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Some Countries Want To Ban 'Information Weapons'
DrgnDancer sends in an NPR piece on recent efforts to control so-called "information weapons" on the Internet. What's interesting is that the term "information weapon," as defined by many of the countries trying to limit them, doesn't mean what you would think. It's closer to the old Soviet term "ideological aggression." "At a UN disarmament conference in 2008, Sergei Korotkov of the Russian Defense Ministry argued that anytime a government promotes ideas on the Internet with the goal of subverting another country's government — even in the name of democratic reform — it should qualify as 'aggression.' And that, in turn, would make it illegal under the UN Charter. 'Practically any information operation conducted by a state or a number of states against another state would be qualified as an interference into internal affairs,' Korotkov said through an interpreter. 'So any good cause, like [the] promotion of democracy, cannot be used as a justification for such actions.' The Russians, and a lot of other countries such as Iran and China, apparently consider the free exchange of information to be an information technology threat. One that must be managed by treaty."
My mom and other relatives are always giving me shit on Facebook about getting a job, and pointing out how my cousin is doing so much better than me. So while we're making it illegal to criticize governments, can we also make it illegal to criticize individuals? I really feel like a lot of people are being ideologically aggressive towards me, and I would appreciate it if the UN would step in and put a stop to it. Thanks in advance for any protection you can afford me as a sovereign individual.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Yeah this story was on NPR this morning - Some countries believe Twitter is an ideological weapon am sure that is just what Biz Stone had in mind........ fricken wackjobs
Countries that do not like freedom of expression will do a lot to prevent it, including going into conflicts or trying to push treaties and international agreements that conflate freedom of expression and terrorism.
They have been doing this since people had ideas to argue over. Look it up.
If you don't want to hear of all the wonderful ideas the rest of the world has, stop using the communications medium they use to spread them. It is not the problem of modern nations to ensure your citizens are not exposed to ideas that you don't like. Be warned that some of them may object rather strongly when their own government rips it away from them.
So Germany isn't reunited, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic don't have free multiparty elections now?
The pushing of democracy in the Cold War, along with a healthy cultural push from film, tv, radio and music helped spur the end of one party rule in Eastern Europe.
So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression.
If that can be illegal under international law, we will slid quickly to ideological and religious islands with physical and idea walls around. It is censorship for sure. Not unlike the laws against circumventing content protection schemes. Thats illegal.. When I saw we had done that then I knew we were going to see more tightening and control of information, for profit and in this case for political control (well that is a different kind of profit that controls profit). Years before there were laws passed that made it illegal to listen in to certain radio frequencies or transmissions. That I think may have been one of the first steps in this control of information slide. They acually passed laws that Short wave radio's in this country could only tune to certain frequencies, but of course the fix to open that up to other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that bathes us all with its sunsine was easy and provided.
When will it stop, those that want to control and profit? Ya need to vote.
So you're annoyed that your carefully crafted message on your state owned media is being undercut by the free flow of ideas on the Internet? Yeah, I'm just not seeing what is in this for me. Do you have some treaty concessions you would be willing to make in exchange for keeping your stranglehold on what your populace sees and hears, because I'm not seeing how this is my problem.
I read the internet for the articles.
This is a nonsense issue. Last I heard the US and Britain were on the Security counsel and would veto any attempt to get it though. This is just a way for those countries to say "we don't censor people, we protect them from attacks"
If this passes we'll finally GTFO of the UN.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Sorry, but Moms and "other relatives" have an inalienable right to criticize. Moms in particular.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Yes, and the UN is also contemplating a ban on Defamation of Religion.
Sadly ever ass-hat oppressive regime who doesn't like to be criticized, and every stupid idiot who believes in the tooth fairy wants to remove my right to criticize them or point out that they're idiots. People who embrace living in the stone age want to make it illegal for me to say that they're stupid for doing so.
So, allow me to preemptively say ... your country sucks if it takes away people's freedoms, your religion sucks if it confers an obligation on those of us who don't believe, your government sucks ... well, your government probably sucks no matter where you are. I retain my right to give offense, and if you don't like it, too damned bad.
Any religion or government which can't stand some criticism should be banned.
I'm all for the UN, but increasingly the backwards and the stupid are pushing an agenda that wants to wipe out the last thousand years of progress in human endeavors.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Yeah, it's not like they turned into a Democracy when the government finally collapsed.
Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Georgia, etc did.
The cold war was not waged exclusively against the soviet union. It was also waged against the soviet "client" states throughout eastern europe, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact. Much of the info campaign was directed at these states.
