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Siemens, Nokia Helped Provide Iran's Censoring Tech
An anonymous reader writes "The Wall Street Journal has an article about Nokia and Siemens selling the censoring technology to Iran's government. Do you believe that the public relations damage to these companies can persuade them from selling this kind of technology to other dictatorial regimes?" I don't believe there will *be* any PR Damage, and that makes me a little sad.
Why single out Iran? Are you saying Nokia shouldn't operate in Iran; they should break the law there; what?
I'm guessing a lot of people reading this have the former in mind: information technology companies in the industrialized world shouldn't operate in countries that place restrictions on political speech to the extent seen in the countries on which the United States already has sanctions. In the 1980s, near the end of South Africa's counterpart to the U.S. "Jim Crow" era, there was an effort to boycott companies that did business in South Africa: disinvestment was a result.
Iran, regardless of all the shortcomings and issues IS a democracy
Who are you kidding? One un-elected guy has godly powers. He can do anything he likes.
Every "election" that happens, candidates are screened for loyalty to that unelected guy and Islam, if found not loyal enough, they are barred. And democracy is not just about elections. What is democracy without freedom of speech? freedom to peacefully protest? etc.
I'm baffled by your idea of what constitutes a democracy. "It sucks less than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, so it's a democracy!"
Iran used to be a quasi-democracy, after the recent "election" (read coup) Khamenei gave a big fuck you to people and said we're not even going to bother counting votes anymore.
well technically Iran is a democracy
with democratic elections
and president elected by people.
obviously there are problems
and problems with ballot counting,
however Florida also had ballots accounting problem...
I do not say Iran is a happy place to live
but it is more open than many think.
do you think manifestations would happen in North Corea ?
do you think people would be able to play WoW or use Twitter in many Burma ?
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
So is there any evidence of election rigging yet?
"In 50 Iranian cities the number of votes cast in this month presidential election exceeded the number of eligible voters, the state's election watchdog admitted today. "
Take that as you will.
Correct, according to this article from the BBC:
"Western governments, including the UK, don't allow you to build networks without having this functionality."