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

education

[Anonymous Coward]

Because obviously less education is the solution. [/irony]

Re:education

[FriendlyLurker]

Because obviously less education is the solution. [/irony]

Sure, that appears to be the policy answer dictated by the 1% for solving Americas internal problems, why not extend it to our more traditional external enemies as well.

Re:education

[Joce640k]

Obviously you don't want your *own* voters to be educated. They might vote you out of office.

Your enemies? I'd say education (with associated atheism + lower birth rates) is a good thing.

Re:education

[Anonymous Coward]

The 1% again, eh? Still blaming them for what the government does or does not do? When are you ever going to start blaming your leadership instead? Even if they are enforcing 1%-friendly policies they're still the enablers.
 
If government is able to be bought it's only because government is for sale.
 
But no... let's keep acting like the policy makers and policy enforcers are powerless to stop it. Let's keep our heads in the sand about the facts of the matter. Let's yet again vote for the status quo and blame big business for the failures of big government. The obvious solution is more regulation. Oh, wait... this is happening because of government regulations. Maybe we can throw tax money at that problem too.
 
SSDD.

Re:education

[Dcnjoe60]

The 1% again, eh? Still blaming them for what the government does or does not do? When are you ever going to start blaming your leadership instead? Even if they are enforcing 1%-friendly policies they're still the enablers.

If government is able to be bought it's only because government is for sale.

But no... let's keep acting like the policy makers and policy enforcers are powerless to stop it. Let's keep our heads in the sand about the facts of the matter. Let's yet again vote for the status quo and blame big business for the failures of big government. The obvious solution is more regulation. Oh, wait... this is happening because of government regulations. Maybe we can throw tax money at that problem too.

SSDD.

The main policy makers and enforcers are part of the 1%. It's not that they are powerless to stop it, they just don't want it stopped. The first step to making real change would be campaign finance reform. Hmmm, I wonder why Congress is to keen on doing that?

Re:education

[bluefoxlucid]

My first thought entirely. Of all the education debates, providing education does have a serious cultural impact: it empowers people. Universal higher education is severely detrimental--especially to the lower class--but it still empowers people: it gives them discrete skills and critical thinking skills, and makes them interact with the world around them.

When an educated person fails, he decides the system around him is broken. This is a natural consequence of education: you have all these skills, you feel you can apply yourself, and yet you are not being allowed to do so. No faceless evil across the other end of the earth is doing this to you. When you are uneducated and starving, you feel there is nothing you can do; all explanations are readily accepted, especially if we blame someone else.

Education is the enemy of government. Strong education makes government subordinate; weak education makes government powerful. Since there are more citizens than government, it is strictly optimal for government to be subordinate to the needs of the people.

Re:education

[mi]

The first step to making real change would be campaign finance reform. Hmmm, I wonder why Congress is to keen on doing that?

"Campaign finance reform" — First Amendment be damned — is just means to an end. An end to electing different sort of politicians.

But, face it, a person father to the Left and with a greater contempt for what America used to be (and still remains in some places despite his efforts to "fundementally transform" it) than the current President will not soon be elected... And for several years he even had his party's majority in the legislature.

If you aren't happy with this presidency, then you never will be happy with any — even if you manage to "reform" campaign finance...

Re:education

[CanHasDIY]

Even in a somewhat broken democratic republic, it takes more than the 1% to vote in the 1%...

Unless your election turnout is <1%.

Or, you know - rigged voting mechanisms.

I used to be against the idea of "verified voting," but with the mass adoption of black box voting machines, I think I've changed tack on that one.

Re:education

[killkillkill]

Historically, all campaign finance reform does is make barriers to anyone who has a voice they wish to get out. Barriers that only the "1%" and their team of lawyers can navigate through. Guess I'm playing my cards as a nut job libertarian here, but this is one area more laws and regulation just make the problem they are trying to solve worse.

