Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Libya Blocks Internet Access As Citizens Protest

Posted by timothy on from the welcome-to-libya dept.

An anonymous reader writes "As protests rage across the Middle East, in particular gaining strength in Libya, Djibouti, Iraq, Bahrain, and Yemen over the past two days, Libya has taken the lead role in blocking internet access to its citizens. Residents of Tripoli, Libya are reporting wide-spread internet blockage for most sites, and access to circumvention tools like OperaTor and VPN is also being blocked."

21 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Great idea! Quite original! by intellitech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It worked so well in Egypt, why not do it in Libya, too.

    --
    vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
    1. Re:Great idea! Quite original! by Troll-Under-D'Bridge · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If the news reports are any accurate, the main reason for the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt is economic. Libya is a wealthier if not economically more equal country than either. So maybe the scale of discontent is lower in Libya, and killing the Internet just "might" be the straw that will break the back of the protests.

      But if this move fails and there's another regime change (for better or worse), then the leaders of a certain economic superpower should be worried. On the other hand, that country may have just the antivirus for popular discontent: high growth rates and a more or less regular change of faces at the top, where the Great Leader isn't Papa's favorite but selected by an inner circle in what works out as a form of extremely hierarchical representative democracy.

    2. Re:Great idea! Quite original! by Firehed · · Score: 2

      I should hope that all of the Lybian protesters aren't three years old. I don't think the "knock it off or we're taking away your internet privileges" approach will work - if anything, it should add fuel to the fire. In fact, it should be just the opposite: the government should be receiving the "knock it off or we're taking away your being in power privileges" message from its citizens.

      That's the theory, at least.

      --
      How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
    3. Re:Great idea! Quite original! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      To add to that:

      Each one of these places has state control(direct like socialism or indirect like fascism) over food production and allocation. Each also has very poor output and imports food. Each also selects favorites to get the most food based on political pull usually giving certain districts more or less based on their political backing. Food becomes bribes for votes, essentially.

      In egypt, food subsidies provide food for a large portion of the population. In fact egypt is the largest wheat importer of the world. When the crop failures hit, egypt was caught off guard. When the governments of india and russia prevented their agriculture industry from selling wheat outside of their countries, it was stunned. When inflation of currencies drove commodity rates up 30% in just 6 months of 2010, egypt was devastated.

      Add to that the fact that these countries subsidizes education costs, which creates massive unemployment for the increased number of graduates. Tunisia particularly had a 45% unemployment rate for graduates, when the national average was only 15%. 57% of new workers entering the market to find jobs are college educated so we are talking about 25% of all new workers not finding jobs. This idle and restless youth is the most inclined to fight against the current power structure. With no reliance upon it for handouts(after graduating, I mean) and nothing to lose besides their despairing or even hopeless lives, they are a volatile group.

      Some links for lots of sources:
      http://mises.org/daily/5045/The-Education-Bubble-Is-Fuel-for-Revolt
      http://www.buzzle.com/articles/egypt-protests2011.html
      http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/gender-barriers-break-in-egyptian-protests/
      http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world/middleeast/28alexandria.html
      http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-31-how-food-prices-can-fuel-revolutions-like-egypts/
      http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-economy/2011/01/spike_in_global_food_prices_tr.html
      http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/
      http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/agr_cou_818.pdf
      http://mises.org/daily/5050/QE2-Fuels-a-Global-Fury

      Each of these links is worth reading, and provide even more evidence than I mentioned above.

    4. Re:Great idea! Quite original! by Anachragnome · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Libya is a wealthier if not economically more equal country than either."

      Not entirely accurate. The GOVERNMENT of Libya is wealthy. US diplomatic cables paint an entirely different picture then that you describe.

      The locals...
      http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/07/08TRIPOLI530.html
      http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/11/08TRIPOLI889.html
      http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/01/09TRIPOLI22.html

      The shit the locals have to put up with...
      http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/08/08TRIPOLI635.html

      The leaders the locals have to put up with (not to be confused with the shit)...
      http://213.251.145.96/cable/2010/02/10TRIPOLI95.html
      http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/07/08TRIPOLI592.html

      With only more of the same shit to look forward to...
      http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/12/08TRIPOLI936.html

      All it really takes to get Libyan panties in a bunch...
      http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/12/09TRIPOLI961.html

      So, in reality, things aren't really any different there then they are in other countries we see in full-swing upheaval--we just haven't heard about it in the media...yet.

