8 ms·

When Togo turned off the internet

sinxoveretothex 9y ago
Not-so-minor correction: the message scrawled on the asphalt in the last photo says "Faure doit partir", which is French for "Faure MUST leave", not "should".
jackdh 9y ago
It would be interesting to see how a first world country which depends far more heavily on the internet would cope with a shutdown.
- Synaesthesia 9y ago
  Would be a brave government that would try that! Edit: I’m reminded of the Imperial Russian government (pre-revolution) banning vodka which had the dual effect of reducing tax income and increasing their unpopularity.
  - notahacker 9y ago
    Brave? It would have to be a desperate government pretty much anywhere in the world. When Arab Spring kicked off, the Egyptian government responded to protests by shutting down the internet under the apparent delusion that lack of coverage and coordination would mean the protests didn't amount to much, and loss of internet definitely wouldn't be taken as a sign something much bigger than usual was going on. It was the moment I thought they were finished. (c.f. Erdogan who survived an attempted coup by getting his supporters to flood social media with his messages after losing control of state TV) I don't think the Togo government - a dynasty in power for half a century - will be around for much longer either.
- StudentStuff 9y ago
  In some countries like Sweden, it would wreck the economy. The push towards a cashless society in Sweden means few ATMs, and the majority of banks not even having any cash on hand. For a country like the United States, where electronic payments make up around half of the total commerce volume, it would be painful, some economic carnage would be wraught, but business would still keep going. The upper-middle class and upper class would be the most affected, as most in that section of society don't keep cash on hand. Comparatively, the lower class which is mostly disenfranchised from the banking system would fare okay with some cash on hand, and those on EBT & WIC would incur an inconvenience as retailers had to call the state for voice auths rather than processing those transactions via a terminal.
  - number6 9y ago
    > Business would still keep going I was thinking about Industries. Think "just in time" and SAP. Sure you could call but what about VoIP.
    - StudentStuff 9y ago
      The largest chains would suffer the most. They don't train their staff on how to handle outages, and most are centrally managed, soviet esque command companies, with local store managers & staff not having the skills to price or order inventory. Some chains don't let anyone at the store level do pricing or promotions at all.
  - mseebach 9y ago
    I think you're underestimating just how reliant all but the most trivial firms are on reliable communications for even basic operations, and just how many of those communications touch the internet at some level. Sibling comment mentions "just in time" supply chains, even "once a month" supply chains would collapse because nobody would know what to load in the trucks, and nobody would know which drivers were supposed to go where. I would not assume that government benefits payments would work unaffected, and especially not that you could "call the state for voice auths" (that sounds like something that involves VOIP and an outsourced datacenter). Ironically, the big banks and credit card clearing houses and the electronic payments they facilitate would probably be among the least affected, because they still largely run on in-house mainframes and dedicated lines. Assuming that the POTS telephone network still work, the last generation of credit card terminals (dial-up) might actually still work.
    - StudentStuff 9y ago
      Assuming just the internet and SMS/MMS were disabled, most smaller companies would fall back to calling and faxing eachother. Esp. among wholesalers, faxing is still very popular. With regard to voice auths, I doubt the state would have their hotline go down, rarely do they use the public internet to backhaul calls. Most credit card processing is over IP. Chains like Kroger (and their 200+ subsidiaries), Walmart, etc would not be able to process cards. A small double digit segment of small businesses would fail over to processing over phone, but most Verifone and FD terminals have dial disabled.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Around the 2011 London riots there were calls from senior politicians to temporarily "shutdown" Twitter and Blackberry Messenger. I can definitely see that happening again in a political unrest situation. In fact, the Catalan domain registry is currently occupied by Spanish police; keep an eye out for a wider shutdown of social media there as 1 October approaches. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14442203 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14442203
  - chillydawg 9y ago
    I don't think you'd get away with it in the EU, to be honest.
    - OoooooooO 9y ago
      Wait till 2019 when the UK is no in the EU anymore /s.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      Why do you think the conservative party wants to leave the EU? /s (Seriously, there are lots of signs that the UK government, especially the Home Office, is not happy with external constraints on its arbitary power)
fnwx17 9y ago
"Previously preoccupied mostly by sex and alcohol during the long two months of the school vacation, our youth were bloated with testosterone and boosted by a huge surge in political consciousness" - just brilliant Seems that if you actually would do this in a 1st world country, it could be beneficial for the society (but horrible for the economy)
blauditore 9y ago
> With WhatsApp, penniless guys would send women virtual flowers and rings. Now, they had to find money to buy real ones. Men who previously sought to impress ladies by copying and pasting cute quotes and images on social media now had to go out, bring friends together in a bar, pay the bill and prove their real verbal and intellectual skills. I wonder if that's meant as a humorous exaggeration or seriously, because it sounds simply made up.
- lmm 9y ago
  I suspect the author believes it, and even believes they have reason to - while at the same time having no real evidence. The Guardian does some great writing in terms of crafting narratives, but they just don't seem to have the level of numeracy to make sure their stories reflect overall reality rather than exceptional anecdotes. Can anyone recommend a good source for this kind of news?
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Well, someone said it to them, as the preceding sentence makes clear. That's journalism. No, seriously - journalism is not about digging until you find some kind of underlying "fact", there simply isn't time and what you're asking for could potentially be an extraordinary amount of work; journalism is about reporting what the reporter sees and what people tell them. Obviously it's incumbent on them to evaluate their sources, but not usually to write next to the sources' words the journalist's own opinion of the situation. You can usually see this structure in reporting, where sources will be either named or given an anon descriptor (here "a friend"). "The Iraqi information minister says that Iraq has not been invaded": this is accurate journalism if he really did say that. "Iraq has not been invaded" (no source) : not accurate journalism. "The jews are responsible for funding the invasion of Iraq" : fake news.
    - specialist 9y ago
      Unsourced quotes, information is called gossip. Repeated gossip is called hearsay.
cortexio 9y ago
djezus, It's like a commercial for whatsApp. As for living without the internet being like a prison.. That's what a spoiled kid would say.
ideonexus 9y ago
I feel the core message of the article is that our online media are making us complacent. I know lots of people on social media who are really angry about politics and post furiously all day long. And I wonder, what are they accomplishing? I wonder about this when I read a news article online and see there are 2k comments on it. So much energy spent churning out--what I assume the author believes are 'thoughtful'--comments that no one will ever read. I have unemployed friends and relatives who spend their entire day arguing on social media. When I challenge them on whether this is the best use of their time, they tell me they are changing the world. And then I read about the bot-armies flooding social media and news articles with comments intended to make certain positions seem more prevalent. I think about all the humans arguing with those bots and what a waste of time and effort it all is. The internet makes it seem like there's so much sound and fury going on in the world, but then I step outside and find my local community working harmoniously on making our spot on Earth a better place. It's important to unplug from the unreality and look around you.

