15 ms·

Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election

164 points by fosefx 6y ago

slowhand09 6y ago
"US was a a great role model this year. We aspire to silence more dissent and ensure our elections and democracy follow the American Way."
- xref 6y ago
  “US was a great role model this year. We aspire to feed our citizens a steady stream of disinformation so they are ready to storm the government and overturn the election if it doesn’t go our way” Everyone keeps making these same points in every thread, and no minds are changed.
  - citilife 6y ago
    You assume the steady stream of disinformation is only coming from facebook, and not the news corporations. The reality is that CNN, MSNBC, Huffington post, New York Times, FOX, etc. all are shoving fluffed up pieces with an extreme bias. Every media outlet is doing this. > Everyone keeps making these same points in every thread, and no minds are changed. I agree with this. This is why we have always defaulted to "free speech" in America, while saying calls for violence are illegal. Currently, however, only one side's ideas are being banned; even if they don't call for violence, only if they "make people angry". With and estimated ~200 protestors entering the building, we've effectively silenced tens of millions in response.
    - nawgz 6y ago
      Why do I see this claim that private companies refusing Parler service somehow has "silenced Conservative voices"? It's pretty facile on the face of it. No conservatives have been banned from social media for being conservative...
      - belimawr 6y ago
        Victim mentality is being utilized aggressively nowadays.
    - xref 6y ago
      > we've effectively silenced tens of millions in response. Let’s be honest, exactly 0 people have been “silenced” on either the left or right. The fact both Stormfront and Daily Stormer are still online attests to the fact that in the modern world it is not possible to “silence” anyone at all. And while a violent fringe may complain about how loud their megaphone is now, everyone still has their soapbox. We’re here on HN using one right now.
    - belimawr 6y ago
      > Currently, however, only one side's ideas are being banned; even if they don't call for violence, only if they "make people angry". > With and estimated ~200 protestors entering the building, we've effectively silenced tens of millions in response. Last time I checked, right-wing ideas haven't been banned from social media. Unless you're conflating those who hold extremist views and mainstream views under one category, which is a dangerous and counterproductive classification.
exabrial 6y ago
The predictable [and unfortunate] side effect of censorship on private platforms is it creates the illusion that the truth is being covered up. I have no doubts the next surveillance and encryption backdoor bills will be based upon the incidents happening right now. It's far better for society to keep discussions in plain sight, even if they are woefully misguided.
- kiba 6y ago
  And allow actors to spread disinformation anytime they wanted even though the megaphone was given and then amplified(on engagement metric) by these megacorporations in the first place?
  - capableweb 6y ago
    Indeed. It's impossible to stop the spread of disinformation completely, no matter what we do. Instead, what we need, is better education on how to parse and digest information we receive from others. To stop taking everything we hear as automatic truth and instead consider all opinions, even if they sounds wrong at first. We need another Age of Reason instead of what we're executing on now.
    - amznthrwaway 6y ago
      You have nostalgia for an age that never existed, and you are pushing for a solution that has no chance of success.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > It's impossible to stop the spread of disinformation completely, no matter what we do So we shouldn't try at all? It's similarly impossibleto in the near term reduce cancer, Covid or drunk driving deaths to zero. Should stop fighting them? We have evidence, from de-platforming ISIL, that this method works in reducing radicalization. (A marginalization strategy [1] was found to be more effective.) I want to embrace arguments promoting the most people having access to the megaphone as possible. But we need to start from a position of facts, not feeling. [1] https://www.lawfareblog.com/marginalizing-violent-extremism-online https://www.lawfareblog.com/marginalizing-violent-extremism-...
antiman0 6y ago
> A source in Uganda’s telecom sector said the government had made clear to executives at telecoms companies that the social media ban was in retaliation for Facebook blocking some pro-government accounts. This is probably the interesting bit - a retaliatory move by a regime trying to silence the opposition. I don't think this has too many parallels (except for blocking of accounts) with the current US events, which is why this is probably being upvoted?
- whatshisface 6y ago
  Escalating retaliation between corporations and centers of political power is something that could happen in the US.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    It could be argued that FAANG-type corporations are now the centres of political power.
- mainstreem 6y ago
  >a retaliatory move by a regime trying to silence the opposition. I don't think this has too many parallels with the current US events You're right, in the US the government doesn't have the right to shut down private businesses because of the political beliefs of the users, so the hard left gets Big Tech to operate as a cartel to do it for them.
- baybal2 6y ago
  It's really inconsequential to the man in charger. He is, after all, running for like his 10th term now.
- slim 6y ago
  It is related to US elections. because dictators in Africa can point to USA when they get criticized. Why should Facebook have the power to police speech during elections in Uganda and not the state of Uganda ?
  - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
eznzt 6y ago
Better than doing what we do in the "civilised" world: only banning one side.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- dheera 6y ago
  Yeah seriously. Also why are they so overly concerned with US elections but not concerned with the elections of 100 other democracies in the world?
  - chrismeller 6y ago
    Well you have to admit that the US is the 800lb gorilla in the room, at least as far as countries that actually even pretend to hold elections that mean anything.
- vlunkr 6y ago
  That's a huge exaggeration, I'm sure you'll still find millions of Trump supporters on twitter and facebook.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    I’m pretty apathetic about these bannings (so hopefully this comment doesn’t read as support or opposition), but “not all conservatives were banned” does not refute “only conservatives were banned”.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      The latter is an obvious lie. https://twitter.com/blm https://twitter.com/blm
secondcoming 6y ago
It would be an interesting social experiment to see what happens if twitter turned itself off worldwide for a week.
- kyleblarson 6y ago
  The tiny fraction of the populous who spend hours a day on Twitter might have panic attacks, the rest of us who realize that Twitter (and social media in general) is a cesspool of toxicity and who never use it would carry on like normal.
