Slashdot Mirror
Getting Afghanistan Online
Velcroman1 writes "Imagine living in a country where only 3.5 percent of the population use the Internet. When you ask a neighbor about Facebook, they give you a confused look. Posting a status update on Twitter is a foreign concept, and most citizens still rely on printed newspapers and radio reports. That's life in Afghanistan today, where only 1.5 million people (out of 30M) have Internet access. A new National Social Media Summit intends to change that trend. To be held September 22 to 23 in Kabul, and featuring some 200 speakers, the event will promote the use of social media as a way to not only discuss current news, but to make news. The summit, called Paiwand (or Unity), aims to boost Net use further. It will break out into several themes including social media and government transparency, new media trends and emerging tech."
When you ask a neighbor about Facebook, they give you a confused look. Posting a status update on Twitter is a foreign concept, and most citizens still rely on printed newspapers and radio reports.
Almost makes it sound worth the constant threat of bombings, shootings, and oppression by the Taliban.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
"When you ask a neighbor about Facebook, they give you a confused look. Posting a status update on Twitter is a foreign concept"
To be honest I'd like to live in a world which you describe...
I'm sure there are a lot of issues to fix first. But maybe many there are not ready for *all* the stuff on the net just yet..
Posting a status update on Twitter is a foreign concept
(silently wipes a tear away from his eye)
Also, twitter being an American company, is foreign to damn near ALL countries. As a concept, it's still weird to most Americans even.
In a country, where people are dying like flies from all sorts of preventable causes, and where illiteracy, ignorance and fanaticism are rife, will they REALLY welcome this?
Oh -- and pearls before swine, and all that.
Imagine living in a country where only 3.5 percent of the population use the Internet.
That's not hard for anyone who is old enough to remember the 1980s. The internet as we know it today is a pretty recent development for most of the population. Before 1990 or so pretty much no one outside of academia had internet access.
Seriously this is dumb. The internet is a trashpile of shitty western values. Why people don't get that is the schism is beyond me.
Introduce an entire country to cat pics on Reddit.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Sounds like heaven on earth.
Glad to see people are focusing on the important issues... Yes after 12 years of non stop war, I'm sure facebook is a huge priority and twitter will stop all the violence.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
..."Imagine living in a country where only 3.5 percent of the population use the Internet. When you ask a neighbor about Facebook, they give you a confused look. Posting a status update on Twitter is a foreign concept, and most citizens still rely on printed newspapers and radio reports. That's life in Afghanistan today...
Um.
It also describes life fairly well amongst the 60+ year-olds of ANY Western country. Try asking a 70-year-old for his mobile phone number.
A conference about web-driven technologies, held in a country where they shoot girls for daring to leave the house or go to school - no way that'll be a target for the Taliban...
#DeleteChrome
Someone wants to get Internet to Afghanistan. Great. Sounds like a good idea.
But the *first* use that they can think of is social media? Aren't there a lot of other uses of the Internet that would help Afghanistans more than social media?
I can imagine people there have things more important to worry about.
Like clean and reliable drinking water. Public safety. Healthcare. Education.
Sure, working on one doesn't preclude working on other things. But, seriously.
Facebook / Twitter / blah blah blah seem rather far down the list.
maybe if the US stopped bombing freedom into them, they could care more about the internet infrastructure rather than living deep in the ground to survive.
"Imagine living in a country where only 3.5 percent of the population use the Internet. When you ask a neighbor about Facebook, they give you a confused look. Posting a status update on Twitter is a foreign concept, and most citizens still rely on printed newspapers and radio reports." ... And life is good.
Seriously, if bringing the internet to Afghanistan requires telling people about how hard life must be without twitter or facebook then you fail. The internet is more about breaking borders and giving people access to information they otherwise could not get locally. Not endless self serving and attention whoring status updates.
What kind of range could you get from airdropping a shipping container with half sat com and half "civilian contractors"?
is Power and Water a more or less solved problem (for areas with a decent number of folks) and how much of your time would be spent TroubleShooting the locals as apposed to the local network?
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
hey, this reminds me of a story from 2001 : hee hee C= OMGWTFBBQ!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
1.5/30 = 5%
If all I used for getting accurate news information was Twitter and Facebook then you could argue I might be more uninformed than the Afgans.
I'm not sure that you want to cast pearls before swine in a Muslim country (or maybe it's a good thing)...
Those of us who have been here for twelve years have fond memories of JonKatz posting about Junis, who hid his "ancient Commodore" (one of four in the village) under the boards of a chicken coop. And of course he was obsessed with Linux, mesmerized by open source and Slashdot, and all of that was totally plausible.
Shine on, Junis and the Slashdot of yesteryear. Shine on.
If only we did not have to image a world without FaceBook. It would be a lot nicer world.
1998+
I was pretty late to the party as far as techies go (mostly due to age/lack of income), but almost everybody non-techie I know who got on (who wasn't already in college at that point) didn't start until AOL, Earthlink, etc started pushing the internet, and many didn't start until broadband was prevalent.
the man with AOL is king.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
How about you start there.
