Slashdot Mirror
Venezuela's Chavez To Limit Internet Freedom
terets1 writes "Reuters reports that Venezuela's leader, Hugo Chavez, issued a call on Saturday for 'internet controls' to prevent rumors and inaccurate reporting from spreading. He specifically cited a case in which a website incorrectly reported that a senior minister had been assassinated and kept the story up for two days. Many of Venezuela's opposition movements use social networking sites to communicate. It is not apparent at this time exactly what kind of controls Chavez has in mind or whether those controls will be similar to the controls in Iran that have been used to silence opposition movements. Chavez said, 'The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms.'"
Coming soon to Obamaland!
I guess Chavez has decided to follow the same path that every other communist leader has followed? "We cannot allow openness if it means people will disagree with me."
Palm trees and 8
This isn't shocking. In fact, I'm surprised it took him this long. Maybe someone should give Mr Chavez China's number so he can get some first hand tips on how to handle this.
This one would be credible if the non-communist countries weren't doing it. :-(
But they are: latest is New Zealand. So meh. Welcome to the club, I guess
The first reaction to news like this -- rated up twice in a minute, mind you -- is to look at this issue through a hyperpartisan lens.
The desire to curtail freedom on the Internet comes not from the right or the left, but the powerful. Anybody with a computer can have a voice, and as with the copyright industries there is a wish to turn back the hands of time rather than to adjust to the new reality, progress be damned.
It's time to shed partisanship and take a very real look at the role the Internet should play in our society. To do otherwise is to let one "side" or the other continue to erode a unique and precious part of our lives forever; once lost, what we currently enjoy with the Internet will never be returned.
You think that just because you do not find what the first poster to be insightful, that it is not insightful? While I feel that Obama does not have the backbone to try and impose censorship on the United States, I am sure we will see some type of oppressive censorship in the relatively near future. Anyone that does not believe this probably is not paying attention to who is in control of the various governments within the United States.
Regardless, you do not speak for everyone that visits this site. Those who modded the post as "Insightful" probably read the post and marked it as such because they feel it is insightful.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Everyone must be "responsible" for their words. Responsibility begins with registering your nicknames along with your address for our thugs.
Shh.
In Venezuela the freedom of speech is the greatest in the world. In Television News anchors openly talk about killing the president, they make calls for a coup d'etat, all this goes for newspapers and radio stations. People can say and think whatever thay want. There has been 11 years of this. And they still say that there is no freedom of speech in Venezuela. I watch how the world sees Venezuela, they show a country in total war with mass killings, wich is total bullshit. Yes there was a time 2002-2003 where there was a fight and a coup d'etat, wich the people fought to get their president back and they won, the vast majority of Venezuelans won. This small faction of what we call "media terrorist" who own private TV stations, radio, and newspapers still attack their own country by lying to them. Im venezuelan, if you want to know the truth of whats happening here, come to Venezuela, to any part of it, and you will see peace, a beautiful country.
The wild west day of the internet are almost over.
The internet can now give power to individuals, corporations and governments (and the US corpovernment ) will not let this go on for long, unless ...
A dictatorship is a president (elected or not) that takes control of all public powers, change the constitution and laws to adapt them for his own plans and then kill every corner of freedom (slow or fast) to the point that there's no real opposition in the country, that massive media is cornered or adapted to please him and since he adapted laws for him to create the possibility of infinite reelections then he could stay on power for decades.... That's Hugo Chavez.
not listening to input from people that aren't part of your circle of 'true believers' isn't dictatorship. hell, that describes the bush administration.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
I am sure we will see some type of oppressive censorship in the relatively near future. Anyone that does not believe this probably is not paying attention to who is in control of the various governments within the United States.
That's crap. The US government is the de facto definition of gridlock, ineffectiveness and partisan pettiness. They wouldn't even agree on a bill to give themselves the winning lottery numbers without bickering, squabbling and turning it into a pissing match. And then they'd anonymously block it, filibuster it and shit can it. If there's one thing the lot of them are missing these days is purpose.