Re:education

[SJHillman]

The 2012 US election turnout was around 58%, with only three states having less than 50% turnout (Oklahoma, Texas and W. Virginia). While there could be plenty of vote tampering, doing it on that scale would involve many thousands of people and would require balls the size of an aircraft carrier. So that's probably not the case here.

Re:education

[CanHasDIY]

The 2012 US election turnout was around 58%, with only three states having less than 50% turnout (Oklahoma, Texas and W. Virginia).

Are these numbers independent-third-party-verified, or are we taking the election commission at their word? Trusting the foxes with the henhouse, so to speak.

While there could be plenty of vote tampering, doing it on that scale would involve many thousands of people and would require balls the size of an aircraft carrier.

Two things the feds happen to have already.

Pardon me for not wanting to trust that a government who claims it has the right to kidnap citizens and hold them, indefinitely, without charges, to run a truly free and fair election.

Re:education

[fnj]

What appears to be the power of the electorate is really an empty choice which is really only an opiate and a channel for energy to dissipate through uselessly.

The system top to bottom is dominated by the organized puppet masters in furtherance of their power trip. They have infiltrated, subverted, and bought the media in their entirety; news and entertainment. They run both major political parties in a false show of competition, but actually arm in arm, making sure that no one with any freshness or independent thought ever gets nominated as D or R for any office. They conspire to marginalize all other parties. Faced with an empty choice in every race between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, what can the electorate do?

On top of that one is forced to believe that today's champions of liberty are being systematically co-opted or eliminated. How else can one explain their complete absence from the scene? Where are today's Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, and Ben Franklin? You sure as hell won't find them anywhere near the political process as dominated by D and R. You won't find them in the press. You won't find them visible anywhere.

Re:education

[fnj]

And in every contest in that election and all elections in recent memory the real choice was made by the power brokers who selected Tweedledum and Tweedledee for the electorate to choose between in every contest. Every contest was a lost cause long before election day.

Re:education

[causality]

On top of that one is forced to believe that today's champions of liberty are being systematically co-opted or eliminated. How else can one explain their complete absence from the scene? Where are today's Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, and Ben Franklin? You sure as hell won't find them anywhere near the political process as dominated by D and R. You won't find them in the press. You won't find them visible anywhere.

There are a few like Ron Paul. No they're not terribly visible because of two reasons. One, the media is not friendly to their message. Two, they say funny things that sound really different from a lot of mainstream thought, so it's fashionable to make fun of them and portray them as looney. It's a bit like being too different in the schoolyard and yes, that's about the level of emotional maturity involved in it.

Re:education

[ShanghaiBill]

Or, you know - rigged voting mechanisms.

The vote conformed to the polling data well enough in 2012 to predict the outcome in 50 out of 50 states. There is no evidence that the vote was rigged. Besides, the guy supported by the 1% LOST. The voters got what they wanted (or at least what they thought they wanted).

Re:education

[RabidReindeer]

Or, you know - rigged voting mechanisms.

Oh, it's rigged alright.

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. Nor that even after being plundered of 9/10ths of their income (which isn't the same as assets) that the putative victims could still buy and sell their defenders by the busload.

Secondly, you distract voters on secondary issues. If you get enough people to vote against a more pro-freedom candidate because he's "too Liberal" instead of the fact that he's willing to fight against further deterioration of our alleged principles, or make single-focus campaigns acceptable (Tax Cuts for EVERYONE! No killing BABIES! I'll say NO to DRUGS!).

Thirdly, organize elections into single-party primaries. This is a proven technique for filtering out moderates, because the extremists vote for extremists, the moderates tend not to show (and in any event, being moderate for a party isn't the same as moderate for the population as a whole).

Fourth, turn the election from one-person-one-vote to one-dollar-one-vote. Obviously not literally, and dollars don't buy that many votes in the USA, but they do buy bigger megaphones, and sometimes an election can come down to whomever can shout the loudest.

Fifth, encourage a feeling of hopelessness. "My Vote doesn't count". "Voting third-party is just throwing your vote away". "The system is rigged, so why bother?"