What the fuck is this crap? Ignorant drivel from people to stupid to know what Afghanis real problems are?
Let me give you a hint, society is fully functional without the Internet when you can actually eat. The Internet is worthless when you can't eat, or get your head blown off for showing your face or standing up for your self.
People dying of starvation and lack of clean water really don't give a flying fuck about the Internet, and they don't NEED the Internet to solve those problems.
This sort of utter ignorance is an example of why some groups over there want to blow us up, and frankly, we'd deserve it if this were a common feeling among our populations. Fortunately, most of us are not still in high school or tweens like the author.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Never adding friends from Afghanistan to facebook etc. feel kind of shitty that all my foreign friends are singled out for monitoring based on their locale. Spying is destroying the Internet.
So is that like some kind of new Call of Duty MMO? Did Velcroman get an advanced copy or into a beta? Where's the reviews? I'm searching but the most I can gather is that there's some bug with too many IEDs spawning, and you'd figure after being in development for so many years with such a huge budget they'd have done something about that by now.
When you ask a neighbor about Facebook, they give you a confused look. Posting a status update on Twitter is a foreign concept, and most citizens still rely on printed newspapers and radio reports.
This could also be said about China, although they do have their own in country Twitter knock off that does get used and is subjected to heavy government censorship. About all a Chinese person can tell you about Facebook, if they've heard of it at all, is that they are officially blocked from using it.
My, that's a high /. ID, AG.
man, the border collie people don't think to highly of Jon Katz.
He's posted a lot of Fox News links recently but they're a small percentage of his submissions overall.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
prior to 1950 none of the world had the internet and it was perfectly fine.
Why is Quality of Life measured by whether and how fast someone can access the Internet?
The Internet is not the end-all, be-all of whether life is worth living.
So... in a country that is ravaged by bombings and attacks on a daily basis... the focus is on Twitter and Facebook? Good lord.
He got America online, now he can do with it Afghanistan. AOL will live on!
ok, so lets break down some issues.
30m people, 57% are over 15, so thats 17.1m
17.1m people, 28% over 15 are literate., so thats 4.8m
you have 4.8m people, 1.5m are on the internet, thats 32% of the population over 15 that can read are on the internet.
not bad really is it. Especially for an average income of $426/year, can you really expect better ?
UDL
1.5M out of 30M is 5%, right?
I don't have to imagine. I just think back to pre-1990s.
... Considering that 1.5 out of 30 is 5%, not 3.5%
1.5M / 30M is 5%, not 3.5%. This is not a difficult calculation people.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
56.9 % of the male population are illiterate and 87.4 of the female population.
They can't just watch cat videos all day.
From 12 years ago
http://www.tech.slashdot.org/story/01/11/17/204207/Message-from-Kabul
An open information society is inevitable. I was a little surprised last week to receive a forwarded e-mail from Junis, who lives in a small town 35 miles southwest of Kabul. This weekend, a movie theater and video store opened up again in Kabul (rentingIndependence Day), Afghan TV cranked up, and so did the Net. Americans understand all too well that our techno-driven culture produces wonders and dangers, but it's one of the most popular social and political forces in the world. Passion for pop culture relentlessly undermined repressive governments like Poland, East Germany and the former Soviet Union. The world, it turns out, really is porous now. Technology and information will squeeze through every closed nook and crevice. The Taliban never made a dent in the attachment this Afghan programmer and his friends had for it.
When his message came, the Taliban had just fled, Northern Alliance soldiers had taken over his village, and everybody rushed to barbers to cut off their beards and to nearby holes and hiding spots to dig up their Walkmen, VCRs, TVs, CD players, and -- in Junis's case -- his ancient Commodore, one of four in the village. Cafes had popped up all over, with impromptu dances and parties everywhere.
Junis's e-mail -- routed to Kabul, then Islamabad, then London -- was a reminder that there are civil liberties, and then there are civil liberties. Computers had been banned under penalty of death by the Taliban (except for the Taliban themselves), along with music and TV. Junis, a computer geek obsessed with Linux, had first e-mailed me years ago while I was writing for Hotwired. He was genial and obsessed with American culture. He loved martial arts movies, anything to do with Star Wars, and rap. He was perhaps the Taliban's prime kind of target. (Now he's furiously trying to download movies he's missed and is mesmerized by open source and Slashdot.)
"I could still see the dust of the pick-up trucks carrying the Taliban out of my village," he wrote, "and some friends and I went and dug up the boards of a chicken coop where I had hid the computer. They might have beaten or killed us if they'd found it. It was forbidden, although they used computers all of the time." He claims American commandos are skulking around dressed as Northern Alliance tribesmen.
Junis describes life under the Taliban as brutal, terrifying and profoundly boring. What the people in his town -- especially the kids -- missed most was music, posters of Indian and American movie stars (he'd kept his own decaying poster of Madonna), and American TV. Junis missed the fast-changing Web and sees, he says, that he has fallen "forever behind," and that programming is more complex than ever. But at least "Baywatch," which everyone in his town acutely missed, is back, and there's already a lot of talk about "Survivor." Junis predicts "Temptation Island" will be the number one show in Afghanistan within a month.