Just because Russia propper isn't the most shining example of a Democracy, it doesn't mean that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan aren't.
Sure, I'm sure there's corruption in some of those too, but by no means all of them.
for some reason my control-v is broke right now, but looking at wikipedia it's showing a positive outlook on Latvia, Lithuaia and Estonia, and a 'very serious situation' in Turkmenistan.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Just goes to show you that some societies (and apparently their "leaders" more so) just can't wrap their minds around the concept of freedom after so many years of oppression and state-sponsored censorship. I even hear some Russian ex-pats speak of how the people there have just come to expect oppressive government and even go so far as to embrace it now. As an American I can't wrap my mind around that, but I guess I understand the underlying reasons for it. Despite what some think about my government and some of it's people, I feel so very fortunate to have been born in the US and I remind myself - and stories like this also remind me - how truly fortunate I am to live in a free society. And dumb comments about how the US isn't really a free society will fall on deaf eyes. I love my country for better or worse, and not just out of blind patriotism, but because the ideals set forth to create this country are the best we've come up with yet. I truly feel for the people of oppressive regimes and hope that one day they get to bask in the warmth that is freedom of thought and expression.
Countries have complained for years about shortwave radio broadcasts doing the same thing. They just got around to noticing this "internet thing."
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
They do alot better at trying that they did from, oh infinity to 1991.
Air America, the radio network, was a left-wing radio network in the US.
It was a CIA fronted aviation company in the 1960s.
I think you are looking for Voice of America.
for some time now. If they can get the internet classified as a weapon, well then they'll HAVE to regulate it!
I'm for the UN Security Council, and various commissions and agencies, but I'm not in favor of the General Assembly doing crap like this.
Like when a UN forum on Racism keeps calling Zionism racist but won't label movements like Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah or Arab Nationalism as racist. Nor will they call out and attack Saharan and Sub-Saharan slavery.
>>>The pushing of democracy in the Cold War, along with a healthy cultural push from film, tv, radio and music helped spur the end of one party rule in Eastern Europe
More like a bankrupt treasury.
I give zero credit to the 24 hour propaganda radio.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Just because you came up with a new name for it, its still "censorship".
Maybe they should call it "High Fructose Information Sugar" and people won't notice.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Second, if he posits that the internet should not be a permitted avenue for propaganda, how is this suddenly a threat to information technology?
There are three different ways you can use propaganda to destabilize an opponent:
When one country is trying to destabilize or take down another country's government, the most effective approach is to use a blend of truth, lies, and mixed statements. The government attempting to resist outside propaganda will declare that all incoming propaganda are sheer lies, but the danger there is that the public will realize that at least some of the propaganda is true, which will make them suspicious about government statements about the false information.
But consider recent comments from Iran about America's use of the death penalty. The statement that we are putting a woman to death are completely true, even though the Iranian government is making the statement in order to cast America in a poor light. It would be easy under a system of rules designed to prohibit outside subversion, to classify such a statement as subversive propaganda.
Thus facts, lies, and mixtures of facts and lies can all be considered subversive propaganda. Is there any other form of discourse left after these three are removed?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
the deep-seated Russian desire for an iron-heeled boot on the back of their neck. FFS, Solzhenitsyn seemed to despise 'The West' (even while exiled in New Hampshire).
Let's have a closer look at them one by one:
Estonia and Latvia have fascist apartheid laws, denying citizenship rights to one quarter and one third of their respective population.
Lithuania has democratically voted back the commies right after they got a taste of democacy.
Belarus is Europe's Last Dictatorship
Moldova's main export is white babies, prostitutes, slaves and human organs. A European country with a GDP per capita of Sudan.
Ukraine is marginally richer than Moldova, with a similar export profile. The worlds busiest slave port is Odessa, Ukraine.
Armenia is slightly poorer than Moldova (after being one of the most prosperous republics of the USSR).
Azerbaijan is a hereditary absolute monarchy with no democracy in sight. Also, an oil- and gas-emirate.
Georgia is a Stalinist dictatorship with a largely impoverished population (after being THE most prosperous republic of the USSR). A police officer makes about five to ten times as much as a university professor. Nuff said.
Kazakhstan is happily ruled on by the same dude that was the first secretary of the Communist Party. Without interruption, mind you.
Kyrgyzstan is on the brink of civil war and would be by far the poorest post-Soviet state, were it not for
Tajikistan, which is already in the state of civil war.
