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Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

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Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#321

Post by egorfine »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #317
egorfine wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your population loses contact with progress This is only a drawback if you think about your country's future. Which oppressive regimes do not. Thus it is an advantage, not a drawback.

Yes and no. Take someone like Putin. He wants to be an oppressive regime, but also he wants Russia to be militarily strong. Well, militarily strong is highly tied to technological progress these days. He can force his people into human wave attacks. And that is dangerous enough to perhaps take Ukraine. It's a different story if he actually attacks NATO, though.

Oh no worries.

Those who are commuting daily to lay down flight paths for russian missiles to kill Ukrainians - those have unrestricted internet access.

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#322

Post by lstodd »

sofixa wrote: post #306
dragonelite wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The global cybersphere will split up, the west and other parties have shown they will use social media networks to organize regime change and take over legitimate protests. Especially now that China is taking an ever increasing share of the global information streams. Given the increased panicked the US had about tiktok. Showing the result of the western sponsored genocide in Gaza. They had to enforce ownership hando…

It's interesting you focus on "the west" when we have solid proof about e.g. Russian interference in many an election and protest via social media. From paid propagandist (e.g. Tim Pool) to the Internet Research Agency. The only factual information we have about anything remotely similar from "the west" was that research about Facebook activity in the Central African Republic being roughly 40/40/20 split between Russ…

> The genocide in Gaza is not "sponsored" by the "west". US, maybe.

Well, Hamas was for decades sponsored by entire West via UNRWA while their "from the river to the sea" slogan is as clearly expressed intent to commit genocide as one can wish for.

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#323

Post by breppp »

Nursie wrote: post #230
DrScientist wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it’s not the same as suppressing that speech by taking someone and holding them in a secret prison for years and/or killing them. Sure. Though in the UK I give you Julian Assange - 5 years in BellMarsh, mostly in total isolation as if he was some major threat.

Sure, and his treatment has been awful in so many ways. I'm honestly not trying to defend any action by any state in this thread, I'm not trying to say that the UK is better than any other state. I'm not trying to make any point at all beyond using a specific example in agreeing with the comments above mine that "Everything is the same and comparable never mind how hyperbolic." But it seems to be construed as if I am…

and that's exactly how the discussion pattern I was describing above works out

and that's why it is efficient propaganda

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#324

Post by breppp »

direwolf20 wrote: post #240
vintermann wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And one thing Assange used to say over and over again, was that he was inspired by government attempts to suppress WikiLeaks releases, because that was evidence that they feared the information in them could actually change things. This is pretty much also the main thesis of Chomsky, and many other western dissidents (and some others too, e.g. Ai Weiwei): our leaders are as unaccountable and willing to use brutality…

Because we already obey them more than Iranians obey Iran.

Call me when the UK government brings the machine guns and starts slaughtering 40k Palestine Action protestors and I promise to agree it's all the same

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#325

Post by namirez »

veqq wrote: post #196
namirez wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Astroturfing much? I haven’t been able to talk to my family for three weeks. Friends who manage to connect are hopping from one workaround to another because IPs are routinely blocked.

Do not immediately jump to such disgusting accusations: > Astroturfing much? I have been involved in antiregime activities for years. You can easily find many posts of mine evangelizing the cause in the oddest places e.g.: https://www.themotte.org/post/2196/culture-war-roundup-for-t... > I just want the regime to change I run one of the biggest defense forums where I post about it a lot: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cred…

Good for you! Then you must know that the internet connection in Iran is not back to normal [1].

[1] https://x.com/netblocks/status/2015695423000756250?s=20

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#326

Post by spwa4 »

lstodd wrote: post #322
sofixa wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting you focus on "the west" when we have solid proof about e.g. Russian interference in many an election and protest via social media. From paid propagandist (e.g. Tim Pool) to the Internet Research Agency. The only factual information we have about anything remotely similar from "the west" was that research about Facebook activity in the Central African Republic being roughly 40/40/20 split between Russ…

> The genocide in Gaza is not "sponsored" by the "west". US, maybe. Well, Hamas was for decades sponsored by entire West via UNRWA while their "from the river to the sea" slogan is as clearly expressed intent to commit genocide as one can wish for.