If the world needed another demonstration of America's most powerful weapon -- not bombs or special forces but pop culture -- it got it again this week. People all over the planet fuss about whether this healthy and democratic or corrupting and dehumanizing, but people's love for American techno-toys, TV shows, music and movies is breathaking. Watching TV pictures of tribesman on horseback, it's easy to forget that technology reached deep into this culture as well. Junis says phone service around Kabul remains spotty, but reporters, U.N. workers and foreign soldiers are wiring up. He's already made his way to some sex sites, and wishes he had a printer.
There are many computers in Afghanistan, Junis said, many in clusters in cities like Kabul and Kandahar (news reports have frequently mentioned that Bin-Laden's organization used both e-mail and encrypted files to communicate). Computer geeks are already hooking up with one anot
I feel like this is a pretty interesting discussion. Putting aside how us Americans view Facebook, social networking has done wonders in allowing people to coordinate and 'fight back'. There are much more important issues to deal with in this region, sure. Would having access to troves of information and a new/evolved communication platform begin to address some of them? Maybe.
When somebody asks me about Facebook, I give them a confused look. That doesn't mean I do not use internet. Actually most of my days are filled with internet from dusk till dawn and then some extra.
"Imagine living in a country where only 3.5 percent of the population " ------- have food to eat. The rest cook the scraps they can find with Camel sh*t and spend their day trying NOT to step on remnant land mines or getting be-headed for saying the wrong thing or NOT having their faces splashed with acid for wearing inappropriate clothing. Sorry Charlie, but 'liking' Levi's isn't the days top priority. It’s a 3rd world sh*t hole they have significantly bigger problems than internet. Anyone who thinks intent will solve the problems take a long hard look at Iran. http://www.ihatethemedia.com/life-in-iran-1979-versus-2009 .
Since Afghanistan's literacy rate was 43.1% among men in 2000, I wonder if they could care much at all.
And if you're wondering why I don't mention the literacy rate among women, you know so little about Afghanistan that you should be reading XKCD instead, where your ignorance is anticipated.
No, the Afghans don't much care about the Internet. Those who do are either the problem, or will be disposed of if the Taliban regain control.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Similar to the Pentium FDIV bug
Why is it a priority of anybody outside Afghanistan to get Afghanistan online? What would anyone outside that country gain?
You build it, they (radicals) will bomb it.
Here is the big ass problem that's going to cripple the efforts:
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 28.1%
male: 43.1%
female: 12.6% (2000 est.)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html
It's BurgaPeep.
Converting Afghanistan into a modern, tolerant, inclusive society by giving them the technology? Yeah, that'll work.
This sounds like excellent territory for the Linux based, programmer friendly, free software "One Laptop Per Child" project. The lack of expensive computing power and Windows integration reduces its usefulness for games and expensive or pirated software, they're surprisingly robust, their power consumption is minimal, and their brilliant use of LCD technology makes the batteries last far longer and be far easier to recharge in what is effectively a third world nation.
Quoting from the website for OLPC: "The XO is also designed for constant connectivity. A few children working together under a tree can connect to each other without any other hardware, and a class full of students can share collaborative activities with one another and see what their classmates are doing."
This is exactly the kind of well-designed, robust technology that education and medicine and shopkeepers can use effectively in a third world nation.
Here in California with a population size similar to that of Afghanistan, 40 million people, only 1.5 million have an internet connection -- the rest of us have high speed wifi. What's the difference?
As a foreigner living in Kabul, I can tell you that Facebook is very well known (Twitter not so much, though). All of my friends know and use Facebook - sometimes to spread their political/religious views, sometimes to stay in contact with other people in Afghanistan or the world, with people living in other provinces.
I'm also a consultant for a small ISP in Afghanistan - we're offering VSAT mainly to rural areas. That's where nobody knows the internet. Most farmers don't even care about politics too much, because life's really hard out there. Facebook is part of this brave new world here in Afghanistan, but we have a long way to go. Freedom of speech is almost inexistant - even academics don't think that that's an important part of having peace in this country. However, I hope that social media can help to change that!
The Afghan National government heavily censors the internet. If I recall correctly, all websites need to be on a approved list. Its all about power and control. The Taliban wants too keep the people poor and unconnected. And it won't change as long as the poppy fields stand and the laws create an opening for the black market.
Yes, because the Afghani Taliban, a phenomenon of Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan, are active and actively-funded by the USA in Syria with the intention of turning Syria, a nation on the far end of the "Islamic Caliphate" that the Taliban, unlike al-Qaeda, members of whom they have certainly shielded, have never espoused, into a Sharia state. There is only one group of Islamic Fundamentalists in the world; I imagine that Israel have been fighting the Taliban this entire time in southern Lebanon and in the Gaza strip, and the Egyptian army have recently deposed the Taliban in a coup, and the US, France and Britain recently aided the Taliban in overthrowing Gadaffi's regime in Libya.
Seriously, what planet *do* you live on? I'm beginning to think that the higher end of the double-digit IQ would make someone a king.