Slashdot Mirror
Social Networking Spurs Activism Against Repression
The New York Times Magazine is running a story about the rise in political activism in Egypt through sites like Facebook, which allow citizens to gather and share ideas in ways they otherwise aren't allowed. A state-of-emergency law has been active in Egypt since 1981, which, among other things, "allows the government to ban political organizations and makes it illegal for more than five people to gather without a license from the government." As affordable internet access has spread throughout the country, the government is having a much harder time keeping wraps on the ideas of dissidents. Blocking access to the sites isn't a good solution for the government, because many non-dissidents use it for mundane communications. As Harvard's Ethan Zuckerman puts it, "...doing so would alert a large group of people who they can't afford to radicalize."
Maybe in Egypt, sure. Ever seen those 'Official Petition to Facebook to blankety blankety blank' groups? Yeah, they get a lot done. We're still stuck with the new and still much-hated format.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
To the extent that the ban of the Muslim Brotherhood (a theocratic group pushing for stricter religious rule) in Egypt is effective, I say "Bravo!". When people complain about political, religious, or other repression from a government, it's generally a good idea to find out what kind of group exactly is being repressed.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
One good point about the net, once enough data is being moved around you can hide a hell of a lot in the noise without any real chance of getting caught.
building a group is where all the risk is. talking to each other can be achieved extremely covertly.
Make the Social Sites the enemies.
Since you've got state-run everything, force an ungodly amount of unreasonable requests on these foreign companies, like demanding $1 Million per user from your country (or whatever worthless paper currency your country has issued).
Report to your citizens - the people you "cannot afford to radicalize" - that they (the social networks) are being unfair and stealing taxpayer money, the main cause of child rape, or some other such bullshit. Twist, lie, and contort until it fits within your cultures limits of reason.
Since the companies cannot comply with your requests, they have to block access from your country. Now, since you've gone and made them the enemy in the eyes of the people, you can make laws banning their use, blocking access to their content on a government filter, or other such nonsense. You win, because you can then limit the people to use a government sponsored social site (ie, more monitoring of radicalization), and the true radicals will be forced to use technology that will make them stand out.
It's a lose-lose situation, the perfect scenario for any overly authoritarian government.
Make the Social Sites the enemies.
Since you've got state-run everything, force an ungodly amount of unreasonable requests on these foreign companies, like demanding $1 Million per user from your country (or whatever worthless paper currency your country has issued).
Report to your citizens - the people you "cannot afford to radicalize" - that they (the social networks) are being unfair and stealing taxpayer money, the main cause of child rape, or some other such bullshit. Twist, lie, and contort until it fits within your cultures limits of reason.
Since the companies cannot comply with your requests, they have to block access from your country. Now, since you've gone and made them the enemy in the eyes of the people, you can make laws banning their use, blocking access to their content on a government filter, or other such nonsense. You win, because you can then limit the people to use a government sponsored social site (ie, more monitoring of radicalization), and the true radicals will be forced to use technology that will make them stand out.
It's a lose-lose situation, the perfect scenario for any overly authoritarian government.
In this case, the Egyptian government wants to bring peace to the Middle East, whereas the activists want more violence. The Egyptian government has long been instrumental in coordinating peace efforts between the Israelis and Palestinians. The majority of the activists coordinating through Facebook are doing so to express their hatred of Israel, and their desire for its destruction.
There was an interesting interview with a Hamas leader on Al Jazeera not long ago. Essentially, he said that the leaders know that violence won't lead anywhere. The reason the violence keeps going is because the common people on both sides keep calling for it, and leaders who don't acquiesce are thrown out. If the same thing starts happening in Egypt, then it will just lead to more war, and more death.
We, people from more peaceful parts of the world, generally assume that more democracy is always good. We fail to realize that at times, the majority is wrong. The majority wants to kill the other side, because they were harmed, and then the majority on the other side wants to kill the first. It's self-perpetuating, tit for tat. The only way to break out is with strong leaders on both sides who are willing to step up and refuse to fight. Giving the vengeful mob tools to undermine that is not a good thing.
There is no easy solution in the Middle East, but any solution would need to start with strong leaders in both Israel and Gaza who refuse to resort to violence, not with grassroots movements calling for each other's destruction. We need to recognize that, and stop applying our own values to their situation.
