Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 435 posts

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#71

Post by brilliantcode »

djsumdog wrote: post #62
gph wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>may things improve for you, though I really have no idea how that will happen. I think a good first step would be changing attitudes towards drug use. We should treat users as patients instead of criminals. And waging a 'war' against dealers and smugglers has only made them more violent and dangerous, while driving up prices and making those who survive even wealthier. There needs to be smarter policies.

I think America should stop buying drugs from Mexico, shipping them guns and promoting the violence. Garry Webb and Michael Rupert were two amazing reporters that brought to light the reality of the CIA funded cocaine trade from South and Central America, and most people today have either never heard of them or dismiss them as crazy. The reality is the CIA still funds itself with cocaine and still causes violence sou…

> “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

That was straight out of Nixon's aide's mouth. Openly admitting that the white conservative establishment sought ways to oppress and commit genocide on "racially inferior" demographic.

It's now Mexicans and Muslims turn. They are the new "Japs". It seems like hatred and segregation is constant driving force at unifying this country.

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#72

Post by zymhan »

Sniffnoy wrote: post #43
metaphorm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and posting things online is not the same thing as writing an article in a local newspaper printed in the town you live in. do you see how the differences are incredibly important here? can you not try to make this conversation about mean tweets and feminism? that just isn't the topic and the comparisons you're making are extremely disrespectful to the Mexican journalists involved.

I think the more relevant distinction here is between feeling unsafe and being unsafe. Or perhaps between feeling unsafe in that you fear that that people will call you names online, versus feeling unsafe in that you fear that people will kill you.

If you know the internet, and how it brings out the worst in people, you'll know that "people calling you names" is a short skip and hop from people doxxing you and sending you assault/death/rape threats.

I don't really know how you're supposed to go about your life normally while receiving death threats from anonymous people. Even if you assume those people are just internet assholes, it's unnerving at the least.

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#73

Post by joemi »

mschuster91 wrote: post #31
geofft wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but I am worried that antisemitism, homophobia, and bigotry in general is the sort of thing that crops up on its own; it can't be eliminated by silencing it. Post-war Germany for instance attempted to suppress Nazism, but it's still around 70 years later. I am totally willing to accept the theory that Germany did not suppress Nazism enough , but I'm worried that's not actually the answer.

Suppress Nazism? Lol that what our governments did after the initial denazification was the exact opposite . The early Secret Service was mainly former NSDAP personnel up until the 70s. Many right-wing groups, including terrorists (NSU! And thst's just one of them), were covertly supported and aided by the Verfassungsschutz (Office for protection of the constitution).

I believe this[1] and this[2] are what was being referred to... There were actual measures in place to suppress Nazism by suppressing free speech.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Germany#West_Ger...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#74

Post by komali2 »

itsmemattchung wrote: post #7

> The committee reported that since 1992, 38 journalists have been killed with the motives for the slayings confirmed as reprisals for their work. Based on that figure, the group ranked Mexico as No. 11 of the 20 deadliest countries for journalists. I cannot imagine living in a country where posting something online, like a silly blog post, risks my life.

Are you sure? Any American that's written something controversial inevitably will tell the story of the death threats they received after.

JK Rowling got them for writing about child wizards. Planned Parenthood supporters get them. Trump electors have gotten them. Kim Kardashian (ugh) got them for a tweet supporting Israel.

It's easy to find lists of Americans that have received death threats, but much harder to find Americans actually killed because of their silly posts. Would love to read more about it.

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#75

Post by [deleted] »

mschuster91 wrote: post #17
caiob wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. And "Freedom of Speech" is a broad term, with a wide variety of implications. Freedom of speech also means being able to channel ideas that aren't as popular and most of the mainstream media may not agree with. People should be able to express those ideas as well.

