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If I was the leader of a country, why would I let Silicon Valley companies potentially censor my speech? Other authoritarian leaders are likely thinking "If Tw

If I was the leader of a country, why would I let Silicon Valley companies potentially censor my speech? Other authoritarian leaders are likely thinking "If Twitter can deplatform the President of the United States [which has more power than my smaller country], they have the power to deplatform me. Better reduce that risk and start blocking services to maintain control." Not saying it's right, but I understand their point of view.

jimkleiber 6y ago
I imagine they were planning to do this before what happened in the US with Twitter banning Trump. Ethiopia shut off telecommunication with the province of Tigray when conflict heated up this year (it still may be cut off). According to the article, Uganda shut off communication (Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp) in Feb 2016. I think that because many of us are in the US and just witnessed Twitter banning Trump we are falling prey to recency bias [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recency_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recency_bias
alisonkisk 6y ago
This is backwards. Governments block social media to prevent speech, not protect it.
michaelmrose 6y ago
It is very strange to speak of a president being "deplatformed" If somewhere out there is a nation without their own government website for the president to speak on?
- bmarquez 6y ago
  From the perspective of a hypothetical corrupt, authoritarian government, it's an issue of control. Of course they have their own websites. But the goal would be to promote the "official" point of view while suppressing the opposition, to maintain the illusion of broad support. It's not a free speech issue. And if the "official" point of view gets deplatformed, it's a risk to them. I'm hesitant to use VKontakte as a real-life example because I don't speak Russian, but according to Wikipedia VK had censorship issues until it was (supposedly) taken over by Putin-friendly people.

jimkleiber 6y ago

I imagine they were planning to do this before what happened in the US with Twitter banning Trump. Ethiopia shut off telecommunication with the province of Tigray when conflict heated up this year (it still may be cut off). According to the article, Uganda shut off communication (Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp) in Feb 2016. I think that because many of us are in the US and just witnessed Twitter banning Trump we are falling prey to recency bias [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recency_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recency_bias

alisonkisk 6y ago

This is backwards. Governments block social media to prevent speech, not protect it.

michaelmrose 6y ago

It is very strange to speak of a president being "deplatformed" If somewhere out there is a nation without their own government website for the president to speak on?

bmarquez 6y ago
From the perspective of a hypothetical corrupt, authoritarian government, it's an issue of control. Of course they have their own websites. But the goal would be to promote the "official" point of view while suppressing the opposition, to maintain the illusion of broad support. It's not a free speech issue. And if the "official" point of view gets deplatformed, it's a risk to them. I'm hesitant to use VKontakte as a real-life example because I don't speak Russian, but according to Wikipedia VK had censorship issues until it was (supposedly) taken over by Putin-friendly people.