There's only one true political division in the United States: the old-money families and the powerful elite they represent (that represents them, actually, as the truly powerful don't like the limelight) and ordinary Americans. All other divisions are artificial creations of the media, by-products of the either-or way in which everything is presented. Left/right and Democrat/Republican are like this. The Democrats and the Republicans are two factions of a single party, the Statist Party.
There's one thing they all agree on: the government's size, power, and involvement in the daily life of citizens should be continuously expanded, with no regard for merit, necessity, or the reduction in quality of life that this will cause. Right now USA citizens enjoy relatively free access to the Internet. To the power-hungry, however, that just means this is a growth area for government. Unfortunately that's purpose enough for them. There is very much of a "because we can" mentality operating here that is not terribly concerned about immediate goals except that they make good excuses which are hard to politically oppose, such as "to stop terrorism" or "to protect the children".
So, there might be "partisan pettiness" concerning the question of what to do with an overwhelming ability to censor the Internet. But there will be no such pettiness when it comes to whether or not our politicians would like to have this ability.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
This report provides a great opportunity to see how the anti-Chavez croud is prone to knee-jerk reactions while so poorly informed. The thing is, the report which this slashdot post is based on only mentions that Chavez complained about a specific website posting false information. More specifically, the offending website, which is ran by an anti-Chavez faction, made up a story about how one of Chavez' cabinet ministers was assassinated and kept the made up story on it's site for days, although it was repeatedly contacted and informed that the minister was, in fact, alive and well. Chavez' coment is nothing more than a complain that just because it's the internet you shouldn't be allowed to dedicate itself to defamation and intentionally spread false information. And suddenly he is labelled as a dictator hell-bent on destroying openness? What twisted train of thought leads you from a) you shouldn't spread lies to b) no freedom for you?
The thing is, this is yet another example on how hell-bent some people are on attacking Chavez. For example, imagine that a media company such as Fox/CNN/whatever decided to run stories on how Bush/Obama was assassinated. Imagine that that media company decided not only to post that information but also kept it up for days, although it was repeatedly contacted to be informed that no, Bush/Obama was still very much alive. If, after that, Bush/Obama complained that you shouldn't post false information to your heart's content, would that make Bush/Obama dictators who hate freedom and want to wage war on openness? Heck, what if it was your very death that the website announced? Would you enjoy having to go around contacting everyone you could informing that you were still very much alive? Wouldn't you want that site to stop spreading those lies? Wouldn't you want that sort of action to be illegal? Of course you would. But suddenly, if Chavez mentions it then he becomes an evil, anti-freedom dictator? Go figure.
There are a lot of irrational, ill-informed anti-Chavez militants around and they don't hate Chavez because of anything he actually did. In fact, they don't base their hatred on anything. Their hatred for Chavez is their starting point and they pick up from there, grasping at straws to try to justify they hatred. Those irrational, anti-Chavez militants make it a point to accuse him of being a dictator although he is holding a democratically appointed position to which he was elected time and again and although he has been the target of multiple coup attempts, all of which were reverted by none other than Venezuela's people. Is that what being a dictator is about?
Personally, I don't like Chavez. I believe he is a demagogue who, at best, is trying to revolutionize a society which can barely manage to function. Yet, I'm always left dumbfounded by the string of primal anti-Chavez sentiment which is based on nothing more than the ill-informed imagination of a hand-full of idiots who don't even know why they hate him. That is to be expected among the great unwashed masses but hell, this is supposed to be slashdot, a place where informed, educated people tend to read and post news. This sort of nonsense shouldn't take place here.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Venezuela is sitting on one of the largest oil reservoirs outside the US and the middle east. To make matters worse, they kicked out foreign oil companies because they want to exploit them themselves.
So I can see a lot of interest to oust the current government. By domestic and international interests that would love to see Chavez gone. Please do note that I neither say it is so nor that it ain't so. I am not in Venezuela, I just watch the whole deal from afar with a keen interest because Venezuela and the thing going on in the country and around it are a prime example of a propaganda war happening.
Take EVERYTHING you hear about Venezuela with a grain of salt. Make that an ounce. Or more. Verify with as many sources as you can, and forget about "independent sources". If you can find one, please inform me, I couldn't. Take all the propaganda from ALL sides and draw your conclusions afterwards.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
One question: why is the transmission medium relevant? Libel laws should be equally applicable whether the false defamation is written in a book, newspaper, magazine, or Web site. Where does the special focus on the Internet come from, if not the fear of power-hungry politicians everywhere of a medium that is not easily censored or controlled, that makes it more difficult for them to get away with lying?