Not-so-minor correction: the message scrawled on the asphalt in the last photo says "Faure doit partir", which is French for "Faure MUST leave", not "should".

jackdh 9y ago

It would be interesting to see how a first world country which depends far more heavily on the internet would cope with a shutdown.

Synaesthesia 9y ago
Would be a brave government that would try that! Edit: I’m reminded of the Imperial Russian government (pre-revolution) banning vodka which had the dual effect of reducing tax income and increasing their unpopularity.
- notahacker 9y ago
  Brave? It would have to be a desperate government pretty much anywhere in the world. When Arab Spring kicked off, the Egyptian government responded to protests by shutting down the internet under the apparent delusion that lack of coverage and coordination would mean the protests didn't amount to much, and loss of internet definitely wouldn't be taken as a sign something much bigger than usual was going on. It was the moment I thought they were finished. (c.f. Erdogan who survived an attempted coup by getting his supporters to flood social media with his messages after losing control of state TV) I don't think the Togo government - a dynasty in power for half a century - will be around for much longer either.
StudentStuff 9y ago
In some countries like Sweden, it would wreck the economy. The push towards a cashless society in Sweden means few ATMs, and the majority of banks not even having any cash on hand. For a country like the United States, where electronic payments make up around half of the total commerce volume, it would be painful, some economic carnage would be wraught, but business would still keep going. The upper-middle class and upper class would be the most affected, as most in that section of society don't keep cash on hand. Comparatively, the lower class which is mostly disenfranchised from the banking system would fare okay with some cash on hand, and those on EBT & WIC would incur an inconvenience as retailers had to call the state for voice auths rather than processing those transactions via a terminal.
- number6 9y ago
  > Business would still keep going I was thinking about Industries. Think "just in time" and SAP. Sure you could call but what about VoIP.
  - StudentStuff 9y ago
    The largest chains would suffer the most. They don't train their staff on how to handle outages, and most are centrally managed, soviet esque command companies, with local store managers & staff not having the skills to price or order inventory. Some chains don't let anyone at the store level do pricing or promotions at all.
- mseebach 9y ago
  I think you're underestimating just how reliant all but the most trivial firms are on reliable communications for even basic operations, and just how many of those communications touch the internet at some level. Sibling comment mentions "just in time" supply chains, even "once a month" supply chains would collapse because nobody would know what to load in the trucks, and nobody would know which drivers were supposed to go where. I would not assume that government benefits payments would work unaffected, and especially not that you could "call the state for voice auths" (that sounds like something that involves VOIP and an outsourced datacenter). Ironically, the big banks and credit card clearing houses and the electronic payments they facilitate would probably be among the least affected, because they still largely run on in-house mainframes and dedicated lines. Assuming that the POTS telephone network still work, the last generation of credit card terminals (dial-up) might actually still work.
  - StudentStuff 9y ago
    Assuming just the internet and SMS/MMS were disabled, most smaller companies would fall back to calling and faxing eachother. Esp. among wholesalers, faxing is still very popular. With regard to voice auths, I doubt the state would have their hotline go down, rarely do they use the public internet to backhaul calls. Most credit card processing is over IP. Chains like Kroger (and their 200+ subsidiaries), Walmart, etc would not be able to process cards. A small double digit segment of small businesses would fail over to processing over phone, but most Verifone and FD terminals have dial disabled.
pjc50 9y ago
Around the 2011 London riots there were calls from senior politicians to temporarily "shutdown" Twitter and Blackberry Messenger. I can definitely see that happening again in a political unrest situation. In fact, the Catalan domain registry is currently occupied by Spanish police; keep an eye out for a wider shutdown of social media there as 1 October approaches. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14442203 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14442203
- chillydawg 9y ago
  I don't think you'd get away with it in the EU, to be honest.
  - OoooooooO 9y ago
    Wait till 2019 when the UK is no in the EU anymore /s.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Why do you think the conservative party wants to leave the EU? /s (Seriously, there are lots of signs that the UK government, especially the Home Office, is not happy with external constraints on its arbitary power)