I think you mean sponsored by the UN, whose largest voting block is the "Organization of Islamic countries" and whose second largest voting block is the "Non-Aligned movement" (that really means aligned with Moscow). There's overlap, for example, Iran is in both camps (fitting since it's a theocracy and both the Iranian government and the parent organization of Hamas, the muslim brotherhood, was greatly grown and sponsored by/with the help of the KGB during the cold war. Perhaps also relevant: the PA's original leader, Yasser Arafat El-Masri (translates to: The wise Egyptian) was an Egyptian KGB spy and was sponsored by Moscow with at least a billion dollars)

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#327

Post by ajsnigrutin »

traceroute66 wrote: post #304
acka wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading comprehension, my friend. The article you linked to is about the dropped plan to require ID for permission to work in the UK. The parent commenter is referring to age verification for accessing adult content using "highly effective age-assurance systems" (such as photo ID cards, biometrics, etc.) under the Online Safety Act 2023, which is still very much in effect.

> under the Online Safety Act 2023, which is still very much in effect. To which I say, the people of the UK are not stupid and know what a VPN is. Its not rocket-science to bypass the ID check requirement.

First you're going to insult me, call me a sunshine, and defend what the UK government is doing, because there's currently a way to bypass a restriction that shouldn't exist implemented this way in the first place?

So, by your logic, russian censorship of media is ok too, just use a vpn, right? Chinese firewall? Just use a VPN! Turkey social media blackouts? VPN!

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#328

Post by bpodgursky »

reeredfdfdf wrote: post #318
bpodgursky wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran has 90 million people and a giant conventional missile arsenal that deter neighbors from allowing military action against it. Invading Iran would be enormously difficult. It will also probably get nukes sooner or later. But it doesn't need nukes to be nearly untouchable.

Considering America and Israel accomplished total air superiority over Iran in matter of days just few months ago, they're obviously pretty damn far from being untouchable. Invading Iran would be difficult, but totally destroying IRGC and military (as long as they side with the former) wouldn't be that hard. Dropping communications equipment and weapons to Iranian opposition groups wouldn't be hard either.

Yes, but what was accomplished with the air superiority? It's not regime change. It set back the nuclear program, maybe six months. That probably won't work ad infinitum, at some point they are going to build redundant sites and hardened facilities that are resilient to bunker busters.

The IRGC and military are HUGE. This is a numbers thing, not a competence thing. Neither the US or Israel has the munitions to make a lasting dent with air power alone.

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#329

Post by jraby3 »

noduerme wrote: post #188
heraldgeezer wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the left love the islamists. Because Iran helps Palestine and Hezbollah. So Dropsite, Hasanabi and all of Reddit will not talk. It is that easy.

How there is a marriage of convenience between western progressivism and ultra-conservative theocracy is still confusing and mysterious to me.

You only have to look at Iran's history to see what this eventually leads to.

The left loves Islamists even though Islamists are against everything the left stands for (women's rights, freedom of press, religion, sexuality, etc).

I think Qatar's influence ($20B+ spent on US education) is the biggest factor here.

Re: Iran's internet blackout may become permanent, with access for elites only

#330

Post by ajsnigrutin »

Nursie wrote: post #217
netsharc wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But defending the arrest of the man with "Plasticine Action" t-shirt as a mistake (only realized after a "few" hours, god damn!), is god damn ridiculous. About 2 decades ago I read an article about how bureucracies don't even allow for humor any more, e.g. even clearly joking about having a bomb in the airport is now taboo. Something about rigid inhumane inflexible rules, in my vague memory of that article. Where air…

Who’s defending it? It’s awful that they’re arresting people with “Palestine Action” t-shirts too. It’s just not the same thing as actually disappearing people. That's the point of this thread, no? Things can be bad in different ways and to different degrees. If I say I don't like the way you just spoke about my sister and punch you in the gut, that's a pretty shitty thing to do. If I say I don't like the way you jus…

> If I say I don't like the way you just spoke about my sister and punch you in the gut, that's a pretty shitty thing to do.

> If I say I don't like the way you just spoke about my sister and cut your throat then bury your body in the forest, I would like to think we can agree that's worse.

So at what point can we start saying that violence because of words (or shirts) is bad? How much does it have to hurt? Should we act as if you're a good guy, because it was just a punch? Or should we remove you from power and punish you before your punches turn into throat cutting?

10 years ago, getting arrested for wearing a tshirt with some text on it, would be on an iran/north korea level of shitty governments, something that could never happen "at home" (in uk, eu,...)... now it's somehow become "shitty, but not as bad, because in some other land you'd get shot instead," (and similar excuses). How much closer must UK come to iranian levels, before you start seeing the parallels between the behaviour of the two governments?

We were pointing out "the great firewall of china" not so many years ago as a horrible thing, now we have censorship in EU. How many sites must be added to the EU list to become an equivalent of the chinese "firewall"?

This behaviour has to be stopped now, when it's just arrest and excuses, and not after 10 years when people start getting shot for protesting here too.

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