Turkmenistan is a shining democracy and has always been, no doubt. Google for Turkmenbashi, if you need any proof.
In Uzbekistan, the situation is largely the same as in Kazakhstan, minus mineral wealth plus a huge impoverished population.
So?
Actually I think he means Radio Free Europe.
Plus theres no way in hell countries like the US are gonna sign onto it.
until they add a trailer to the treaty involving copyright
I have friends in Kazakhstan and it is no shining example of Democracy. In one case a friend's parents had to vote for the last president or the university they worked for would have fired them.
So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression.
Damn right. It was aggression against people who hate freedom, who want to rule, who sent tanks in Poland and quite a few other places as well over the years.
It was non-violent aggression, which is the kind that actually works.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Woodie Guthrie's guitar read "This Machine Kills Fascists". And indeed, every musical instrument, poet's pen, comedian's voice, do also.
(Photo of Guthrie and his facist-killing machine)
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."
This painting was credited by an art historian who taught a class I took as starting the French revolution. The arts and information (e.g., The Federalist Papers which contributed to starting the American revolution) have always been political weapons.
Free Martian Whores!
The 24 hour propaganda radio was highly effective. Same with the 24 hour propaganda movies and satellite TV broadcasts.
Wait, you're not talking about Warner, MGM, Michael Jackson, and Levi Jeans?
The ______ Agenda
Except in the US the rural states are the ones the East and South keep poor by controlling large percentages of land through the BLM, National Forest Service, National Park Service and DoD.
Oh and we get the American Indian Reservations, you know the people the Blue States of the East and South kicked out 180 years ago, but the Red States feed, provide fuel and natural resources.
Look at Presidential Red States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Red_state,_blue_state.svg
They have the bulk of the military bases, Indian Reservations/Alaska Natives, food production and energy.
The Blue States are powered by the Red States, were the US to splinter along those lines, the Red States are in better strategic shape to remain a country. California, Oregon-Washington would be fine, but the North East is boned.
In one case a friend's parents had to vote for the last president or the university they worked for would have fired them.
Everybody might want to keep this example in mind the next time somebody tells us that we need voter verification built into our electoral system.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Lets see, in the decades after the US became a democracy, it had no votes for women. Had legal slavery based on color of the skin. Denied citizenship to asians and the natives. Slaughtered millions of the natives and deported the survivors to concentration camps where they were expected to slowly die with no natural or mineral resources.
The former USSR nations are not doing great, but most have NOT yet slipped as low as the past of the US of A.
Why do you compare the US after 2 centuries of freedom with newly freed states?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Well then you might just start a flame war over the user friendliness and ease of use of an apple versus a tuna sandwich.
Why do the red states have the bulk of military bases? Stimulus/pork-barrel spending. As for energy and food... who exactly would the red states sell them to? Let's see what the red-state economies look like when they don't have the blue states to purchase their goods.
We're interdependent. Neither "side" would fare well independently without a sizable period of time to adjust.
What's indisputable, though, is the OP's point, which you failed to address. The red states are subsidized by the blue states, quite heavily in most cases.
That's a bunch of whargarble. It's not federal or regional control of land that keeps the rural states poor. More arable land isn't going to help you get richer. Mineral extraction is a slightly different matter... but the mining companies know they can get minerals much cheaper overseas. It's not federal land management that makes the US a poor prospect for mining... it's labor costs and environmental/social regulations. As an aside, I think those regulations are a good thing.
As for strategic viability of red vs. blue states... Blue states have more and better ports. And the cash to buy things to get shipped into those ports. Can't say the same for the Red states. Short-term, food and power are issues. But money can overcome those issues. Not sure about the red states ability to overcome their issues... lack of capital. Lack of ports. Lack of infrastructure in general (especially once the blue-state subsidy is gone).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I have an idea that that part came after Jesus was a pincushion. A reasonably careful reading of the Bible shows two Jesuses. The Hippie, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" Jesus and the "Hey God is my Daddy, do what I say" Jesus. I suspect that the real Jesus (or possibly real men who were amalgamated into Jesus) was the first. The second came when a bunch of people realized that they could sell Jesus(A) as a product to buy them the power of Jesus(B). This idea is reinforced by the fact that when Jesus (the character) actually speaks, he normally sounds more like Jesus(A). When he is spoken for, he normally sounds more like Jesus(B).