Luckily we live the the most democratic place on the planet. Where free speech and freedom to public protect are enshrined in the constitution. Except outside Parliament Square and American military bases and drug testing labs and .. anywhere else for that matter. You also risk getting arrested if you try and talk to any of the protesters. Try it if you don't believe me. One other method of intimidation is the mass photographing of protectors by the Police Forward Intelligence Team and ironically the seizure of photographs by legitimate journalists.
--
"Freedom of speech without freedom of response is meaningless"
"Without privacy, there cannot be freedom. And without freedom, there cannot be personal or social growth"
davecb5620@gmail.com
The worst internet censorship I saw (haven't been to all the countries in the area, mind) was actually in Tunisia where bogus MSIE error pages would be thrown back at me. In firefox. Not too long after the WSIS conference in fact, to ladle the irony on. Even sites like BoingBoing was blocked, but then I can kind of understand that :) Consider also, if facebook and social networking internet-style was so effective at fostering political opposition, there's be more successful grass-roots opposition in for example Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, etc.
There's been some arrests of bloggers in Egypt, but if you watch the Egyptian blogging community it's pretty clear they can get away with far more than many other countries. Wasn't there legislation being written in Italy that bloggers were to be held up against the same laws as journos?
In any case, with internet penetration being what it is in Egypt, even a very successful digital opposition campaign will only have limited effect on a national aggregate. I wonder if the traditional coffee shop networks or SMS for that matter (if you really want something technological to tout) as a vehicle for collective social action isn't orders of magnitude more effective.
Not to rant too hard (the blogging community there sprang from the LUG I helped set up, so I got to observe in a sense), but as an experiment in citizen media the Egyptian blogging community has at the very least outdone traditional media in one respect: sensationalising. I'd be careful where I dish out my kudos, Mr. New York Times. :)
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
You thought wrong. As long as the pictures did not run afoul of pornography laws. It's like making the FBI's job that much easier. The pedophiles are self identifying themselves and announcing their meetings. Let them run!
And exactly how are they going to do that without running afoul of anti-slavery laws?
Just because you are a political group does NOT mean that you get to re-write the existing laws.
And you might want to look up David Duke and his campaign.
Seriously. You need to learn about this thing we call "law". Just because you are a political party does NOT mean that you get to ignore existing laws. IF you get elected (because a MAJORITY of the voters feel the SAME WAY YOU DO) only THEN can you start re-writing laws.
Until then, you can advocate whatever you want ... but you still have to obey the same laws that everyone else does.
"In this case, the Egyptian government wants to bring peace to the Middle East, whereas the activists want more violence"
Not at all, all the activists want is the ability to get rid of the government, like we do. And the activists in the far east wouldn't be so violent if they didn't keep geting bombed with US made phosphorus bombs.
the eleventh commandment: thou shalt not criticize Israel
davecb5620@gmail.com
Jeez, the laws cited by the poster are no different to what we have in the UK to allegedly protect us from 'extremists' and 'terrorists'.
You've just reinforced an idea that is the reason the United States and the west in general are despised by Muslims worldwide. We have been propping up dictatorships in that area for decades, including countries like Saudi Arabia, where non-Muslims cannot testify in court, children are married off to forty year olds, and public beheadings are commonplace.
If you don't have any principles, that's fine, and at least I'm glad you admit it. But until the end of our military sponsorships of repressive governments, including the billions of dollars we've given Egypt, America and it's allies will remain the largest recipient of terror from the Middle East. If you wouldn't suffer Iran or China or Mexico propping up a dictatorship over you, why do you expect them to lay down their arms and allow you to tread on them?
According to the Declaration of Independence, "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
It doesn't say anything about oppressing other nations under the pretense of security. What another country does with it's own system of governance is frankly none of our business.
That's the price of freedom. EVERYBODY gets to speak, and there's no such thing as absolute safety. Besides, the genie's out of the bottle. Interpersonal communication will never be the same again. Attempts to try to control the Net fail time and time again. Only time can tell what will happen...
Not at all. Get your priorities in line, man. It is MORE important that people survive than that they're free.
"They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom".
