Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election • Hacker News Board

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#141

Post by djtriptych » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #125

throwaway894345 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This question isn't asked in good faith. Why not? It seems like a perfectly reasonable question. You have a lot of people who are protesting and some who are even rioting on the pretense that racism is driving police to kill blacks in greater proportion than other races--surely they must have a good reason to think that it's racism and not crime rates or some other factor that correlates with race? It doesn't seem…

The "but what about these stats" question has been asked a million times. Any population-level stats for crime rate, income, education, etc, are affected by unequal starting positions, and in the US those unequal starting positions were enforced by racism in leadership for decades. And in some places still are. You can't punch someone constantly until they're covered in bruises and then say "look, they aren't in pain…

racial comments from throwaway accounts really ought to be disallowed. I recommend well-meaning people just flag and move on.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#142

Post by slg » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #119

slg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Personally I think these movements are the natural result of pivoting our epistemological institutions from truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy. What institutions are you claiming have shifted from "truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy"? It seems to me that the reason these institutions appear more progressive is that American conservatism is becoming less and less in touch with the truth. The…

> What institutions are you claiming have shifted from "truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy"? ...the politicization of basic COVID precautions like mask wearing The most glaring example of this was public health authorities pushing for shut downs of pretty much all public spaces (including of red-coded protests), but then turning around and giving the greenlight to BLM protests as critical to public healt…

>The most glaring example of this was public health authorities pushing for hard shut downs of pretty much all public spaces, but then turning around and giving the greenlight to densely packed BLM protests as critical to public health.

The BLM protests weren't the first protests since the pandemic started. There were anti-lockdown protests going on before that which were just as if not even more "greenlit" than the BLM protests. I will also note that the BLM protesters were much more likely to follow basic precautions like mask wearing and only holding events outside when compared with the lockdown protesters. In the end multiple organizations reported that there were no noticeable COVID spikes related to the BLM protests.

>Another example is the imbroglio about vaccine prioritization, though that's more about values (is it worth saving more lives if the saved lives are disproportionately white?) than it is about factual claims.

I don't know what you are talking about here. Care to share a link to a mainstream institution arguing that we should prioritize diversity in vaccine recipients over saving lives?

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#143

Post by loufe » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

Dumblydorr wrote: post #136

exabrial wrote: post #3

The predictable [and unfortunate] side effect of censorship on private platforms is it creates the illusion that the truth is being covered up. I have no doubts the next surveillance and encryption backdoor bills will be based upon the incidents happening right now. It's far better for society to keep discussions in plain sight, even if they are woefully misguided.

You say this as if there aren't millions of people who are willing and eager to assume the truth is being covered up already. Come now, that withstands zero investigation. Even with zero censorship, millions upon millions would fall into terrible rabbit holes already. The sad fact is some people love conspiracies and love thinking they're the real informed ones amidst the sheeple. The real effect of censorship on FB…

Let's make sure we use the right terminology, especially on a site like HN. People love conspiracy THEORIES. There are huge conspiracies going on right now, doubtless. There are also THEORIES of conspiracies which are downright ridiculous, mixed in with those acurately predicting some real ones. Conflating conspiracies with conspiracy theories is a great way to minimize efforts to uncover actual conspiracies on the go.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#144

Post by mental1896 » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

amalcon wrote: post #133

Dig1t wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People seem not to realize that every action spawns a reaction by the other side, especially extreme ones. All this censoring will almost undoubtably cause some people on the other side to double down, unfortunately. :/

People also don't seem to realize that the action does not need to be real to cause a reaction by the other side. I'd provide an example, but to do so would just inject my own biases. I'm sure anyone reading this can think of at least 5-6 "reactions" by the other side which had no precipitating action -- regardless of which side they're on. It starts to seem a little silly to worry about the reaction on the other sid…

I actually can't think of any. Could you give just 1 example?

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#145

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #125

throwaway894345 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This question isn't asked in good faith. Why not? It seems like a perfectly reasonable question. You have a lot of people who are protesting and some who are even rioting on the pretense that racism is driving police to kill blacks in greater proportion than other races--surely they must have a good reason to think that it's racism and not crime rates or some other factor that correlates with race? It doesn't seem…

The "but what about these stats" question has been asked a million times. Any population-level stats for crime rate, income, education, etc, are affected by unequal starting positions, and in the US those unequal starting positions were enforced by racism in leadership for decades. And in some places still are. You can't punch someone constantly until they're covered in bruises and then say "look, they aren't in pain…

> The "but what about these stats" question has been asked a million times. Any population-level stats for crime rate, income, education, etc, are affected by unequal starting positions, and in the US those unequal starting positions were enforced by racism in leadership for decades. And in some places still are.

