US Forces Coursera To Ban Students From Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria

An anonymous reader writes "Coursera is an online website that offers free courses from many of the world's top universities. Now, all students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba will no longer be able to access Coursera. The official blog provides more info regarding the ban: 'Until now the interpretation of export control regulations as they relate to MOOCs has been unclear and Coursera has been operating under the interpretation that MOOCs would not be restricted. We recently received information that has led to the understanding that the services offered on Coursera are not in compliance with the law as it stands ... United States export control regulations prohibit U.S. businesses, such as MOOC providers like Coursera, from offering services to users in sanctioned countries, including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Under the law, certain aspects of Coursera's course offerings are considered services and are therefore subject to restrictions in sanctioned countries, with the exception of Syria.'"

Comments

This makes sense to an extent

[Chrisq]

Of course we don't want Muslim terrorists learning Chemistry, Biology, and things they could use to design weapons. On the other hand we should encourage courses on things like comparative religion. Then, just maybe, some of them might question whether a "God of Peace" would choose a pedophile warlord for his message of love that people of other beliefs should be subdued or killed.

Re:education

[Arker]

"First you convince large quantities of people to vote against their best interests. That's unfortunately very easy. I was reading yesterday a (ahem) "discussion" on returning to 90% taxation for the top tier. "How would you like it if the government stole 90% of YOUR income was a common retort", yet you can pretty much count on none of them ever becoming wealthy enough to qualify"

So wait a moment, the fact that people have a sense of morality and do not approve of theft even when they are guaranteed that they will not personally be victimized is a *problem* for you?

Classic. The whole problem with the world is that the oppressed are not wretched enough.