8 ms·

I was joking before and said that it is inevitable that Facebook, Google and Twitter will eventually sell SaaS (Silencing as a Service). But maybe it wasn't a

by rdtsc 9y ago

I was joking before and said that it is inevitable that Facebook, Google and Twitter will eventually sell SaaS (Silencing as a Service). But maybe it wasn't a joke after all... It is simply too tempting to not do it. They have information which the Stasis and KGBs of the past would kill for. One thing Romanian government should be careful with is not listening to protesters. That is at least one country where they have learned to not piss off the people. In 1989 they rose up, caught and killed their corrupt dictator. All in the matter of days. Nobody forgot that. In early 2017 I remember they passed some decree to weaken some corruption laws. People came out to protest and within days decision was reversed. It was quick and short. Everyone wiped hands on pants and went home. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/europe/romania-protests-corruption.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/europe/romania-prot... Occupy and anti-Trump protestors should study and learn how that works. You see to have effective peaceful protests, there has to be a credible threat of extreme and overwhelming violence that will follow unless the government listens. Government should be afraid of the people. The interesting development is that with Facebook and large centralized social media companies, the strategy seems to silence and prevent these protests from forming to begin with.

vkou 9y ago
> Occupy and anti-Trump protestors should study and learn how that works. You see to have effective peaceful protests, there has to be a credible threat of extreme and overwhelming violence that will follow unless the government listens. Government should be afraid of the people. This is why the Civil Rights movement was successful (To a point). On the one hand, you had MLK preaching peace, and on the other hand, you had folks like Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers, who made it very clear that they will defend their rights. White America was scared to death of the latter - to the point where they made concessions to the former. Likewise with Gandhi in India. The British didn't leave because he made them feel bad - they left because if a revolt took place, they knew wouldn't be able to repress it.
- TaylorAlexander 9y ago
  I’d love for those downvoting you to join in on the debate. I’m less familiar with Ghandi but what you say about Malcom X and MLK is consistent with what I know about the situation.
  - praneshp 9y ago
    I downvoted your parent comment for misspelling Gandhi[0] (as Ghandi, which they corrected now, well after my comment, without calling it out); doesn't go well with the confident assertion about why the British left India. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      > I downvoted your parent comment for misspelling Gandhi[0] That's not a valid reason to downvote, unless you're sure they did it purpose as an insult. You could have just pointed out the error.
      - praneshp 9y ago
        I pointed out why I downvoted. Not for the misspelling, but using a common incorrect spelling when making a confident assertion about the Indian independence movement. I am sure the commenter knows nothing about it, so I downvoted.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  I'm not sure that's true or he much it's true. I've read a bit about Gandhi; his stated belief was that the people of the UK would back justice for India when they saw the treatment of Indians. MLK studied Gandhi and used similar strategies.
- flukus 9y ago
  > There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it — that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all! You don't have to be killing anyone, there are many ways to stop the machine, but peaceful protest alone has never changed anything.
thedevil 9y ago
> Occupy and anti-Trump protestors should study and learn how that works. You see to have effective peaceful protests, there has to be a credible threat of extreme and overwhelming violence that will follow unless the government listens. Government should be afraid of the people. Please don't encourage violence. The anti-Trumpers aren't fighting corruption, they're fighting democracy and their fellow citizens. Note that I'm anti-Trump myself - I voted against him and find him to be an embarrassment. But that's no justification for putting on masks and beating up random people. Nor is it an excuse for encouraging others to do the same.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > But that's no justification for putting on masks and beating up random people. Nor is it an excuse for encouraging others to do the same. The problem is, until those in powers are not afraid that their bodies will literally be dragged through the streets, they have no incentive to not do anything they need to stay in power. And the more authoritarian the rule of those in power is, the greater the desire of those not in power to pay back what they received - which means that the means those in power use to stay in power grow ever more brutal. Not nice, but that's the way it is. Please also remember the inherent violence in the capitalist system - the richness of the rich is guaranteed by the threat of the police to arrest and the "justice" system to lock you up in case you dare to take something away from the rich. I personally won't throw bricks at banks but I also will not distance myself from those who feel that this is an appropriate course of action.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    When the revolution comes for your head, too, you might have a different view on that, and history has shown that to happen time and time again.
    - throwanem 9y ago
      History also shows that nobody ever believes that will happen, right up until it does.
  - 9y ago
frandroid 9y ago
Facebook and Twitter routinely censor on behalf of repressive governments. But the joke is on Facebook and Twitter, as it is them which pay this price as the cost of doing business in these countries.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  We might hope so, but I don't think that has been true historically. Did the companies that did business with the Third Reich suffer any penalties? What about the oil companies, who do business with many brutal regimes (and who now have one of their CEOs running the U.S. State Department, forswearing the U.S.'s commitment to democracy).
aaron-lebo 9y ago
Occupy and anti-Trump protestors should study and learn how that works. You see to have effective peaceful protests, there has to be a credible threat of extreme and overwhelming violence that will follow unless the government listens. Government should be afraid of the people. Those groups cannot begin to challenge the government with violence. What you are suggesting is much more likely to end up in an orgy of bloodshed with innocent people being the victims. It's time we evolve.
- simlevesque 9y ago
  The parent was clearly refering to the early 2017 protests, not those of 1989. It's as if you did not read one of his paragraphs, the one just before what you quoted.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - cdubzzz 9y ago
    OP said: “Nobody forgot that. (the 1989 protest)”. Thus the implication seems quite clear - rise up and murder a leader if you want to be heard (then and now).
    - 5ilv3r 9y ago
      The US has no problem doing that as a service for other countries...
