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Papua New Guinea Bans Facebook For a Month To Root Out 'Fake Users' (theguardian.com)
The Papua New Guinean government will ban Facebook for a month in a bid to crack down on "fake users" and study the effects the website is having on the population. From a report: The communication minister, Sam Basil, said the shutdown would allow his department's analysts to carry out research and analysis on who was using the platform, and how they were using it, admits rising concerns about social well-being, security and productivity. "The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed," Basil told the Post Courier newspaper. "This will allow genuine people with real identities to use the social network responsibly." Basil has repeatedly raised concerns about protecting the privacy of PNG's Facebook users in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica revelations, which found Facebook had leaked the personal data of tens of millions of users to a private company. The minister has closely followed the US Senate inquiry into Facebook.
Running a fake facebook catching all those guys?!
I don't understand...
Was this guy elected? Sam Basil sure sounds like a Western name.
Sounds to me like what PNG needs is Transparency. Maybe they could establish it as an 'alpha value', even.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Igotztono.
Maybe Putin is behind Operation Crossfire Hurricane. But I guess real news with real journalists would have kept us informed, because we need to know and it's a free country with a free market and a free press, yada yada yada, blah blah blah
AE911Truth org
PNG (Papua New Guinea) was an Australian Mandate for a long time. The country was on a slow and steady pathway to development and independence (keep in mind cannibalism was still practiced widely there until the 20th century). Then in the 70s, a bunch of do-gooder Australians hijacked the process in the midst of other native independence campaigns worldwide, and dumped independence on PNG even though they were still unprepared. It resulted in things like ministers and senior bureaucrats without a high school education being selected. So, PNG still has a long way to go, though they would have been in a better place if they were an Australian Mandate. I guess banning Facebook and focusing people on work and productivity is probably a good move.
When is an identity real? When the government says it is.
It's always interesting to remember that Napoleon forced everyone to get registered with name and surname so he could track and root out political dissent. Turned out to be a mighty handy dandy tool for all sorts of other bureaucratic bullshit, but that's why "legitimate" people are all allowed exactly one (pcs. 1) issue, government-approved, "identity".
So they're going to use that here once again to root out things the government doesn't like. All for your own good, of course. It's still censorship, never anything else.
As a resident of PNG I can provide some background that appears to be reported incorrectly in a number of articles.
1. PNG internet access is expensive, in the region of 3 Kina for 60MB (yes MB) of data to 450 Kina for 13GB. Internet is widely available but mostly via 3/4G.
2. Employment is realistically under 20% of the population, most of whom make about 3 Kina an hour or 25 Kina a day, so internet is not widely used.
3. Most people access Facebook using a free service provided with their prepaid plan. This doesn't show images or videos etc.
4. The government continually makes laws, regulations and announcements but has no real means to enforce anything so good luck actually making this happen
5. The political process here is corrupt
6. An American would regard most of the ministers proclaimations as being communist manifesto.
7. English is often peoples 3rd or 4th language after their Tok Ples and the national Tok Pisin so you need to allow for the high level of English illiteracy even among those with University education. What is said in English is poorly structured and is often not represented well by local media.
"A 2013 study in The Lancet found that 41% of men on Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea, reported having raped a non-partner, while 14.1% reported having committed gang rape. According to UNICEF, nearly half of reported rape victims are under 15 years of age and 13% are under 7 years of age."
| sed 's/SJW.*/... never mind, I was about to say something stupid, and also, I'"'"'m a troglodyte./g'
"The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed,"
If the service is shut down, just what activity will they be identifying?
The logic here escapes me....
Does one somehow exclude the other? Hard to see your point here.
This guys job is 'Communications Minister', probably not his remit.
Seems like a pretty sensible idea anyway, Hopefully they simply forget to re-enable it.
so they're going to allow genuine people to use social networks... by banning them?
fb is perfect example of tech companies hubris while not having a clue. google another. the whole industry needs hard and harsh regulation. gdpr is just the first step, hopefully of many, and hopefully it is enforced diligently.
And then when you get rich, after your earning potential is restored by mass murdering people, we can kill you too.
It's sad because I don't think you were being ironic or trolling. Just incredibly, incredibly fucking stupid.
Most people don't know they have an addiction until you take it away. I'd support an annual social media free month just so we can all some perspective back in our lives.
I wish every country would do this....someone from another country is using my name and picture to try and get ????i thought I uninstalled fb and my fiancé said he spoke to the faker using my name/pic....I wish he said ALOT more to he than he did... I don't understand why someone would use my photo/name....I'm not rich, not beautiful, just your average person.....good luck in your research!
PNG (Papua New Guinea) was an Australian Mandate for a long time. The country was on a slow and steady pathway to development and independence (keep in mind cannibalism was still practiced widely there until the 20th century). Then in the 70s, a bunch of do-gooder Australians hijacked the process in the midst of other native independence campaigns worldwide, and dumped independence on PNG even though they were still unprepared. It resulted in things like ministers and senior bureaucrats without a high school education being selected. So, PNG still has a long way to go, though they would have been in a better place if they were an Australian Mandate. I guess banning Facebook and focusing people on work and productivity is probably a good move.
And other such lies... Are you a member of Reclaim Australia, Patriots Front or other such FB Racist groups (yes, I'm calling a spade a spade, they're racists)?
PNG was a former Dutch colony until after WWII where the UN became involved for a number of years before a highly suspect vote joined PNG to Indonesia (which many Papuans rejected, so there is resistance to Indonesian control to this day). Australia never "owned" or "mandated" PNG, in fact we were barely involved beyond supporting the Dutch via the UN in their bid to create a Papuan national identity (towards an independent PNG).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
"The majority of people on Bougainville are Christian, an estimated 70% being Roman Catholic and a substantial minority United Church of Papua New Guinea since 1968. "