There's legitimate wisdom in the New Testament. You just have to fish for it a bit.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
You don't get it. If you say "I think that dogs shouldn't wear hats", I can say "PETA engages in violence and arson and thinks dogs shouldn't wear hats. Therefore any expression supportive of hatless dogs is implicitly supporting violence and arson and cannot be allowed." That sort of shit happens all the time in the UN, and all the time in opressive regimes. The very governments who would abuse this employ staffs of hundreds of very smart people who's only job is come up with a nearly reasonable interpretation of any statement such that it can be seen as breaking the rules. And since the decision will be inevitably be made on a political basis, not any sort of neutral basis (since we're talking about the UN), nearly reasonable is all that's needed.
This is the fundamental problem with allowing any sort of government to outlaw any sort of speech - it creates a weapon to be used by the people who judge the merits of speech to attack anyone who says anything. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him" wasn't theoretical, it was what Cardinal Richelieu did for a living.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
More like a bankrupt treasury.
I give zero credit to the 24 hour propaganda radio.
I think 24 hour propaganda radio had a lot to do with driving the treasury into bankruptcy. Western radio, TV, and film showing the technological and social advances made in the west provided a lot of the pressure for the soviet block to push their own development and at least to maintain the appearance of a dominant military in an international version of Keep Up With the Joneses.
In the absence of Western propaganda, the internal soviet propaganda could just spout the latest triumphs of the glorious workers' state and not have to push the crumbling (and shattered, after WWII) economy to out-do the US's latest military wonder.
There's a question of how one would form. In the past, the alternative took it's base from one of the other parties. All this did was to let the party that wasn't split in half. And there's really no where else to get voters from. There is the non-political block, which is sizable, but they're DEFINED by not voting. And the third-parties are all super-small.
So as it stands, the only way to get another party is to break off from one of the two and then devour it's base. Kinda like how the religious right took over and perhaps what the TEA-baggers are going to do. But this doesn't so much make a third party as transform one of the two. And sad as it is, if one party is for it, the other is against it by default.
Russia collapsed in bankruptcy, but it seems almost certain that cultural influences and "24 hour propaganda radio" were contributing factors in that financial over-extension. It contributed to the paranoia and ego spending to keep up militarily, as well as stressing them to support a domestic economic image. The people wanted western goods and envied images of western lifestyles. The population was always told they were the greatest most powerful nation on earth with the best government and best economic system, and so they wanted more than they had, they felt entitled to more than they were getting. A population will be relatively content at almost any standard of living so long as they have nothing to compare it to, or if they don't feel entitled to equality. On the other hand when there is economic discontent that energy generally flows into ideology and ideals. Since they envied western goods and western lifestyles that energy would naturally get funneled into western ideology and ideals. To the extent the Soviets failed to keep up the domestic image it fueled problematical political pressures, and to the extent they did sustain the domestic image it overstretched their economy.
I don't mean to oversimplify the causes of the Soviet economic implosion, but I don't think it is correct to completely discount "24 hour propaganda radio" and surrounding media and cultural influences. I believe they increased, and focused, the pressures that ultimately drove them off the financial cliff.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Seems like a giant waste of money to me. It certainly didn't accomplish much during the Cold war
It certainly didn't accomplish much during the Cold war
It accomplished a lot in the Cold War. Most notably, it gave millions of Soviet citizens the idealistic picture of a perfect life in capitalist states, so much so that, when perestroika came, large part of the population were actually pushing forward because they wanted to see heaven on Earth that would surely come once true democracy is established, and all industry is privatized.
These unrealistic expectations, by the way, are one of the major causes of why Russian democracy quickly collapsed the way it did. Way too much was promised, and way too little delivered, under the brand of "democracy and freedom", which is now firmly associated with that failure. Which makes it damn hard to push for actual democracy and freedom in Russia today - you will inevitably be referred to as "the follower of those bastards who raped the country in the 90s".
A true story reflective of all this. In early 90s, there were mass pro-Yeltsin demonstrations of miners. A video recording from one of them shows a miner telling to the camera: "I'm sick and tired of communists. I want a business owner, a master who knows how to run things right! I want to work for the master, get paid well, and have my vacation on the Canary Islands!". The guy got his master, for sure, but, unfortunately, not the pay or the vacation parts. He died a few years later from alcohol poisoning in his apartment - same one he had in the USSR.
Name a democracy formed from a failed state that was stable within the first decade or two after it's inception.
Why do you think that? I think capitalism was inevitable, but democracy is not something that would have come to Russia naturally. Someone else would have simply taken over. Even with Democracy they ended up with another strongman with an iron fist.