Or in the South Park version:
"Gobble, gobble gobble gobble, gobble gobble gobble gobble, gobble, gobble gobble, GOBBLE!!!"
And I seem to recall a gang of rebels, oh-when-was-that-around-1776-I-think, who'd rather die at the hand of their oppressors than pay taxes if they didn't have seats in the government.
And I'm sure you can find other historic examples of people willing to die for freedom.
Just something to consider...
No, I fear that freedom of expression on the internet is a luxury that only the stable Western democracies and a few non-Islamic dictatorships can afford.
Dictatorships do not like freedom of expression. Duh! Dictatorships are bad. Freedom of expression is good. How much doublethinking have you been doing to have such a twisted worldview?
We have that in the US, except for when the government says you can't.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Huh? Why not? Why couldn't we put trade embargoes on them?
You might want to note that we didn't invade Germany during WWII because of what he was doing to his own people. We did it because he invaded other countries.
And don't we have trade restrictions with Iran?
The problem with your reasoning is that it quickly results in the USofA being the "policeman of the world" and our country cannot AFFORD that.
I think that you need to read up on some history.
But you never ask the question WHY the majority of voters in Egypt would WANT to elect them.
It doesn't matter if you outlaw one political party. If the majority of the people have the same beliefs as that political party, then they will, eventually, become the government.
That is the price of living in a Free society.
Otherwise anyone can be held indefinitely because someone in the government can claim that they said the forbidden words.
If you have served the time for the crime, you get out.
That does not mean that the cops have to completely ignore you until AFTER you've committed another crime.
First paragraph is true and most people see that.
The bit about MEMRI is also true, and unfortunately not a lot of people know how that organisation selectively and misleadingly translates documents.
http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/15069/135/
http://mondediplo.com/2005/10/15propaganda (subscription required)
And there's more that I can't be arsed to link to.
JG
-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
Rely on $corporate to organise your dissent and let those that are grass roots get shutdown.
The summary makes an important mistake. The remarkable thing about social networking accessibility is not that it facilitates the spread of ideas. People did this underground in Egypt all the time-- through private conversations, through unauthorized pamphlets, cassette tapes, etcetera. That was never the issue.
What social networking facilitates is the organization of people amongst these ideas. That is the real threat to the government-- that is why groups of greater than 5 must be licensed. Moreover, the networks allow this facilitation to happen with *minimal effort, time, and expenses* and also provides avenues for concealing one's identity and location.
It's not that this allows for the spread of ideas (which is the common Western liberal myth, that the Arabs don't find a way to exchange their ideas), but that it allows for effective organization (which is a threat to the state even in the so-called democracies of the West).
In the United States you have to get a license to protest as well. It is typical for police to arrest protesters when they want and charge them on this.
I would mod you up if I had the points, as you have a good handle on the situation. Egypt is a moderate islamic country and the *majority* of people are happier to have the government currently in place than an extremist muslim group.
Unfortunately, westerners hear the alarms of repression and assume the people are being kept under the government's thumb when in actuality the only people being truly repressed are the extremist groups and those that support them. These groups use this to appeal to those outside of the country who might not understand the situation and provide them with sympathy.
Egypt still has its problems, and it's not the government. There's a reason every car that enters City Stars is checked for bombs or the militaristic crackdown following the tourist killings a few years back.
During my travel in Egypt, I learned a bit about their political atmosphere. The US brought it democracy and installed Mubarak as president, who is hated by the average Egyptian. It is supposed to be democratic, but in reality it is far from it. In the past, Mubarak imprisoned his elective opposition, Ayman Nour. Before that election, it was written in their Constitution not to allow other parties to run. For more, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosni_Mubarak. There is little order throughout their capital and most people there seem too busy trying to maintain their meager lives to have time for politics.
The Christians are the rich minority. They literally are building suburbs in the middle of the desert - to be called "New Cairo." But the other 70% Muslims live on US$10 a month. They are oppressed by Mubarak's government, but the ones I met come across content (without them, there would be no alcohol in the country).
I am happy to see this - these people need a wake-up call and I met many young kids who knew at least how to use facebook or myspace at any of the ubiquitous internet cafes.