> People should be able to express those ideas as well No. There is no place in the world for antisemitism, homophobia or other right-extremist views. These "opinions" are direct threats to people. And when the state, as it often does, fails to protect the marginalized, then in my opinion nearly anything is acceptable to stop these "opinions" from being expressed. We in Germany already have seen what happens when you…

[deleted]

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#76

Post by hwillis »

djsumdog wrote: post #62
gph wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>may things improve for you, though I really have no idea how that will happen. I think a good first step would be changing attitudes towards drug use. We should treat users as patients instead of criminals. And waging a 'war' against dealers and smugglers has only made them more violent and dangerous, while driving up prices and making those who survive even wealthier. There needs to be smarter policies.

I think America should stop buying drugs from Mexico, shipping them guns and promoting the violence. Garry Webb and Michael Rupert were two amazing reporters that brought to light the reality of the CIA funded cocaine trade from South and Central America, and most people today have either never heard of them or dismiss them as crazy. The reality is the CIA still funds itself with cocaine and still causes violence sou…

>shipping them guns

This is occasionally obfuscated, but it is utterly true. There are basically two kinds of guns (of the kind you can use to enforce this "war") in the world stage: AK-like (Russian, eastern European, and Chinese included) and AR-like (MXX(X) and modified civilian, from dealers and left over from military/agency operations). The AR-like guns are extremely common in Mexico, and they obviously are all American made. There are also a lot of AK-like weapons, which are... also all American. Bare minimum, they are legally bought in the US and smuggled into Mexico.

These facts are often overlooked by claims that you can't be sure where the guns come from- 87% of the 4000 guns we can track come from the US, but that only represents 12% of the 30,000 guns seized. The real fact is the Mexican military has seized over 300,000 guns[1], and very few of those AK-like guns come from Russia or China. The overwhelming majority of those weapons had to have been built or sold in America.

In the US there's a huge amount of disbelief that we can actually be the source of these guns. I honestly think that comes from a mistaken belief that guns actually exist everywhere... America is a giant gun store, the biggest on the block, saying they need to keep selling guns because of all these guns everybody keeps buying.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20090703011254/http://www.sfgate...

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#77

Post by baobabKoodaa »

joemi wrote: post #64
mschuster91 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk is mass murder. Nazis have murdered over 200 people in the last two decades alone in Germany. In Chechenya, only two days ago homophobes murdered at the very least three homosexual people, arrested over a hundred - and credible activists fear for much worse numbers. Fascist and reactionary ideologies always lead to death.

Restriction of free speech is a tool of fascist regimes. You don't fight fascism by becoming a fascist yourself.

A hammer is a tool of fascist regimes as well. Doesn't mean you become a fascist by using a hammer. (For what its's worth, I support free speech as well. I just don't support poor arguments.)

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#78

Post by gdulli »

gozur88 wrote: post #39
gdulli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're at a precarious time in history when journalism is being used particularly effectively as an intentional disinformation tool. "Real journalism" unfortunately does need to be distinguished. Free speech doesn't encompass fraud.

Once you give the government control over what constitutes "fraud", you can kiss your freedom to speak goodbye. Every totalitarian state in history suppressed (or suppresses) speech in the name of controlling disinformation.

Are you saying you don't recognize the existence of fraud as a category of crime that the government already defines and can prosecute?

Re: Mexican Newspaper Shuts Down, Saying It Is Too Dangerous to Continue

#79

Post by foldr »

Sniffnoy wrote: post #43
metaphorm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and posting things online is not the same thing as writing an article in a local newspaper printed in the town you live in. do you see how the differences are incredibly important here? can you not try to make this conversation about mean tweets and feminism? that just isn't the topic and the comparisons you're making are extremely disrespectful to the Mexican journalists involved.

I think the more relevant distinction here is between feeling unsafe and being unsafe. Or perhaps between feeling unsafe in that you fear that that people will call you names online, versus feeling unsafe in that you fear that people will kill you.

>Or perhaps between feeling unsafe in that you fear that that people will call you names online, versus feeling unsafe in that you fear that people will kill you. reply

OP's links referred to multiple instances of threats of rape/violence. No-one is suggesting that the situation is directly comparable to the situation of journalists in Mexico (OP has clarified that), but let's not use euphemisms like "name calling" or "mean tweets" for threats of rape and violence.

Post reply on HN