One of the biggest and most noticable differences between traditional media and the Internet, even in the USA, is that traditional media will report "government officials explain X" and stop there. In contrast, many online sources will report "government officials explain X" and then proceed to question the validity of that statement. This is usually done openly, in the sense that regular users like you and I can write posts offering dissent. It's not difficult to understand why corrupt politicians want this to go away.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
As an ex-law enforcement agent of our government, I can tell you that it will not take a bill to silence those the government does not want talking. Sure, you can sit there and "take a stand" or "speak truth to power", but there is little you can do to stop an organization as large as a government. The founders of the United States gave citizens the ability to fight the government, when it gets out of control, but no one ever utilizes that power. In the end, we only have ourselves to blame.
I will agree with you on your statements about politicians, but only to a certain point. When politicians want something passed, they will do whatever it takes. It does not matter what ideology a certain politicians believes in, they all want to stay in power. When someone or something threatens their ability to retain power, then they will fight it in any way they can.
You can attempt to seem righteous and say, "oh, but I would NEVER do THAT". I am here to tell you that you would do exactly what any other politician would do and probably even worse. It is not that you are not a decent person; it is just that any human that is in power wants to retain that power. Thousands of years of human history has shown us this again and again.
Bashing Obama is today's most popular conservative sport.
Of course, you were right there defending [insert-president-from-other-side-of-the-aisle] when it was the other way around, right?
Somehow I doubt it.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
He was legitimately and overwhelmingly elected in a fair election, unlike George W Bush (for example).
You might want to let it go. Bush was legitimately and fairly elected by the system that exists. Just because it's not the way you like it doesn't make it illegitimate.
Chavez is not a dictator. He was legitimately and overwhelmingly elected in a fair election, unlike George W Bush (for example).
Read more news (and history) then. Hitler and Mussolini were elected too, you know. Chavez has shut down opposition newspapers, thrown political opponents into jail, supported the leftist-cum-terrorist operations of FARC in Columbia, is best buds with the Castro brothers, etc. All of which adds up to me as dictator-like behavior. He first came to notice after a failed coup attempt in 1992 - and when he did come to power, became one of the leaders of the OPEC cartel, reducing production to boost oil prices.
See http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/presidentsofsouthamerica/p/09HChavez.htm - a generally sympathetic view of him as a leftist reformer, but his dictatorial aspirations are clear.
Plus, he's just a lying SOS and enemy of the US, just on general principles (or lack thereof). Most recently, he accused US of being responsible for the Haiti earthquake ( http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,583588,00.html ) using some magical new weapon no one else has heard of. Evidence of the paranoid style and demonization of some "enemy" which is page one of the dictator's handbook.\p>
You might want to let it go. Bush was legitimately and fairly elected by the system that exists.
Wait, it was fair because the system -exists- and we should forget about it? So I suppose you'd say that because the system of "Castro is the only one on the ballot" was in existence for Cuba's recent history, Castro was the fairly and legitimately elected democratic president of Cuba, and people should "let it go?"
Chavez certainly isn't the first dictator who started out by getting elected.
-jcr
Plenty of dictators started out by getting elected, but the stress is on the "started out". You can only reasonably call democratically-elected people dictators if and only if elections are subsequently abolished. Leaders who are still serving a term for which they were elected cannot be called dictators, unless you are seriously stretching the use of language.
The reason Chavez in called a dictator (mainly in the American media) is because it easier to call someone an emotive word than discuss the issues; compare the use of the word "terrorist".
Hugo Chavez is a totalitarian with only the personal interest to remain in power. He is not even communist or socialist. Chavez does not worry about destroying his own country as long as he has the power. Over the past 11 years he has been wasting the money of what should have been a booming economy based on the high oil prices. Now an energy rich country even has power problems, and is proposing to have businesses close one day of the week to "save power". Chavez is just a total failure, and he wants to close any media or communication medium to avoid for the truth to be known.