    5. Re:Great idea! Quite original! by sumdumass · · Score: 2

      It's not really the "knock it off or we're taking away your internet privileges" approach. It's more like, it will be harder for you or organize and you won't be getting as much outside encouragement and perhaps manipulation without the internet approach.

      That's all it was in Egypt too. It was to destabilize the protester's command and control metrics while cutting them off from outside influences encouraging them. IF Egypt would have cut the internet a little sooner, it might have worked there too.

      Others will compare the standard of living and all and try to make assumptions about that to why it might or might not work. But the reality is that the protests are sort of like a boulder sitting on the side of a hill. If you catch it rolling soon enough, you "might" be able to stop it. But the longer rolls, the longer it takes to get ahead of it, the faster it rolls, and the more momentum it carries until eventually, you need to get out of it's way or risk being flattened by it.

      Taking the internet away might piss some people off. But it would make it more difficult for them to know when where what and why there was a protest in the first place. It will hamper communications where some might join because the others seem to be getting away with it. And it will hamper the ability for the protests to be encourage from outside influences.

  2. SOP For Governments. by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 2

    If there is commentary they don't like, they will seize the domains. If there is protest, they shut down the internet. If there is risk of protest, they will set up an internet kill switch.

    I'm glad I'm in the United States of America, a country that fights censorship. I'm in the United States of America, oh, never mind.

    --
    Fight Spammers!
    1. Re:SOP For Governments. by artor3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Give it a rest already. There will NEVER be an internet shutdown in the US in response to a protest. You know why? Because our leaders are a fuckton smarter than the tinpot dictators in the Middle East, and are smart enough to know that the best way to prevent revolt is to provide the people with bread and circuses. Shutting down the internet would snap the masses out of their stupor.

      Instead, they'll do what they did for the Iraq War protests. Paint the protesters as lazy slackers with nothing better to do, and ignore them.

    2. Re:SOP For Governments. by ebonum · · Score: 2

      Indeed. For Egypt, the servers are far away in another country. They have no access. The US would never shut down the access because the government can get access to the servers. The server logs that must be kept ( fighting terrorists ) are a gold mine of IP addresses and who is doing what. Shut down the services and you lose the ability to spy with ease.

    3. Re:SOP For Governments. by Darkness404 · · Score: 2

      I disagree. People always think that it could never happen here because we are the exception to the rule. But time and time it was proven false. The real reason why the internet won't be shut down because of protests is because of a lack of real protesters. When it comes down to it, the vast, vast majority of Americans have no real principles that the odds of a successful protest starting and continuing are slim until things really start getting out of hand (hyperinflation, etc.).

      After all, if you came up to a random person on the street and asked if you could do an invasive body search on you, they would decline, the more educated of them would say it was a violation of the constitutional provision to prevent unreasonable searches. But yet put that in an airport situation and the majority of them will say that its "for the greater good" and a "necessary evil" and that "if it saves one life, it is worth it".

      All the government needs to do is point to some excuse and the masses as a whole will obey. Like another poster said, if you really look at anti-war protesters they are either anti-Republican and will vote for a democrat because they seem to have an ill-conceived notion that they are anti-war or they are people who really don't care about the war but want to look hip. Very few of them take a principled stand.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    4. Re:SOP For Governments. by artor3 · · Score: 2

      I'm not saying it can't happen here because of American Exceptionalism, or any bullshit like that. I'm saying our leaders are smart enough to know it's counter-productive. And for the record, it wouldn't happen in England or Germany or Japan or any other first world democracy. And that's because in a democracy, the leaders are by definition the ones who are savvy enough to get elected. The sort of people stupid enough to think that shutting down the internet will quell protests are too hamfisted to attain office in the first place.

      And unrelated, but this oft repeated lie that anti-war protesters are naive or just trying to be hip is a load of crap. This may come as a shock to you, but a great many people genuinely think that killing is bad, and will oppose it unless it is absolutely necessary. The lies about them all being stoners and hippies are just propaganda by the very people who were pushing for war in the first place.