Agreed, but frontend disparities are an entirely different cause than the "police are racist thus more black people are killed by police" argument that conservatives (and others) are pushing back against. Notably, a hypothetical police force that is perfectly unbiased and which never ever uses force inappropriately would still kill more blacks than whites for the simple fact that, provided that blacks commit more crimes (even though the reason blacks commit more crimes is a history of systemic racism).

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#146

Post by joshuamorton » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

travisoneill1 wrote: post #84

pjc50 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when the right asks, “how do we know that racism and not crime rates belies police shooting disparities?” This question isn't asked in good faith. Besides, it's actually irrelevant; those deaths are statistics. What was demanded was prosecutions of specific police for specific shootings of specific, named people such as Breonna Taylor. It's up to the white community to decide if police shootings of white people are…

Prosecutions aren't something that should be done by mob demand. In the case of Breona Taylor the police were returning fire. You can question whether they should have served that warrant, but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire.

> but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire.

If you break into my home with a gun, I shoot at you and miss, and you shoot me and kill me, you would absolutely be convicted of murder or manslaughter.

The defense, in this case, relies on two claims:

1. The intruders were police officers (this doesn't, or shouldn't, give them carte blanche to shoot people)

2. The police announced themselves as police before entering, which is in dispute.

Further, the opportunity to bring manslaughter charges was never provided. The prosecutor declined to present murder or manslaughter to the Grand Jury.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#147

Post by dang » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #48

uniqueid wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

civilized I have trouble relating that word to the fresh memory of watching drooling, bearded gun-monkeys clambering on tables in the Capitol chanting 'hang Mike Pence!'

Both spellings of that word are acceptable. Get off of your high horse, especially if you can't even ride it yourself. Your depictions of the very disturbed, impoverished and desperate people involved in the DC/Capitol building fiasco are heartless, cruel, and completely uncivilized. You clearly have no idea what is going on in their lives, just as so many of them were unaware of what the BLM marches were all about.

Please don't break the site guidelines by flaming other users like this, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. We ban accounts that do that—we have to, because it destroys what HN is supposed to be for: curious, thoughtful conversation.

The GP already stepped in the wrong direction with name-calling rhetoric, but the thing to do in that case is to improve the thread by stepping back in the right direction. You can make your substantive points that way, so there's no loss. They'll be more persuasive actually.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#148

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

djtriptych wrote: post #141

majormajor wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "but what about these stats" question has been asked a million times. Any population-level stats for crime rate, income, education, etc, are affected by unequal starting positions, and in the US those unequal starting positions were enforced by racism in leadership for decades. And in some places still are. You can't punch someone constantly until they're covered in bruises and then say "look, they aren't in pain…

racial comments from throwaway accounts really ought to be disallowed. I recommend well-meaning people just flag and move on.

It's just a username. I'm probably every bit as active on this forum as you are. Is there something in this thread that makes you think I'm posting in bad faith?

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#149

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

genericone wrote: post #83

This is how Zuckerberg's dream of connecting the entire population of the world comes to an end. Countries that don't want foreign influence (of both good and bad varieties) injected directly through their citizens eyeballs will ban social media first. Then a "nextdoor" style social media company will appear and allow individual countries to control how their social media is used. That or a Docker image with a Generi…

[deleted]

Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

#150

Post by idrios » Tue, Jan 12, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

djtriptych wrote: post #21

tehjoker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crazy thing is that the Q-Anon people will inevitably see the spate of arrests and censorship as "The Storm" prophecy coming true but in reverse, an "Anti-Storm". I have a feeling this will only make many of them even more committed and possibly now that they can point to something real, could even grow the movement. Crazy stuff.

Whenever I hear these comments I wonder what the recommendation is to shrink the movement. Obviously open conversations did not stop the movement from growing.

I don't know a solution but lately I've been struggling with the concept of freedom of speech. With absolute free speech, taken to the extreme, you get the mess the US has right now. Without, also taken to the extreme, you get state-controlled media like what's in China.

Recently I read a comment that free speech only works if the speech is honest, and that resonated with me. So whatever the solution is, possibly start from there?