fnwx17 9y ago

"Previously preoccupied mostly by sex and alcohol during the long two months of the school vacation, our youth were bloated with testosterone and boosted by a huge surge in political consciousness" - just brilliant Seems that if you actually would do this in a 1st world country, it could be beneficial for the society (but horrible for the economy)

blauditore 9y ago

> With WhatsApp, penniless guys would send women virtual flowers and rings. Now, they had to find money to buy real ones. Men who previously sought to impress ladies by copying and pasting cute quotes and images on social media now had to go out, bring friends together in a bar, pay the bill and prove their real verbal and intellectual skills. I wonder if that's meant as a humorous exaggeration or seriously, because it sounds simply made up.

lmm 9y ago
I suspect the author believes it, and even believes they have reason to - while at the same time having no real evidence. The Guardian does some great writing in terms of crafting narratives, but they just don't seem to have the level of numeracy to make sure their stories reflect overall reality rather than exceptional anecdotes. Can anyone recommend a good source for this kind of news?
- pjc50 9y ago
  Well, someone said it to them, as the preceding sentence makes clear. That's journalism. No, seriously - journalism is not about digging until you find some kind of underlying "fact", there simply isn't time and what you're asking for could potentially be an extraordinary amount of work; journalism is about reporting what the reporter sees and what people tell them. Obviously it's incumbent on them to evaluate their sources, but not usually to write next to the sources' words the journalist's own opinion of the situation. You can usually see this structure in reporting, where sources will be either named or given an anon descriptor (here "a friend"). "The Iraqi information minister says that Iraq has not been invaded": this is accurate journalism if he really did say that. "Iraq has not been invaded" (no source) : not accurate journalism. "The jews are responsible for funding the invasion of Iraq" : fake news.
  - specialist 9y ago
    Unsourced quotes, information is called gossip. Repeated gossip is called hearsay.

cortexio 9y ago

djezus, It's like a commercial for whatsApp. As for living without the internet being like a prison.. That's what a spoiled kid would say.

ideonexus 9y ago

I feel the core message of the article is that our online media are making us complacent. I know lots of people on social media who are really angry about politics and post furiously all day long. And I wonder, what are they accomplishing? I wonder about this when I read a news article online and see there are 2k comments on it. So much energy spent churning out--what I assume the author believes are 'thoughtful'--comments that no one will ever read. I have unemployed friends and relatives who spend their entire day arguing on social media. When I challenge them on whether this is the best use of their time, they tell me they are changing the world. And then I read about the bot-armies flooding social media and news articles with comments intended to make certain positions seem more prevalent. I think about all the humans arguing with those bots and what a waste of time and effort it all is. The internet makes it seem like there's so much sound and fury going on in the world, but then I step outside and find my local community working harmoniously on making our spot on Earth a better place. It's important to unplug from the unreality and look around you.