  - jsonne 6y ago
    The bigger effect is that many journalists get their scoops from Twitter. The legacy media would have a difficult time.
    - mothsonasloth 6y ago
      Good, they can go back to more traditional methods, of paying professional reporters to be in their local areas for those scoops. Rather than scrape what some person tweeted.
  - trident5000 6y ago
    Id like that to be true but Twitter has 400 million users which is a large chunk of the developed world.
    - andai 6y ago
      A sad week for the nsfw art community.
    - sergiotapia 6y ago
      The VAST majority of twitter posts are created by a tiny percentage of people.
  - Reedx 6y ago
Apocryphon 6y ago
Opposition candidate Bobi Wine had his home raided by the Ugandan military in the middle of a podcast: https://citizentv.co.ke/news/bobi-wine-cuts-short-interview-with-hot-96-radio-as-military-breaks-into-his-home-4123144/ https://citizentv.co.ke/news/bobi-wine-cuts-short-interview-... https://www.dw.com/en/uganda-presidential-candidate-bobi-wine-says-army-raided-his-home-arrested-staff/a-56199731 https://www.dw.com/en/uganda-presidential-candidate-bobi-win...
- glenneroo 6y ago
  Your second link has a wonderful 45 minute documentary about Bobi Wine which got me up to speed with what's going on over there. Highly recommended!
- jermeh 6y ago
  I haven't listened to it yet, so I can't speak on the quality of it, but Spotify is currently running a podcast series titled "The Messenger" about Bobi's efforts here. The two most recent episodes were uploaded yesterday, so the information should be relatively current.
- baybal2 6y ago
  I'm puzzled how that an increase Museveni's "odds" at winning his n-th term, when it's already a foregone conclusion.
chrismeller 6y ago
Am I the only one that’s starting to think the US should do this too? I don’t care about censoring any ideas I’m just sick of all the obnoxious people screaming at each other and not changing a single mind in the process.
- chopin24 6y ago
  I'm with you. I care about free speech. I care about the implications of censorship. But I'm also just tired of it all. If (for example) banning Trump from Twitter means we stop having entire articles and public radio pieces devoted to talking about them... it's hard for me to fight that.
- stale2002 6y ago
  If you are sick if it, then just log off. No one is forcing you to stay on social media.
- DenisM 6y ago
  So what is your proposal? A blanket ban on all social media as a public health hazard? I'm on board with that. Maybe just add them to the Schedule 2 drug list?
trident5000 6y ago
They dont want Facebook to overthrow their election. Makes sense.
pelasaco 6y ago
bad with social media, worse without it. Our new dilemma.
- chopin24 6y ago
  >worse without it Why do you think so?
  - pelasaco 6y ago
    if in one hand social media can be used for bad - as we saw with Cambridge analytics and etc, in another hand without social media, the Government or the most powerful party, can as usual - in Africa and South America - with a megaphone, money, medicament and old school propaganda, manipulate the opinion and consequentially win the elections. Let's say that without social media, you constrain who is able to manipulate the opinion to the dominant groups in the Country: The rich family that owns the favorite TV/Radio channels, the Army general supported by the riches, the man from the working classes that never worked, and so on...
    - chopin24 6y ago
      Have we really seen the power return to the people because of social media? That was the theory during, e.g., The Arab Spring. But, it doesn't seem like it's held. It feels like the old guard has taken over social media and used it to their ends, putting us back where we started.
      - pelasaco 6y ago
        I don't think the power will return to the People, because the power never belonged to the People in the first place. But I think with social media, outsiders can get a more complete image from a social event other than the official one from the traditional media.
genericone 6y ago
This is how Zuckerberg's dream of connecting the entire population of the world comes to an end. Countries that don't want foreign influence (of both good and bad varieties) injected directly through their citizens eyeballs will ban social media first. Then a "nextdoor" style social media company will appear and allow individual countries to control how their social media is used. That or a Docker image with a Generic Social Media App can be bought and loaded onto a regional datacenter controlled by said country, because "cloud" will get a well justified bad label of being associated with foreign influence. Does a multi-country-specific social media company already exist? In any case, the 2020's will be an interesting decade for this space.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
  Facebook allows region specific control. Who do you believe does "content moderation" for groups talking in Swahili? Or Arabian? Or Chinese? To be honest i do not know, all i can tell is who does it in german and it is not south dakota. Sure many people in uganda speak english and can probably move discussions to other regions, but that would also be possible with more "regional social networks".
rubyist5eva 6y ago
This is totalitarianism disguised as "combating disinformation". "I'm from the government, I'm here to help" -- run, run for your fucking life.
eranima 6y ago
Disappointed yet again with upvoted comments on hacker news defending murderers and terrorists. There's defending free speech then there's defending terrorism. This is not ok.
linksen 6y ago
You might enjoy a song from Bobi Wine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTrm5uPDuE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTrm5uPDuE
dang 6y ago
Discussed a couple days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25704433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25704433 with an informative top comment from a Ugandan HNer.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  The post discussed a few days ago was about shutting off the app stores and YouTube, whereas this new post is about an escalation to block off WhatsApp and other social media and messaging platforms. I think even VPNs have been blocked, as my Ugandan friends with VPN can't even access these platforms. It seems significantly different to me to not be a dupe, and yet I really appreciate how you moderate HN so I leave that decision up to you. Thanks for your work!
  - dang 6y ago
    Ok, I totally missed that nuance—sorry, and thanks for the clarification. I'll take the [dupe] marker off the top and remove the downweight. Do you know if what https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 says is true, that they do this every election? That seems relevant if so, and the comment sounds credible.
    - jimkleiber 6y ago
      It's ok :-) I figure you have a lot to read and might miss things here and there. > Do you know if what https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 says is true, that they do this every election? That seems relevant if so, and the comment sounds credible. I don't know if they do it every election, but I'm guessing they may have started to do it in the 2016 election and this one in 2021 (they have elections every 5 years), and I could see it being a trend that may continue if the leadership remains the same.