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      > Thus the implication seems quite clear - rise up and murder a leader if you want to be heard (then and now). (OP here). The other implication is use the rules of the system first. Yeah the system is rigged, there are lobbyists and special interests, and propaganda at work. But that is preferable to violence in the streets. > rise up and murder a leader if you want to be heard (then and now). The point about the violence is that large protests as an effective tool to make the government listen or do anything are not effective in US, but are effective in Romania, for example, and the reason is that there is a collective memory of relatively recent past of what had happened there. Another point is that the threat of violence has to be implied or imminent. There might be another way to create that belief than killing a leader.
petre 9y ago
> Please don't encourage violence. The 2017 protests were peaceful. The ones in 1989 were violent all over Eastern Europe with the exception of Czech Republic. The killing of Romania's late dictator and the mock trial was the doing of former secret police, who's corrupt offspring and relatives are the politicians in power today. They only took advantage of the protests to picture themselves as heroes and sieze power for themselves. Anti Trump protesters that destroyed private property are just vandals who can't accept the outcome of a democratic election.
- rdtsc 9y ago
  > The ones in 1989 were violent all over Eastern Europe That's the point. Because the 1989 were violent, allowed for 2017 to be effective. Peaceful protests are easy, but peaceful and effective is hard. > Anti Trump protesters that destroyed private property are just vandals who can't accept the outcome of a democratic election. I can agree with that. They\ ones that came to DC burned a few trashcans, broken windows and set a car on fire. What they perhaps didn't realize is that DC has pretty steep penalties for that kind of stuff, and now many of them have felonies on their record (in US those are the more serious charges that stay with you for a life and often prevent people from getting a good job in the future). Also Chomsky has pointed out that Antifa is a great gift to the right. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/noam-chomsky-antifa-major-gift-right-wing-anti-fascist-alt-left-a7906406.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/noam-chomsk... That's an interesting way to think about it, but perhaps correct as I think in aggregate their action alienate more people than it inspires and in general fail to make the government afraid so their demands are just not heard and paid attention to.
- goldesel 9y ago
  > The ones in 1989 were violent all over Eastern Europe with the exception of Czech Republic. This is BLATANTLY false, please get your facts straight! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989
  - petre 9y ago
    The Wikipedia article is pretty light on details and in some cases even inaccurate. Even though only in Romania the regime change was violent, it doesn't mean that in other countries protesters were not initially arrested and/or beaten by the police/regime forces. I know this from first hand experience because I've lived in those times. In the GDR protesters were arrested and beaten. Even in Czechoslovakia a protest was crushed by the police. In Poland is was mostly nonviolent because they started to weaken the regime since 1980 mainly through strikes and worker's protests. The breakup of Yugoslavia led to the Balkan wars. In Romania people were shot dead in the street, something the wikipedia article fails to mention. You can read a more accurate description of the Romanian 1989 revolution here: http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/exhibits/unique-experience-of-romania/introduction http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/exhibits/unique-experience-of-roman... The NSF (PDSR/PSDR after that, currently PSD) mentioned in the introduction is the continuator of the Romanian Communist Party. They're the ones who siezed power and split into or infiltrated most if not all mainstream political parties. They're also the ones currenly in power. The current protests are also against them.
chimen 9y ago
> That is at least one country where they have learned to not piss off the people. In 1989 they rose up, caught and killed their corrupt dictator. All in the matter of days. Sorry buddy but Ceausescu was not killed by the people. His trial was a disgrace, was rushed, staged and was brutal by any democratic standard. Ceausescu was killed by those that were already working under his direct command at that time (here's the main actor sitting next to Ceausescu which also became president a few weeks later: http://static3.evz.ro/image-original-605-388/cache/2016-10/ceausescu-si-iliescu-465x390.jpg http://static3.evz.ro/image-original-605-388/cache/2016-10/c...). The whole thing was merely a shift in power by cutting the head of the beast and re-growing a new one from the same body. During those days, all the "revolutionaries" that we saw on TV killing Ceausescu and torturing his children LIVE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNpca3Mh7as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNpca3Mh7as), formed a "mafia" group that would rule the country for the next decade; a period in which every industry was sold by these people. > People came out to protest and within days decision was reversed. That's more than a month of protests (18 Jan - 26 Feb). We eventually won but we left those protests knowing that this government will try to do its own ways sometimes later. What we are fighting here is the same party that was formed after the revolution in 1989.
- rdtsc 9y ago
  > Sorry buddy but Ceausescu was not killed by the people. Yeah people on the street didn't get to fire at him and his wife, someone else who already had some authority did. There was nothing democratic about it, but there was also not much protesting and rioting following it. People in large supported the capture and execution, no? Do you feel that if there was a prolonged trial that it would have been a fair trial and it would have somehow ended up better for the country? I am asking honestly as an outsider, I don't know much about it. > That's more than a month of protests (18 Jan - 26 Feb). Sorry, I was going by the NYT article which I linked to which said " After five straight days of spirited mass protests..."
  - chimen 9y ago
    Well, I'm not talking about the people on the street. It was too short and too quick. At a longer trial the whole truth could have emerged and that was something they tried to avoid. > People in large supported the capture and execution, no? Yeah they did, with the information they had at that time - mainly the nation television which was also seized and controlled by this mafia that is still in power today. You cannot kill people because it's a popular demand. I don't regret those days at all, I'm just saying - the general population was fouled into believing all sorts of crazy stuff that weren't true. In short no, the people didn't ask for Ceausescu to be killed. It just "happened". After a longer trial he would have been killed probably...who knows. > there was also not much protesting and rioting following it There wasn't, the "terrorists" threat lasted even after they were executed. We were afraid to go on the streets during this time. People had other things to worry about. No protests were made regarding the killings of the Ceausescu's but, in 1990, people started a new riot against the new "faces" that were trying to put themselves in power. It was called the mineriada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_1990_Mineriad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_1990_Mineriad This is what happened to those who tried to protest against the new government at that time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xNiGSE0ybQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xNiGSE0ybQ There's a big article (the only interview given by his son Nicu) in which he explains how everything took place and how the population were led to believe there's terrorists killing people: https://www.historia.ro/sectiune/general/articol/singurul-interviu-acordat-de-nicu-ceausescu-presei-romane https://www.historia.ro/sectiune/general/articol/singurul-in...