And finally, give them tenure once elected. Much of the strength of democracy as implemented in the USA is that we have, in effect, a mini-revolution every few years. If a bad idea comes along, you don't have to live with it until its proponents die off if you can vote in fresh blood. But unlike the Presidency, Congress is designed for long-term membership. Not only is there the natural power of the incumbency, but if you can get your guy onto a major pork committe, you can ensure that no matter how he/she rapes the rest of the country - or even your own district - that this critter will bribe the voters with military bases, construction projects, and other perks.

Re:education

[PlusFiveTroll]

>The 2012 US election turnout was around 58%

What is the turnout in the primaries? People don't understand that voting in the final election is the least powerful vote they can cast. Power is in the primaries.

Re:education

[causality]

Historically, all campaign finance reform does is make barriers to anyone who has a voice they wish to get out. Barriers that only the "1%" and their team of lawyers can navigate through. Guess I'm playing my cards as a nut job libertarian here, but this is one area more laws and regulation just make the problem they are trying to solve worse.

What I want is the one kind of campaign financing system we haven't yet tried. All candidates should receive a large, very generous campaign fund from the government. It should be an equal amount for all candidates who meet the criteria of being on the ballot. Then, any additional contributions from any source is considered bribery, with the offering party punished severely with hard prison time, and the candidate also punished if he or she accepts.

That's how you disenfranchise the monied interests and return the campaign back to winning over the voters. An extremely generous, lavish campaign fund that comes from taxpayer dollars would still be very much less expensive than the way we do things now.

Re:education

[CanHasDIY]

Or, you know - rigged voting mechanisms.

The vote conformed to the polling data well enough in 2012 to predict the outcome in 50 out of 50 states. There is no evidence that the vote was rigged. Besides, the guy supported by the 1% LOST. The voters got what they wanted (or at least what they thought they wanted).

I do suppose there's no need to go through all the effort to rig voting machines, when it's so much easier to rig the "choice" in candidates...

In the immortal words of the Prophet:

I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here.

'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.'
'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.'

'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'

Re:education

[ApplePy]

Besides, the guy supported by the 1% LOST.

And at the same time, the other guy, who was supported by the 1%, won.

You're seriously kidding yourself if you think there's any difference between the two major parties at the federal level. All you have to do is look: has the policy changed from Bush to Obama? Is the war over? Is Gitmo closed? Are the Patriot Act and the TSA gone? Your "liberal" president has upped the spying, fed the "defense" contractors, sent more troops overseas, and cut NASA. The previous "conservative" president raised taxes and vastly increased the size and scope of the federal government.

Nothing changes. The person who occupies the White House is merely a figurehead, and whether he's called a Democrat or a Republican, he works for the same people, and those people ain't me and you.

And you know what? It's not going to change, either. Today's wealthy and powerful may fall from their towers from lack of breeding and management (note wastrel heirs and heiresses like Paris Hilton), but there will be more to take their place, because there will always be someone who wants more than his neighbors have -- and the talent and drive, or sheer cravenness, to go and get it. If we divided all the world's wealth equally to everyone right now, we'd be right back where we are now within a generation.

Except, I'd be part of the 1% after. :-)

Re:education

[tlhIngan]

Historically, all campaign finance reform does is make barriers to anyone who has a voice they wish to get out. Barriers that only the "1%" and their team of lawyers can navigate through. Guess I'm playing my cards as a nut job libertarian here, but this is one area more laws and regulation just make the problem they are trying to solve worse.

There's one area of reform that should be tried - getting back to the constitution and the 1 per 30,000 rule, specifically.

Yes, with 300M people, that means 10,000 congresspeople per house. But it doesn't mean we need to pay them much - in fact, we probably shouldn't. They don't all have to be there - we have enough technology these days that voting, etc., can be done remotely. Their pay should be equal to the median pay in the area they serve. They shouldn't need to travel TOO much - so low pay should be OK since the areas are small. Heck, in a big city, it's probably just a few blocks big.