164 points by fosefx 6y ago

"US was a a great role model this year. We aspire to silence more dissent and ensure our elections and democracy follow the American Way."

xref 6y ago
“US was a great role model this year. We aspire to feed our citizens a steady stream of disinformation so they are ready to storm the government and overturn the election if it doesn’t go our way” Everyone keeps making these same points in every thread, and no minds are changed.
- citilife 6y ago
  You assume the steady stream of disinformation is only coming from facebook, and not the news corporations. The reality is that CNN, MSNBC, Huffington post, New York Times, FOX, etc. all are shoving fluffed up pieces with an extreme bias. Every media outlet is doing this. > Everyone keeps making these same points in every thread, and no minds are changed. I agree with this. This is why we have always defaulted to "free speech" in America, while saying calls for violence are illegal. Currently, however, only one side's ideas are being banned; even if they don't call for violence, only if they "make people angry". With and estimated ~200 protestors entering the building, we've effectively silenced tens of millions in response.
  - nawgz 6y ago
    Why do I see this claim that private companies refusing Parler service somehow has "silenced Conservative voices"? It's pretty facile on the face of it. No conservatives have been banned from social media for being conservative...
    - belimawr 6y ago
      Victim mentality is being utilized aggressively nowadays.
  - xref 6y ago
    > we've effectively silenced tens of millions in response. Let’s be honest, exactly 0 people have been “silenced” on either the left or right. The fact both Stormfront and Daily Stormer are still online attests to the fact that in the modern world it is not possible to “silence” anyone at all. And while a violent fringe may complain about how loud their megaphone is now, everyone still has their soapbox. We’re here on HN using one right now.
  - belimawr 6y ago
    > Currently, however, only one side's ideas are being banned; even if they don't call for violence, only if they "make people angry". > With and estimated ~200 protestors entering the building, we've effectively silenced tens of millions in response. Last time I checked, right-wing ideas haven't been banned from social media. Unless you're conflating those who hold extremist views and mainstream views under one category, which is a dangerous and counterproductive classification.