by rdtsc 9y ago

vkou 9y ago

> Occupy and anti-Trump protestors should study and learn how that works. You see to have effective peaceful protests, there has to be a credible threat of extreme and overwhelming violence that will follow unless the government listens. Government should be afraid of the people. This is why the Civil Rights movement was successful (To a point). On the one hand, you had MLK preaching peace, and on the other hand, you had folks like Malcolm X, and the Black Panthers, who made it very clear that they will defend their rights. White America was scared to death of the latter - to the point where they made concessions to the former. Likewise with Gandhi in India. The British didn't leave because he made them feel bad - they left because if a revolt took place, they knew wouldn't be able to repress it.

TaylorAlexander 9y ago
I’d love for those downvoting you to join in on the debate. I’m less familiar with Ghandi but what you say about Malcom X and MLK is consistent with what I know about the situation.
- praneshp 9y ago
  I downvoted your parent comment for misspelling Gandhi[0] (as Ghandi, which they corrected now, well after my comment, without calling it out); doesn't go well with the confident assertion about why the British left India. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    > I downvoted your parent comment for misspelling Gandhi[0] That's not a valid reason to downvote, unless you're sure they did it purpose as an insult. You could have just pointed out the error.
    - praneshp 9y ago
      I pointed out why I downvoted. Not for the misspelling, but using a common incorrect spelling when making a confident assertion about the Indian independence movement. I am sure the commenter knows nothing about it, so I downvoted.
forapurpose 9y ago
I'm not sure that's true or he much it's true. I've read a bit about Gandhi; his stated belief was that the people of the UK would back justice for India when they saw the treatment of Indians. MLK studied Gandhi and used similar strategies.
flukus 9y ago
> There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it — that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all! You don't have to be killing anyone, there are many ways to stop the machine, but peaceful protest alone has never changed anything.