It makes paying for people much harder - convincing 5001 reps costs a lot more money than the 100-odd they usually need to show lettuce to. And enough so even the local area can probably raise more money. After all, a billion dollars in funding 5000 reps only gives them $20,000 each. Or 66 cents per person they represent.

Re:education

[Anonymous Coward]

Taxation is payment for services rendered. If you aren't happy with the services you received, or the payment thereof, you are certainly welcome to redress your grievances, but please don't pretend that calling it theft is anything but hyperbolic grandstanding.

Now that is a problem with the world, people lead with emotional rhetoric, rather than logic. At best, you're dishonest to yourself, at worst, you're using it to deceive and mislead others while knowing what a load of crap you are pushing.

Re:education

[WrongMonkey]

What kind of barriers to entry on the ballot do you place that (a) prevent people from running just to exploit the lavish campaign fund and (b) don't require a large, well-financed campaign to achieve?

Re:education

[RabidReindeer]

"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.

Q.E.D.

The "taxes are theft" fallacy. You're EXACTLY the kind of manipulant that I was illustrating.

Taxes are often a waste, although where the waste is is depends on who you are asking. From the same jar of soundbites: "If you don't like it, why don't you go somewhere else?" There's a difference between waste and theft. One of the biggest differences between them is that you pay taxes to keep the real, literal thieves - both domestic and foreign - from your door. You pay for a lot of other, less desirable (to you) things as well, but efficiency isn't a hallmark of government, and for that we should all be very, very grateful.

By homing in on a single "moral" issue, you've identified yourself with the second group in the list. We've got your number come election time, sucker.

If you want to argue that government is immoral, that's not a problem for me. But I'm not worried as much about minor immoralities any more than I am about whether governments should be pushing moralities on others when the very foundations of the Republic are under attack. It smacks too much of worrying about motes in other people's eyes when one's own has a 2x4 in it.

Just as an aside, I refuse to get all panicked about taxes on people with far more money they than they need to live comfortably because for many years I was paying over 35% of my own income in taxes and living a lot better than I do now under lower taxes. Plus, most people never qualified for the 90% bracket. To do so, you've got to be swimming in money to begin with. It's not a case where the hit comes from people who are barely squeaking by as it is. We actually have more of that particular curse now than we did then.

Truly wealthy people complain about taxes, yes (don't we all?). But if the level of taxation is actually hitting you where you live, you weren't that rich to begin with. For one thing, you apparently cannot afford a good tax consultant.

Re:education

[CanHasDIY]

it's so much easier to rig the "choice" in candidates...

Baloney. There was plenty of choice. Ron Paul competed in the primaries ...

Ah, yes, Ron Paul's bid for the Republican nomination... perfect example of the sort of rigging I'm talking about.

If you recall, Ron Paul held a solid 3rd place, despite all the attacks against him. When it came time for the debates, he was ignored by the moderators; when the MSM talked about positioning, they would mention the first, second... and fourth place candidates. Because Ron Paul was in 3rd.

The fact is, those who control the media have a vested interest in keeping "rabble rousers" out of office, and the American people are either too stupid, or complacent, or both, to actually do their own research and vote based on what a candidate actually stands for, as opposed to what the talking heads claim he stands for.

So yea, it's rigged, although I will concede it wouldn't be so easy to rig if not for mass and voluntary voter ignorance.

Re:education

[Luckyo]

Quite the opposite. They would not let you use them as cheap slave labour if educated after you conquer them economically.

This is like banning it from black people and Jews

[Anonymous Coward]

Why doesn't the US do business with communist Cuba but they do with communist China?

The US is mad at governments, not the people of countries. Are they insinuating that all citizens are potential terrorists? Why not ban it from Americans too because the US seems to think that every American could be a domestic terrorist -- especially those darned Tea Party and Libertarians. Mention the word constitition and you go on a watch list.

How short sighted...

[emagery]

If, as a nation, you decide that some other nation is an enemy, how better to influence their youth and upcoming generations to become your friend than offering them a good education? All this does is worsen the divide and entrench the relatively few 'bad guys' said other nation may even have running the show into their positions against us. *headdesk*

Re:How short sighted...

[MindStalker]

The problem here is that our laws haven't kept pace with technology. In the height of the Cold War, you didn't want our nuclear scientist teaching the world how to build atomic bombs, and yet every student who went into physics at US university was basically taught the core technologies. The list goes on. Export of knowledge is thus highly regulated. Hopefully coursera will lead the charge in changing the laws, but we can't pretend these laws don't exist.

Re:How short sighted...

[CanHasDIY]

If, as a national government, you decide...

FTFY. Most of us, especially those who were born after the Cuban Missile Crisis, have no problem with either Cuba or the people living there.

Re:This is like banning it from black people and J

[Anonymous Coward]

Why doesn't the US do business with communist Cuba but they do with communist China?

Because there are outspoken anti-Castro cuban immigrants that form huge voting blocks in south Florida.

Re:This is like banning it from black people and J

[Chrisq]

Why doesn't the US do business with communist Cuba but they do with communist China?

If Cuba could beat China on the price of cheap electrical goods, toys, etc. I think there would be a quick change in policy.

Re:This is like banning it from black people and J

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of people, like my parents, who are from Cuba and came to the US in '75. They live in Northern Florida and want nothing less than the Cuban government destroyed and won't vote for ANYONE who even waivers in their distain for Cuba.

Myself? I think it's silly.

Re:Yea. So?

[Joce640k]

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that the United States not share its knowledge and higher education with its enemies.

Why? A good general education program in Iran/Afghanistan would do a lot more to help fight the Taliban then the $4,000,000,000,000 they just wasted.

petition

[Twelfth Harmonic]

for what it's worth - https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

Business leaving USA

[Taco Cowboy]

Because obviously less education is the solution. [/irony]

What we have here is that the US politicians representing a bunch of UN-EDUCATED FOOLS !

The US politicians don't seem to care that businesses are leaving USA.

By banning students from specific country to take ***FREE*** university courses offered by top universities from ***ALL OVER THE WORLD*** the United States of America is signifying to the world that "We Do Not Need Your Business Here".

With this kind of attitude coupled with the Snowden revelations, businesses _are_ leaving the United States.

Re:Business leaving USA

[cold fjord]

No, what the US is signifying by banning students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba is that it doesn't want to assist those regimes.

Why do you think that banning 4 out of 200 countries tells the other 195 countries that they need not apply? You seem to be over-generalizing.

I also doubt that there is any real loss of businesses from the US due to this, but kudos for dragging Snowden into it. I am left wondering if you might be off your game today since you didn't work in a condemnation of the NSA as well.

Re:Business leaving USA

[Anonymous Coward]

No man is an island. What I see as a foreigner in a country not banned (yet) is that the US is a capricious and arbitrary bull in a china shop. You are a petty nation seemingly hell-bent on destroying yourselves and I want to do as little business with American companies as practically possible.

Re:Business leaving USA

[bruce_the_loon]

They should be pushing courses into these countries as hard as possible. By exposing the students to the rest of the world and having them interact with the multitude of other countries and cultures of the other students, you give them an understanding of what the rest of the world is like and a chance to debate it with others.

By cutting them off like this, you now have a group of students who were busy educating themselves now unable to finish that process and that will likely result in the student starting to think "maybe my government is right about the Americans."

It becomes a matter of balance between whether the course material assists the regime or whether the interaction with other students causes more people to question the regime. I think the balance tips heavily in favour of causing questions.

Re:Business leaving USA

[blue trane]

"No, what the US is signifying by banning students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba is that it doesn't want to assist those regimes."

No, what the US is signifying by banning students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba is that it doesn't want to assist the people under those regimes.

There was a guy from Syria in the first AI MOOC, who kept complaining in the irc chatroom that his internet was getting throttled or shut down by Assad. Banning that guy is helping Assad.

This is novel but it's not new

[cultiv8]

The US has enforced digital trade sanctions for years, even LinkedIn has blocked users before in fear of violating export sanctions. However, this is the first case I've heard of the US blocking access to a free service offered online.

For those who didn't know what the acronym meant

[kent_eh]

For others (who (like me) weren't familiar with the acronym MOOC:

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

Would it be so hard for submitters to expand their acronyms in the posts?

Easy solution

[Dcnjoe60]

If MOOC believes that offering education from the world's top university benefits all of humanity, there is a simple solution. Move the company offshore, or obtain a foreign partner.

The irony with treating this as banned with regards to certain countries that we are not on good terms with is that educational opportunities are very limited in those countries. Having access to education and the exposure to new ideas it brings is an opportunity to change those societies from within. Other than the industrial-military complex, who doesn't benefit from that?

Re:Easy solution

[Dcnjoe60]

The flaw in that argument is in thinking that freedom of speech trumps everything.

Freedom of speech is supposed to trump everything else, when it comes to restrictions on or punishment for speech as such. Yes, that does mean that copyright law is probably unconstitutional—the courts actually came very close to throwing it out on First Amendment grounds at one point, but settled for a compromise between principles and short-sighted pragmatism which imposed some restrictions on copyright but still fell short of full compliance with the Constitution. "Information that has been deemed protected" is an even more obvious conflict.

Since the founding fathers hung traitors, those who exercised their freedom of speech in ways harmful to the cause, it is pretty evident that even the framers of the constitution recognized that it doesn't trump everything else. All of the freedoms in the constitution have an implied "with the exception of..." clause. For instance, the right to bear arms is not violated by not allowing convicted criminals to own firearms while on probation. The world has changed a lot since the constitution but the basic principle of these rights are for the betterment of society still stand and any freedoms must be viewed in that context.

Re:Yea. So?

[TWX]

Why? A good general education program in Iran/Afghanistan would do a lot more to help fight the Taliban then the $4,000,000,000,000 they just wasted.

Because that good education could also serve to provide applicable knowledge to one's adversaries, especially in the science and engineering fields.

Think of it through another medium, in the form of those that our military is willing to take as enlistees. Known gang members are generally barred from enlisting, as there's concern that once they've acquired knowledge in learning how to fight and learning how to use weapons, they'll take that knowledge back to train their gang and will use it against the local civilian population. A single enlistment term is a fairly short amount of time, and given the fairly low death rate of our soldiers, it's very likely that someone will survive to return with this training without having 'been converted' in taking their true allegiance from their pre-military-service days.

For now I agree with not providing such educational services to those living in countries facing such export controls. Yes, it sucks for those people in those countries, but without practical ways to confirm that those using these services are not proxies of the state, there's no way to keep those states from benefiting from the service.

Re:This is like banning it from black people and J

[jratcliffe]

Exactly. Big block of single-issuer voters in a hugely important swing state.

What About Facebook?

[guttentag]

Certain 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...

Facebook is a "U.S. business" that is "offering services" to users in sanctioned countries. Only it's the Iranian government that tries to block it and redirects you to a page informing users the Web site they are trying to access is "bad for your health." I suppose the difference is that Facebook can be used to help people organize to overthrow the regime the U.S. government does not want, so that makes it OK. Plus, more people using it in a sanctioned country gives the NSA a clearer picture of the trends, attitudes and threats in that country.

I'm not saying Facebook should be restricted from offering services in countries like Iran. I'm saying laws should be applied equally, not politically.

Re:What About Facebook?

[SirGarlon]

My understanding, and I'm not a lawyer (and if I were it would not make me automatically right), is that the restriction being applied to Coursera is export-control law. This is a set of laws that says you can't share details of certain technologies such as missiles, nuclear reactors and bombs, and even the advanced materials required to make such things, even though such information is not classified.

