted from parent. So if I ask the OP to explain, that is trolling? What do you define as discussion? And my question still remains, who decides what is good or bad?

This is ridiculous. Are you purposely ignoring the ____NOT ALWAYS____ in the qoute?

Do you understand what this picture is? http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/11/jackson-ms-sit-in.jpg

Do you understand the good that comes from Google disabling censorship in China even though it was not lawful under Chinese law to do so?

I'm not going to get into some silly pedantic debate about who gets to decide right & wrong. If you don't undestand those 2 examples and what the OP is saying, then ....good luck to you.

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