Indians should not trust each other because there are no Citizens in India. There are only People living in India.
Here it is why.
DESPERATION
85% of Indians are languishing in an informal economy to earn $2 a day so that they can feed a meal for their family.
Hence their lives oscillate between DESPERATION and FRUSTATION.
As of today, Voting in Elections for 100 rupees is the only respite for them.
COLLUSION
The remaining 15% well to do Indians are even more desperate.
They prefer to evade Taxes.
And no Taxes means no Civilization.
One Indian does not want fellow Indian to succeed.
Bribe or Caste is the only relation between any two individuals (politicians, business men, govt officials, judiciary etc).
And source of revenue for govt is corporate taxes and funds for political parties is corporate bribes.
SOLUTION
An armed society is a free and polite society.
And it's not fear that keeps us polite -- it's responsibility.
I suppose everybody in India own a hand gun.
Spending money?
Simply Beautiful. I love revolutionary thinking. It gets me giddy. What freedom we have was built upon it and it will be built upon it again. Any government with dissonant thoughts which must be repressed is (in my mind) by definition not legitimate. I support any method of expression of opinion, congregation and political discussion, even for extremist groups, for the very reason the quoter of Churchill has stated. Granted, as many posters on this topic have suggested, perhaps Egypt has a situation which is not ready for this kind of willy-nilly freedom being thrown about like barrels of aqueous sodium-hydroxide marked "Wasser". Indeed, the people may not have sufficient piss-and-vinegar to defuse the caustic situation that could erupt from the severely contrasted political views which are present. Nonetheless, you would think that after 28 years of needing a license for congregation, they would have come up with some sort of solution. After all, if I wanted to have four friends plus my same-gender OR opposite-gender sexual partner over to smoke a few blunts and possibly have premarital sex in privacy or a group setting, that should be my choice and I certainly wouldn't want to describe that sort of thing on the reason for my seeking a license to do so. Ah yes. Freedom is a beautiful thing. Let us pray to Allah or Jesus or whoever you might choose or choose not to believe in, that the next revolution that graces us causes the invention of a device as lovely as the guillotine.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
However, in a poor country, education is a premium, and therefore not everyone has a good education. This leaves the field open to opportunists who prey upon the people's ignorance; the clergy here being the opportunistic organization there.
Everywhere there is rampant poverty, and rampant ignorance, the clergy has a stronghold on the people. After all, religion has a 100,000 year headstart against Science.
The rampant poverty is exacerbated by the corrupt political class and the corrupt civil servants, all of them having a vested interest in the status-quo.
The inability of civil society to eradicate poverty has led to the encroachment of radical views, in that case, religious organizations that want to apply simplistic solutions to what appears to be a solution of the problems they claim to address, but as the experience has shown in Iran, they only seek power for it's own sake.
It is nice and well to claim that Egypt should have freedom of speech and democracy, but this cannot happen in the current state of general ignorance and political illiteracy.
The egyptian leaders are walking a very fine line to prevent yet another islamic republic à la Iran. However, their own corruptness cannot insure a progressive solution, as this would mean to properly educate the masses, who would then see how corrupt they are.
The solution would be a communist-like takeover for one generation where people are forcibly governed by a strong State which would educate the younger generations in order to allow them to be able to democratically exert their political power when they come to age, all the while laying down the foundation of a successful economy where opportunity is not the province of a privileged few.
Sorry for that, I was actually just trying to counter-troll that one asshole. I don't actually think the ACLU defends our freedom like the military.
Where I live, in Turkey, they've already started banning the crap out of websites. The weirdest case, to me, was when they banned geocities.com. I mean, there are so many sites there, what the hell could they all have done wrong? They also banned youtube which is another ridiculous thing to do. They ban porn sites as well. The thing is; they are apparently "protecting us" or whatever from the stuff on the internet or just protecting themselves from us but really, is banning even going to help? Changing your DNS or using anonymity websites solves this problem and even if you're not capable of using sites like vtunnel (some people are internet-ignorant, I get that), there are so many other sources you can use to access porn (in our case) or social groups (in Egypt's case).
It's going to be interesting to see the Slashdot comments on this one. IIRC, Egypt has a secular government, but the Muslims there would like it to be a religious one.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad