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Venezuelan Regime Censoring Twitter
First time accepted submitter Saúl González D. writes "After two days of massive protests, the Venezuelan government has finally taken to censoring Twitter. Users of Venezuela's largest ISP CANTV, which is owned by the government, are reporting that either Twitter-embedded images will not load or that Twitter will fail to load at all. I am a user myself and can confirm that only Twitter is affected and that switching to the Tor browser solves the issue. As news of the protests are not televised, for most Venezuelans Twitter and Facebook are their only means of obtaining real-time information.
Despite a progressive worsening of civil and human rights, governments of the world have shied away from directly labeling Maduro a dictator or demanding the OAS' Democratic Charter be activated. Will open censorship be the tipping point?"
Despite a progressive worsening of civil and human rights, governments of the world have shied away from directly labeling Maduro a dictator or demanding the OAS' Democratic Charter be activated. Will open censorship be the tipping point?"
Once the government can start ceasing private assets "for the greater good," they can start taking away a lot more than just physical goods "for the greater good." People in that country are already emigrating en masse, it's only a matter of time until the iron curtain rises.
And by the way, for anybody who still thinks that restricting imports through tariffs and other measures is a good idea for the sake of improving domestic job creation, you'll want to take a good solid look at Venezuela's recent history in the last few months where they've made it extremely difficult to buy foreign goods, and this:
http://guardianlv.com/2014/02/...
When they say imports and domestic production rise and fall with one another, this is what they're talking about.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
It's all good though because its nationalized. Nationalized means it goes to THE PEOPLE! Right? After all, we all know that when people can vote themselves entitlements, they never abuse them.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Works pretty well in Norway! Its nationalized oil sector sends the majority of oil profits to the state-run National Oil Fund, which has accumulated nearly $800 billion in assets to be used for the benefit of future generations of Norwegians.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It's also important to give them the illusion of power. The easiest way is to give them elections to participate in, but make sure all the candidates with a chance of winning are in agreement on all the really important issues. It also helps to designate a couple of 'agreed disagreements' the candidates can fight over publically without risking actually changing the balance of power. Abortion, gay rights, that sort of thing - regardless of the outcome, it's not going to risk unseating anyone from their position at the top of the wealth pile.
Stop bringing facts into this! Socialism is bad. The shareholders of a private company would be a much better place for those hundreds of billions of dollars, and you know it. The yacht & McMansion construction industry won't support itself, you know!
censXXXXXX
Despite a progressive worsening of civil and human rights, governments of the world have shied away from directly labeling Maduro a dictator
Why should they call an elected president, for incompetent he were, a dictator.
In latin america we have had our own share of US sponsored dictators, they were no good but in that time we celebrated them. Now looking back to what happened, we know it can allways get worse.
If you are in a parlamentary system, you disolve the government.
If you are in a presidential system you wait for the next election...
The damages of a destitution aren't worth for the people.
Precisely. The directors of Statoil aren't paid peanuts. Aaaaand... the Norwegians learned the Dutch lesson that windfalls cannot be used to fund anything but a rainy-day rsserve because of TCO issues. And... 34% of Statoil belongs to private shareholders; it is listed in the NYSE. And socialism still sucks, But since its a matter of faith, go on believing.
(And no, Obamacare isn't socialist; nor anything of what he proposes, so get off his ass)
Works pretty well in Norway! Its nationalized oil sector sends the majority of oil profits to the state-run National Oil Fund, which has accumulated nearly $800 billion in assets to be used for the benefit of future generations of Norwegians.
Yeah that's generally when socialism does work: a small relatively homogeneous nation of people. Not like the USA at all.
Given widespread censorship on TV etc, how fair were the elections, really? How fair will be the next ones?
A country can have elections and still be a dictatorship. Case in point: DPRK. You even get three parties to choose from!
Venezuelan government's response: The telephone company is to blame. This happened in several Latin american countries. http://www.telesurtv.net/artic... Makes sense if you think about it: Why would one want to only censor Twitter images? Will Slashdot come out openly in favor of a coup d'etat in a European country if they have temporarily internet connection problems?
Funniest was when Fox news reported about a decade ago that Hugo Chavez, then president of Venezuela was corruptly redirecting the countries oil royalties to feed and educate the poor in the rural regions. So corrupt!! at least to crazy right wing lunatics of course.
"Why should they call an elected president, for incompetent he were, a dictator."
Because he sought and accepted an "Enabling Act", letting him rule by edict. Just like his predecessor Chavez. And Hitler.
Chavistas made of Venezuela their luxury feifdom. Top chavistas are a new class named "boliburguesia", a variant of kleptocracy. And elections per se mean nothing. You hold your legitimacy with your deeds and words.
Nothing is more politically skewed than Telesur. Telesur is essentially a Venezuelan government propaganda agency for the outside world.
Yea, we are going to believe you because here in /. nobody has a clue of how the internet works...
or landfill, So what's worse?
The sad part is that it was not true. Instead the money was wasted in bribes and corruption.
It also means US "military aid" will "care" about the "well being" of Venezuelan "citizens"
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
First, it is not "massive protests", it's the typical (for Venezuela since 1999) protest of the wealthy minority opposing the Bolivarian Revolution, despite dozens of electoral victories of PSUV and allies (ratified by various international observers). And it is violent protests, like when Capriles contested the elections of Maduro, in both cases there has been PSUV supporters _killed_ by the opposition. The opposition also assaulted public building, like Chacao municipality or Caracas metro system (this time), or schools and hospitals (when Maduro was elected).
On the broader picture, the opposition isn't at its first violent attempt to oppose the democratically elected government. For those who don't remember it, in 2002, the same opposition did a military coup attempt, in which Pedro Carmona (the leader of business federation) briefly took power, suspended the Constitution and constitutional guarantees, dissolved the Parliament and the Supreme Court, imposed martial law, closed the public TV station and many independent local TV channels (like Catia TV). Capriles, the current leader of the opposition in Venezuela, was personally involved in supporting the coup, including in a violent assault against the Cuban embassy in Caracas.
Those protests aren't done by "students", they are done by a rich elite refusing to lose their privilege, and not stopping at any means (including violence, murder, and military coups) to undermine a legitmately elected and always re-elected government. They are fascists, as shown by how they behaved (suspending all constitutional guarantees and dissolving all democratic institutions) when they briefly took power in 2002.
As for the media, before listening to all the lies about "censorship", you should remember that the media in 2002 actively participated in the coup attempt, manipulating footage to pretend that Chávez supporters opened fire on the opposition, while in reality it was sharpshooters from the opposition killing Chávez supporters from the roof of on hotel. There is a very good documentary on that topic, "The Revolution will not be televised", that was made by Irish filmmakers who happened to be in Caracas during the events. I advise strongly everyone to watch this documentary before supporting the "opposition" in Venezuela and criticizing the attitude of the Venezuelan government towards the media. In most countries of the world, including Europe or USA, if media did half of what they did in Venezuela, there would have been prison sentences.
Finally, for the Twitter "censorship", the PSUV Twitter account was hacked recently, and Twitter is not cooperating the Venezuelan government to help them track the authors of that infraction. While no one knows (yet) all the details of what is going on between the Venezuelan government and Twitter, it's way too early to call about "censorship" in that context, it may very well be just a way for the Venezuelan government to pressure Twitter to cooperate in tracking the authors of a penal infraction.
The elections in Venezuela are the most scrutinized in the world. US delegations, European Union and United Nation delegations report they've been given nothing but complete access. None of these international observers have reported abuses. The USA on the other hand, does not allow foreign observers.
Forbes.com, hardly a communist front writes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2013/05/14/venezuelas-election-system-holds-up-as-a-model-for-the-world/
Headline: "Venezuela's Election System Holds Up As A Model For The World"
Now, if you research the voting system in Venezuela, they have voting machines which are running open-source code, so the code they are meant to be running is public knowledge. USA voting machines are manufacturer's secret and the companies are mostly own by Republicans.
All Venezuelan voting machines internal storage is encrypted using encrypted keys, where each major political party and the Electoral commission only have part of the key per machine. That means nobody can tamper with the machines during the election cycle, and all hard-drives can be cloned and save for analysis later. Each machine not only stores a tally of all votes, but it spits out a paper ballot which the voter can check that it matches his vote. Each machine has a box for the paper ballots, so these are also hand-counted to ensure that each machine's electronic storage also matches the paper ballots cast. So, to be valid, the decrypted voting machine's hard-drives MUST match the paper ballots, after each party delegation reveals their keys for each machine. This ensures that simple "ballot box stuffing" can't trick the system, nor can simple hacking of the machines.
They also allow all local parties and foreign governments to present observers at each of the voting stations. These local party observers are involved in every step of the counting and validation process.
This is what I would call a reverse no true scotsman falacy. You make a general statement ("Socialism doesn't work"), and if someone points out an example where the statement is obviously false, you invent an ad hoc exception ("Norway is a small, relatively homogeneous nation").
How the fuck did a petro-state manage to rack up 50% GDP debt?
Yeah, yeah, my people did the seizing so it's all good.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This! When socialism turns to corrupt populism, why in the fuck would someone advocate more socialism?! Engaging in a double-down of more of the same is pure insanity!
Yeah lots of people flee the country and riot in the streets when their benefits triple and GDP is booming.
Isn't that term usually reserved for dictatorships 'we' don't like, e.g. Syria? The Venezuelan government was democratically elected.
Some of the money may have gone to a good cause. Lots went to bad causes, earning the "corruption" label. (The mob does a good deed once in a while too.)
And of course, nationalizing the industry killed the goose that laid the golden egg, so in the long term, even the "good cause" was unsustainable. And in the socialist paradise, that "long term" took all of five or six years to turn to crap.
That's the problem with parasites; eventually they kill themselves after they kill off their host.
Life is not for the lazy.
Except Norway did pretty much opposite of what Venezuela did.
Norway created a state company owned company (a crown corporation for those familiar with the British system) called Statoil. Using public funds the company established itself in Norway and around the world. Once the company got established it was turned into a public stock company (NYSE: STO). The Norwegian government remains the primary shareholder, however it is a public corporation run by the private sector for profit.
Venezuela brought in foreign established firms to provide the expertise and capital to exploit the country's natural resources and to aid in the development of the national oil company. Later a more socialist government decided that they didn't like the deal anymore and nationalized the foreign owned assets into the PDVSA, a government run enterprises.
The result is that Norway's oil industry is well coordinated and on friendly terms with other governments and oil companies. And frequently engages in joint ventures with other oil companies outside of Norway. Statoil is run for profit by via private sector mechanisms providing a good return on investment for the country, and is relatively free of corruption. The country's ownership of the controlling share of the corporation is treated like a long term asset for the benefit of future generations.
Venezuela has for it's part burned bridges with everyone who had previously invested in the country. Making it hard to expand outside the country, and more importantly attract foreign investment which could provide the expertise that Venezuela lacks. The PDVSA is rife with corruption providing cushy jobs to 'friends of the family' for various political players. The ROI for the people and government of Venezuela is much lower than it should be. And rather than treating it's ownership of PDVSA as an investment (like Norway does with Statoil), they treat it like a cash cow to fund various ill conceived economic plans.
Norway acted as a sole proprietor in a free market. Venezuela acted like the post-revolution communist governments of the last century.
I would even hazard to postulate a one-party government is lacking in democratic principles...
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Just wait until an American court awards PDVSA's American refineries to the oil companies that PDVSA robbed in Venezuela. Then you will hear a great gnashing of teeth, as commies heads explode. Capitalists will expropriate for a change.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Stating that revenues from oil production concessions belong to "the people" instead of whomever gets there first or gets it out of the ground first is hardly socialism. Most countries, capitalist or otherwise, collect revenues from natural resources collected in that country, effectively establishing a part collective ownership.
Pissing away those revenues on bloated bureaucracies, pointless state programs and overly cushy social security, without any plans whatsoever on what to do when those revenues dry up, that is socialism. That's what the Netherlands did with its vast natural gas reserves; it's called the Dutch Disease (look it up), and Norway has learned from it.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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With chavez we were doing pretty good, but after he died things took a U-turn in a matter of months. To make a long story short, the incompetent bureacracy that Chavez helped grow but ruled with an iron fist was free of the leash, so the economy in particular became the part most affected by inexperienced politicians.
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Here's a test from the state-owned ISP (CANTV) mentioned in TFA:
$ for host in lapatilla.com pastebin.com anonymouse.org; do ping -w 3 -c 4 $host; done
PING lapatilla.com (141.101.113.240) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 141.101.113.240: icmp_seq=1 ttl=53 time=133 ms
--- lapatilla.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 133.576/133.576/133.576/0.000 ms
PING pastebin.com (190.93.241.15) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- pastebin.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2014ms
PING anonymouse.org (193.200.150.137) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- anonymouse.org ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 2016ms
La Patilla is a popular opposition news site (slow but not actually blocked). Pastebin was used to distribute the links to some leaked emails last year. Anonymouse is quite popular with opposition Venezuelans trying to circumvent actual or perceived blockings.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
As a Marxist, I reject OP's claim that the protests in the Ukraine are "ultra-right" or "manipulated" by anyone. Ukrainians have a very just grievance with centuries of Russian domination, first the czars, then Stalin, with only a brief reprieve for about ten years from 1917. Also--what does it say about fifteen years of the Chavez program if the "neo-nazi" opposition can get 44% of the vote?
Right. And Russia grew at 20% per year after the revolution. Except that it didn't. Those are what are called lies.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
My computer, perhaps?
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Well, to be fair, one way or another any presidential system has some sort of instrument to rule by edict in case of emergency... Some presidents respect it and only use it in case of emergency. Some don't give a shit about it and use it constantly.
When Hitler was just elected, he wasn't a dictator yet... Then things got ugly.
Venezuela is just about the safest place for dissidents in Latin America, not the worst. For a start, consider "reporters without borders", they're a US-funded "freedom" lobby group. Very anti-communist.
Read their headlines about Colombia:
https://en.rsf.org/colombia.ht...
Now read their headlines for Venezuela:
https://en.rsf.org/venezuela.h...
The Colombian journalists problems are all murder, threats, intimidation by pro-government fascist death-squads.
The Venezuelan journalists problems are more along the lines of politics and bureaucratic red tape. And those are the WORST abuses that Reporters without Borders can highlight about Venezuela.
I don't know much about the threats on Colombia's journalism but I can tell you a few things about Venezuela. Trust me or call me a liar at your discretion:
* There are laws regarding "truthful and opportune information" and making "disquieting" and "destabilizing" speech a felony. Of course, no definitions for these fuzzy adjectives.
* Detention and/or beatings by military and govt-friendly gangs; it is not unusual for both to confiscate the memory cards and tapes. There's some mention of this in the RSF link you posted.
* One columnist was fined heavily for writing one of his pieces as a letter to Chavez's young daughter. Mind you, he didn't attack her in any way - he sympathized with the burden of being Chavez's daughter.
* The main opposition TV station, Globovisión, was accosted with fines (a recent amount was 10% of their gross revenue) for everything from donating airtime to broadcasting "disquieting" spots by NGOs. Eventually the station claimed being financially inviable and was sold to friendlier investors with a new editorial line, which has caused most reporters, interviewers and anchors to resign over the last year.
* In the months after the telecom regulator discretionarily revoked the broadcast license to another station, the gov't summoned the owners of two other stations with a milder but also critical stance. One became neutral-favorable, and the other came just short of a lap-dog.
* I hope you're aware about the tight controls on currency exchange. Well, every newspaper is facing a heavy shortage of currency for importing newsprint except state-sponsored and friendly ones. Maduro himself has yelled in public "not a single dollar more for the bourgeoisie!".
Now, ask yourself since Colombia is so much WORSE than Venezuela in protecting journalists, why do you never hear a peep in the media about how bad it is? Perhaps because there is no oil there?
*Ahem*
Oil - production: 588,000 bbl/d (93,500 m3/d) (2008 est.)
Oil - consumption: 267,000 bbl/d (42,400 m3/d) (2007 est.)
Oil - exports: 294,000 bbl/d (46,700 m3/d) (2008 est.)
Oil - imports: 12,480 bbl/d (1,984 m3/d) (2005)
Oil - proved reserves: 1,323,000,000 bbl (210,300,000 m3) (1 January 2008 est.)
Economy of Colombia
And oil shipments from Venezuela have been always on time, in spite of all the rhetoric.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
What development? Inflation is up, infrastructure ever more decrepit, crime is up — homicides quadrupled over the last 15 years
I don't see, who but an enemy of the people could possibly like a ruler like that. No wonder, you prefer to stay anonymous.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
More likely just fanatical, ideologically motivated.
The Chavez government is a disaster. Even for a socialist government its a failure. At least Cuba has some stability, and they actually defend their practices of censorship rather than try to hide it.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
It's so great to have people invoke the tired old Slashdot cliche of "no true scotsman" rather than, say, provide a counterexample. Should be easy if the other guy is so wrong.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the first Slashdotter to work "no true scotsman" into every conversation possible is the very most flattered being in existence. If you're done parroting that person, perhaps you could name a multicultural, diverse, heterogeneous, large (100-200 million+) nation that has successfully implemented socialism, with "success" being measured in terms of both civil rights and lack of crippling national debt.
Dictators love to pretend that their people actually love the oppressive government. So elections are quite a common sight. However that doesn't mean the people have any real say. Sometimes it is done like it was in Iraq, where there is only one choice and people are forced to go vote anyhow. Sometimes it is done like in Iran where the elections themselves are mostly left alone, but an unelected body (the Assembly of Experts) determines who gets to run, and the real power doesn't lie with the elected representative. Sometimes it is a case of using violence, bribery, intimidation, etc to keep opponents form running and/or people from voting for the opposition.
Regardless, elections don't mean "free". Dictatorships often like to use elections as a smokescreen. Indeed if you look up Venezuela on Freedomhouse you see they rate the country as only partially free and the press as not free.
If I were a citizen of Venezuela, I think I would be rather unnerved by the lack of things like toilet paper in the stores. It may well have been a "luxury fiefdom" before Chavez, but after his "fixes" it became an economic and political ruin.
I was not disputing that the election procedure itself is fair. But for elections to actually be fair, the people casting votes have to be exposed to the positions and platforms of all candidates - which is kinda hard to do in a country where most mass media is basically taken over by the government. It's exactly the same in Russia - it's not the electoral fraud that sets the outcome of elections (though it also happens), it's the government control and censorship of the media.
When collapse comes, it comes quickly.
"The reason why collapse, especially that caused by socialism, is so utterly complete is that the damage remains hidden for so long. The design margin is used up; savings are depleted; the institutions are hollowed out; public morality becomes perverted and education becomes nothing but a credential — and it all happens out of the public eye. Only when everything is used up, as in Venezuela, when the whole edifice implodes, as if by magic, does the cumulative effect become manifest."
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
...a multicultural, diverse, heterogeneous, large (100-200 million+) nation...
That's not a nation you're describing, but rather an empire, which history has shown us tends to be a wellspring of neither political nor economic justice.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Last time I was there (a couple of years ago) you could fill your gas tank for about a dollar. There's also a guy standing there to fill your tank for you, who you generally give a tip larger than what it costs to fill it. Before going on a trip or vacation the common joke is who's going to pay for food and who's going to pay for gas.
Everything else however is damn hard to get and expensive. I wanted to get some blank DVDs to burn some movies and that was when I started to realize something really bad was going on there (other than the crazy pro/anti-government graffiti everywhere and steel bars over every window and door).
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
You also need an independent press, and you need government regulatory agencies to add in the cost that capitalism and democracy miss such as clean air and water.
If I had mod points, I would rate your comment interesting, but not informative.
I know it is almost impossible to get fair coverage on Venezuela from mainstream press. Most Slashdot readers are fed by anti-Chavez propaganda, and are hence convinced Venezuela is some kind of USSR-like totalitarian regime. They forget that Chavez and Maduro won election that were recognized as fair by everyone.
News favorable to the Venezuelian government are therefore interesting because they tend to balance the bullshit we read everywhere. On the other hand, it is so hard to verify that it is almost not informative. Fortunately, there are rare news outlet that keep doing decent journalism. My favourite is Le Monde Diplomatique, and I will wait for its next issue to get some news about what is going on in Venezuela today.
I meant the commie revolution. Not the orange one.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The Arab Spring clearly demonstrated why unlimited democratic power in the hands of the people is a recipe for disaster.
Democratic power only works if it is strictly limited in scope. If it is not, people tend to elect sociopaths who will confirm their biases whilst engaging in their own personal corrupt predilections.
I guess that rules out calling Hitler, a democratically elected politician, a dictator.
A democratic election does not prevent the elected individual from being a dictator.