While it is possible that some of Coursera's subjects pertain to science and technology that falls under the ever-expanding scope of export-control law, it is hard to imagine how everything it teaches falls into applicable categories.

Like many laws, export-control laws seemed like a good idea at the time. Selling missile and bomb secrets during the Cold War would probably not have been good. And like many laws, some jackass with an axe to grind -- in this case someone who hates Iran, Syria, and Cuba -- has decided to use that law to shut down free speech and free commerce and, you know, freedom.

In my opinion, the world has changed in two ways since the law was passed. First, the Internet has made it basically impossible to stop the flow of information, so quit trying. Second, oppressive jackasses like the official who demanded Coursera block Iran and Syria are now the biggest threat to American freedom (in hindsight, they always were, which I thought is why we have a Bill of Rights). So both the law, and the people who are applying it, are stupid and need to be changed.

Re:Yea. So?

[Ksevio]

... they'll take that knowledge back to train their gang and will use it against the local civilian population

That would be terrible if they started using integrals and cell osmosis against the locals! We must put an end to this education at once!

the law is a blunt instrument. bans doing business

[raymorris]

Most of the replies here assume that the US has banned providing courses to these countries. That's not the case. The embargos ban providing SERVICES to these countries. It's not that anyone thinks restricting education is a good idea. The law is just ham-fisted. "Don't provide any services to Syria" means ANY services, including educational services.

That law is ham-fisted is a good thing to keep in mind generally. "You may not hire anyone for less than $10 / hour" means the retarded kid can't be hired as an apprentice, for example, because his work only generates $6/ hour.

Re:This is like banning it from black people and J

[andydread]

Well we can imagine all we want about who may be on a watch list however the documents that have come to light clearly shows that the feds and other police infiltrated the occupy movement. Hardly a libertarian or Tea Party group.

Re:Yea. So?

[Baloroth]

... they'll take that knowledge back to train their gang and will use it against the local civilian population

That would be terrible if they started using integrals and cell osmosis against the locals! We must put an end to this education at once!

Yes, because everyone knows integrals and cell osmosis are totally worthless knowledge when designing and using ballistic, biochemical, or nuclear weaponry.

Re:Proxies?

[sunderland56]

Teaching people about proxy servers and other useful tools is part of the educational value of the web site.

Re:Yea. So?

[dkleinsc]

This is still stupid policy towards Afghanistan. It's understandable, but wouldn't we be better off with young Afghans thinking of the US as "Country that's helping me get some education" rather than "Evil empire raining drone strikes at weddings"?

The US has a faction that's being either monumentally stupid with regards to Iran as well. When your enemy picks a leader that says "Let's just try doing what the US has asked us to do", then goes to the US and says "We're willing to do what you guys are asking us to do, but we need to get something in return to appease our hardliners back home", the last thing you want to do is say "Oh, well, that's very nice, but we're going to punish you more for doing this." The reason that's monumentally stupid is obvious: It leaves Iran with no choice but to get some nukes and aim them at Israel or India or whatever other US allies they can, or they will face the same fate as Iraq. (Alternately, this faction is made up of evil bastards who want another war in the Middle East, killing thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iranians just to make 'em feel better. I'm going with "stupid" based solely on Hanlon's Razor.)

The impression I get from a lot of US policymakers is that they don't want to use the "soft power" of actually improving the lives of other country's citizens because they won't feel manly enough if they do it, or feel a need to use up resources building what are ultimately useless military toys. But it's actually the best defense imaginable against terrorist groups: "Join the cause! Fight America, the great Satan!" "No way! America saved my sister's family from a tsunami, gave my son the skills he needed to get his great job, and gave us the village water supply!"

Re:This is like banning it from black people and J

[andydread]

Actually no. take a look here They went even further the designated them terrorists. I don't see anywere where TP and Libertarians treated that way. Just saying its not as simple as you make it out to be the feds are targeting conservatives. Just saying.