thedevil 9y ago

> Occupy and anti-Trump protestors should study and learn how that works. You see to have effective peaceful protests, there has to be a credible threat of extreme and overwhelming violence that will follow unless the government listens. Government should be afraid of the people. Please don't encourage violence. The anti-Trumpers aren't fighting corruption, they're fighting democracy and their fellow citizens. Note that I'm anti-Trump myself - I voted against him and find him to be an embarrassment. But that's no justification for putting on masks and beating up random people. Nor is it an excuse for encouraging others to do the same.

mschuster91 9y ago
> But that's no justification for putting on masks and beating up random people. Nor is it an excuse for encouraging others to do the same. The problem is, until those in powers are not afraid that their bodies will literally be dragged through the streets, they have no incentive to not do anything they need to stay in power. And the more authoritarian the rule of those in power is, the greater the desire of those not in power to pay back what they received - which means that the means those in power use to stay in power grow ever more brutal. Not nice, but that's the way it is. Please also remember the inherent violence in the capitalist system - the richness of the rich is guaranteed by the threat of the police to arrest and the "justice" system to lock you up in case you dare to take something away from the rich. I personally won't throw bricks at banks but I also will not distance myself from those who feel that this is an appropriate course of action.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  When the revolution comes for your head, too, you might have a different view on that, and history has shown that to happen time and time again.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    History also shows that nobody ever believes that will happen, right up until it does.
- 9y ago

frandroid 9y ago

Facebook and Twitter routinely censor on behalf of repressive governments. But the joke is on Facebook and Twitter, as it is them which pay this price as the cost of doing business in these countries.

forapurpose 9y ago
We might hope so, but I don't think that has been true historically. Did the companies that did business with the Third Reich suffer any penalties? What about the oil companies, who do business with many brutal regimes (and who now have one of their CEOs running the U.S. State Department, forswearing the U.S.'s commitment to democracy).

aaron-lebo 9y ago

Occupy and anti-Trump protestors should study and learn how that works. You see to have effective peaceful protests, there has to be a credible threat of extreme and overwhelming violence that will follow unless the government listens. Government should be afraid of the people. Those groups cannot begin to challenge the government with violence. What you are suggesting is much more likely to end up in an orgy of bloodshed with innocent people being the victims. It's time we evolve.

simlevesque 9y ago
The parent was clearly refering to the early 2017 protests, not those of 1989. It's as if you did not read one of his paragraphs, the one just before what you quoted.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cdubzzz 9y ago
  OP said: “Nobody forgot that. (the 1989 protest)”. Thus the implication seems quite clear - rise up and murder a leader if you want to be heard (then and now).
  - 5ilv3r 9y ago
    The US has no problem doing that as a service for other countries...
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    > Thus the implication seems quite clear - rise up and murder a leader if you want to be heard (then and now). (OP here). The other implication is use the rules of the system first. Yeah the system is rigged, there are lobbyists and special interests, and propaganda at work. But that is preferable to violence in the streets. > rise up and murder a leader if you want to be heard (then and now). The point about the violence is that large protests as an effective tool to make the government listen or do anything are not effective in US, but are effective in Romania, for example, and the reason is that there is a collective memory of relatively recent past of what had happened there. Another point is that the threat of violence has to be implied or imminent. There might be another way to create that belief than killing a leader.

petre 9y ago

> Please don't encourage violence. The 2017 protests were peaceful. The ones in 1989 were violent all over Eastern Europe with the exception of Czech Republic. The killing of Romania's late dictator and the mock trial was the doing of former secret police, who's corrupt offspring and relatives are the politicians in power today. They only took advantage of the protests to picture themselves as heroes and sieze power for themselves. Anti Trump protesters that destroyed private property are just vandals who can't accept the outcome of a democratic election.