exabrial 6y ago

The predictable [and unfortunate] side effect of censorship on private platforms is it creates the illusion that the truth is being covered up. I have no doubts the next surveillance and encryption backdoor bills will be based upon the incidents happening right now. It's far better for society to keep discussions in plain sight, even if they are woefully misguided.

kiba 6y ago
And allow actors to spread disinformation anytime they wanted even though the megaphone was given and then amplified(on engagement metric) by these megacorporations in the first place?
- capableweb 6y ago
  Indeed. It's impossible to stop the spread of disinformation completely, no matter what we do. Instead, what we need, is better education on how to parse and digest information we receive from others. To stop taking everything we hear as automatic truth and instead consider all opinions, even if they sounds wrong at first. We need another Age of Reason instead of what we're executing on now.
  - amznthrwaway 6y ago
    You have nostalgia for an age that never existed, and you are pushing for a solution that has no chance of success.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > It's impossible to stop the spread of disinformation completely, no matter what we do So we shouldn't try at all? It's similarly impossibleto in the near term reduce cancer, Covid or drunk driving deaths to zero. Should stop fighting them? We have evidence, from de-platforming ISIL, that this method works in reducing radicalization. (A marginalization strategy [1] was found to be more effective.) I want to embrace arguments promoting the most people having access to the megaphone as possible. But we need to start from a position of facts, not feeling. [1] https://www.lawfareblog.com/marginalizing-violent-extremism-online https://www.lawfareblog.com/marginalizing-violent-extremism-...

antiman0 6y ago

> A source in Uganda’s telecom sector said the government had made clear to executives at telecoms companies that the social media ban was in retaliation for Facebook blocking some pro-government accounts. This is probably the interesting bit - a retaliatory move by a regime trying to silence the opposition. I don't think this has too many parallels (except for blocking of accounts) with the current US events, which is why this is probably being upvoted?

whatshisface 6y ago
Escalating retaliation between corporations and centers of political power is something that could happen in the US.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  It could be argued that FAANG-type corporations are now the centres of political power.
mainstreem 6y ago
>a retaliatory move by a regime trying to silence the opposition. I don't think this has too many parallels with the current US events You're right, in the US the government doesn't have the right to shut down private businesses because of the political beliefs of the users, so the hard left gets Big Tech to operate as a cartel to do it for them.
baybal2 6y ago
It's really inconsequential to the man in charger. He is, after all, running for like his 10th term now.
slim 6y ago
It is related to US elections. because dictators in Africa can point to USA when they get criticized. Why should Facebook have the power to police speech during elections in Uganda and not the state of Uganda ?
- 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

eznzt 6y ago

Better than doing what we do in the "civilised" world: only banning one side.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dheera 6y ago
Yeah seriously. Also why are they so overly concerned with US elections but not concerned with the elections of 100 other democracies in the world?
- chrismeller 6y ago
  Well you have to admit that the US is the 800lb gorilla in the room, at least as far as countries that actually even pretend to hold elections that mean anything.
vlunkr 6y ago
That's a huge exaggeration, I'm sure you'll still find millions of Trump supporters on twitter and facebook.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I’m pretty apathetic about these bannings (so hopefully this comment doesn’t read as support or opposition), but “not all conservatives were banned” does not refute “only conservatives were banned”.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    The latter is an obvious lie. https://twitter.com/blm https://twitter.com/blm

secondcoming 6y ago

It would be an interesting social experiment to see what happens if twitter turned itself off worldwide for a week.