  3. Libya blocks access to Facebook, Al Jazeera by Krystalo · · Score: 3, Informative

    This article has some more information: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/libya-blocks-access-to-facebook-al-jazeera-others/302 It doesn't look like the whole Internet is blocked, yet.

  4. Pharaoh Fawkes has some advice by kborer · · Score: 2

    http://www.lpphilly.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/egypt.jpg

  5. This happened in Egypt by floydman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    and it did NOT work!
    I was one of the ppl, who actually joined the revolution due to the fact that I did not have an internet connection.
    So i went to Tahrir square. To my surprise, i found thousands like myself, who found themselves there because they could not
    get their updates online, so decided to go see whats going on, and then latter on got involved. It even got worse when the gov. cut of news channles like Jazeera.
    What i am noticing is extreme insanity, because you would think that there is some kind of analyst or adviser who saw that happen in Egypt and decided it was a bad idea, but nooooo..they are just too smart for that. Its the same school of thought i guess.

    --
    The lunatic is in my head
  6. I accidentally the whole internet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is that bad?

  7. Compared to what? by QuincyDurant · · Score: 2

    Yes, the Libyan standard of living is better than Egypt's, but then so is Mexico's. If you've been to Mexico, you will see that a minimum wage of about $1,800/year leaves adequate room for discontent.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country

  8. Protestor sympathetizers in the govn't by Palpatine_li · · Score: 3, Funny

    1. advise the leader to cut off Internet 2. youngling without porn goes to street 3. ??? 4. Profit!

  9. Egypt got plenty of money by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One problem in almost all Muslim nations (and a whole lot of non-muslim nations as well, but they don't seem to be on fire... yet) is that the wealth is extreme badly distributed. The rich are filthy rich, Mubarak and his immidiate family have tens of billions together. That is a shitload of money putting them among the richest people on the planet. These leeches suck their country dry.

    But oddly enough not so dry as to deny all services. And this is the second problem. These countries are getting full. To put it not so nice, Muslims breed to fast. So did we in the west but we had some nice wars to get rid of our surplus when modern medicine meant that a woman having a dozen kids actually saw most of them reach adulthood.

    In Egypt, Lybia, Tunesia, Morroco etc etc, there are a lot of young people having at least some sort of education (not all universities are equal) but absolutely no need for their services. Unemployment is a HUGE issues.

    They ended up with a dangerous mix of young people (who could think enough for themselves not to believe the old lies, could through the internet see that there is a different world and who have nothing to loose and everything to gain) and an old elite who cannot change with the times.

    Some have feared that this would breed dangerous fanatical terrorists... and it did not. Al Queda has failed, the youth has accomplished without violence more in the last couple of months then decades of terrorism.

    Whether it will mean anything? I don't know. Nothing has really changed yet, dictators are pretty easily replaced but what comes in their place isn't always better. The problem is two fold after all. Distribute the wealth of Mubarak in Egypt will help but won't solve the chronic over-population. Where will all these unemployed find jobs when there just isn't enough work? Hitler solved this by going to war (read up on history) but lets hope they don't go that route. Farming doesn't take a lot of labor anymore, factories are all in China, it ain't that simple to get millions to work. The west with far less unemployed and better run economies is showing this.

    China

    None of this applies however to China. The situation might not be perfect there but the people there are feeling that things go forward. The middle class is growing, people are improving their lives and the young have plenty of opportunity. For people to risk all they got to feel they got nothing left to loose. The Chinese got plenty to loose.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  10. Thank the lord for RFC 1149 by Mr.Bananas · · Score: 2

    http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html

    The dictators may intimidate the two or three ISPs into shutting off the internet, but they can't shoot all the birds out of the sky!

  11. They also fired on people, killing 84... by cdp0 · · Score: 2

    They also fired on people, killing 84. Somehow they don't seem to understand that killing people will only make their situation worse. Libya will probably follow the same path as Egypt did, at least I certainly hope so. It's time for the people to take the power back.

  12. fuckton smarter? I think not. by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 2

    There is http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4534017/ or even George W. Bush.

    Of course, I thought that George W. Bush was one of the stupidest people in the country until I realized that 47.9% of the votes were for him.

    --
    Fight Spammers!