rdtsc 9y ago
> The ones in 1989 were violent all over Eastern Europe That's the point. Because the 1989 were violent, allowed for 2017 to be effective. Peaceful protests are easy, but peaceful and effective is hard. > Anti Trump protesters that destroyed private property are just vandals who can't accept the outcome of a democratic election. I can agree with that. They\ ones that came to DC burned a few trashcans, broken windows and set a car on fire. What they perhaps didn't realize is that DC has pretty steep penalties for that kind of stuff, and now many of them have felonies on their record (in US those are the more serious charges that stay with you for a life and often prevent people from getting a good job in the future). Also Chomsky has pointed out that Antifa is a great gift to the right. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/noam-chomsky-antifa-major-gift-right-wing-anti-fascist-alt-left-a7906406.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/noam-chomsk... That's an interesting way to think about it, but perhaps correct as I think in aggregate their action alienate more people than it inspires and in general fail to make the government afraid so their demands are just not heard and paid attention to.
goldesel 9y ago
> The ones in 1989 were violent all over Eastern Europe with the exception of Czech Republic. This is BLATANTLY false, please get your facts straight! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989
- petre 9y ago
  The Wikipedia article is pretty light on details and in some cases even inaccurate. Even though only in Romania the regime change was violent, it doesn't mean that in other countries protesters were not initially arrested and/or beaten by the police/regime forces. I know this from first hand experience because I've lived in those times. In the GDR protesters were arrested and beaten. Even in Czechoslovakia a protest was crushed by the police. In Poland is was mostly nonviolent because they started to weaken the regime since 1980 mainly through strikes and worker's protests. The breakup of Yugoslavia led to the Balkan wars. In Romania people were shot dead in the street, something the wikipedia article fails to mention. You can read a more accurate description of the Romanian 1989 revolution here: http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/exhibits/unique-experience-of-romania/introduction http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/exhibits/unique-experience-of-roman... The NSF (PDSR/PSDR after that, currently PSD) mentioned in the introduction is the continuator of the Romanian Communist Party. They're the ones who siezed power and split into or infiltrated most if not all mainstream political parties. They're also the ones currenly in power. The current protests are also against them.

chimen 9y ago

> That is at least one country where they have learned to not piss off the people. In 1989 they rose up, caught and killed their corrupt dictator. All in the matter of days. Sorry buddy but Ceausescu was not killed by the people. His trial was a disgrace, was rushed, staged and was brutal by any democratic standard. Ceausescu was killed by those that were already working under his direct command at that time (here's the main actor sitting next to Ceausescu which also became president a few weeks later: http://static3.evz.ro/image-original-605-388/cache/2016-10/ceausescu-si-iliescu-465x390.jpg http://static3.evz.ro/image-original-605-388/cache/2016-10/c...). The whole thing was merely a shift in power by cutting the head of the beast and re-growing a new one from the same body. During those days, all the "revolutionaries" that we saw on TV killing Ceausescu and torturing his children LIVE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNpca3Mh7as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNpca3Mh7as), formed a "mafia" group that would rule the country for the next decade; a period in which every industry was sold by these people. > People came out to protest and within days decision was reversed. That's more than a month of protests (18 Jan - 26 Feb). We eventually won but we left those protests knowing that this government will try to do its own ways sometimes later. What we are fighting here is the same party that was formed after the revolution in 1989.

rdtsc 9y ago
> Sorry buddy but Ceausescu was not killed by the people. Yeah people on the street didn't get to fire at him and his wife, someone else who already had some authority did. There was nothing democratic about it, but there was also not much protesting and rioting following it. People in large supported the capture and execution, no? Do you feel that if there was a prolonged trial that it would have been a fair trial and it would have somehow ended up better for the country? I am asking honestly as an outsider, I don't know much about it. > That's more than a month of protests (18 Jan - 26 Feb). Sorry, I was going by the NYT article which I linked to which said " After five straight days of spirited mass protests..."
- chimen 9y ago
  Well, I'm not talking about the people on the street. It was too short and too quick. At a longer trial the whole truth could have emerged and that was something they tried to avoid. > People in large supported the capture and execution, no? Yeah they did, with the information they had at that time - mainly the nation television which was also seized and controlled by this mafia that is still in power today. You cannot kill people because it's a popular demand. I don't regret those days at all, I'm just saying - the general population was fouled into believing all sorts of crazy stuff that weren't true. In short no, the people didn't ask for Ceausescu to be killed. It just "happened". After a longer trial he would have been killed probably...who knows. > there was also not much protesting and rioting following it There wasn't, the "terrorists" threat lasted even after they were executed. We were afraid to go on the streets during this time. People had other things to worry about. No protests were made regarding the killings of the Ceausescu's but, in 1990, people started a new riot against the new "faces" that were trying to put themselves in power. It was called the mineriada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_1990_Mineriad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_1990_Mineriad This is what happened to those who tried to protest against the new government at that time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xNiGSE0ybQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xNiGSE0ybQ There's a big article (the only interview given by his son Nicu) in which he explains how everything took place and how the population were led to believe there's terrorists killing people: https://www.historia.ro/sectiune/general/articol/singurul-interviu-acordat-de-nicu-ceausescu-presei-romane https://www.historia.ro/sectiune/general/articol/singurul-in...