kyleblarson 6y ago
The tiny fraction of the populous who spend hours a day on Twitter might have panic attacks, the rest of us who realize that Twitter (and social media in general) is a cesspool of toxicity and who never use it would carry on like normal.
- jsonne 6y ago
  The bigger effect is that many journalists get their scoops from Twitter. The legacy media would have a difficult time.
  - mothsonasloth 6y ago
    Good, they can go back to more traditional methods, of paying professional reporters to be in their local areas for those scoops. Rather than scrape what some person tweeted.
- trident5000 6y ago
  Id like that to be true but Twitter has 400 million users which is a large chunk of the developed world.
  - andai 6y ago
    A sad week for the nsfw art community.
  - sergiotapia 6y ago
    The VAST majority of twitter posts are created by a tiny percentage of people.
- Reedx 6y ago

Apocryphon 6y ago

Opposition candidate Bobi Wine had his home raided by the Ugandan military in the middle of a podcast: https://citizentv.co.ke/news/bobi-wine-cuts-short-interview-with-hot-96-radio-as-military-breaks-into-his-home-4123144/ https://citizentv.co.ke/news/bobi-wine-cuts-short-interview-... https://www.dw.com/en/uganda-presidential-candidate-bobi-wine-says-army-raided-his-home-arrested-staff/a-56199731 https://www.dw.com/en/uganda-presidential-candidate-bobi-win...

glenneroo 6y ago
Your second link has a wonderful 45 minute documentary about Bobi Wine which got me up to speed with what's going on over there. Highly recommended!
jermeh 6y ago
I haven't listened to it yet, so I can't speak on the quality of it, but Spotify is currently running a podcast series titled "The Messenger" about Bobi's efforts here. The two most recent episodes were uploaded yesterday, so the information should be relatively current.
baybal2 6y ago
I'm puzzled how that an increase Museveni's "odds" at winning his n-th term, when it's already a foregone conclusion.

chrismeller 6y ago

Am I the only one that’s starting to think the US should do this too? I don’t care about censoring any ideas I’m just sick of all the obnoxious people screaming at each other and not changing a single mind in the process.

chopin24 6y ago
I'm with you. I care about free speech. I care about the implications of censorship. But I'm also just tired of it all. If (for example) banning Trump from Twitter means we stop having entire articles and public radio pieces devoted to talking about them... it's hard for me to fight that.
stale2002 6y ago
If you are sick if it, then just log off. No one is forcing you to stay on social media.
DenisM 6y ago
So what is your proposal? A blanket ban on all social media as a public health hazard? I'm on board with that. Maybe just add them to the Schedule 2 drug list?

trident5000 6y ago

They dont want Facebook to overthrow their election. Makes sense.

pelasaco 6y ago

bad with social media, worse without it. Our new dilemma.

chopin24 6y ago
>worse without it Why do you think so?
- pelasaco 6y ago
  if in one hand social media can be used for bad - as we saw with Cambridge analytics and etc, in another hand without social media, the Government or the most powerful party, can as usual - in Africa and South America - with a megaphone, money, medicament and old school propaganda, manipulate the opinion and consequentially win the elections. Let's say that without social media, you constrain who is able to manipulate the opinion to the dominant groups in the Country: The rich family that owns the favorite TV/Radio channels, the Army general supported by the riches, the man from the working classes that never worked, and so on...
  - chopin24 6y ago
    Have we really seen the power return to the people because of social media? That was the theory during, e.g., The Arab Spring. But, it doesn't seem like it's held. It feels like the old guard has taken over social media and used it to their ends, putting us back where we started.
    - pelasaco 6y ago
      I don't think the power will return to the People, because the power never belonged to the People in the first place. But I think with social media, outsiders can get a more complete image from a social event other than the official one from the traditional media.

genericone 6y ago

This is how Zuckerberg's dream of connecting the entire population of the world comes to an end. Countries that don't want foreign influence (of both good and bad varieties) injected directly through their citizens eyeballs will ban social media first. Then a "nextdoor" style social media company will appear and allow individual countries to control how their social media is used. That or a Docker image with a Generic Social Media App can be bought and loaded onto a regional datacenter controlled by said country, because "cloud" will get a well justified bad label of being associated with foreign influence. Does a multi-country-specific social media company already exist? In any case, the 2020's will be an interesting decade for this space.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
Facebook allows region specific control. Who do you believe does "content moderation" for groups talking in Swahili? Or Arabian? Or Chinese? To be honest i do not know, all i can tell is who does it in german and it is not south dakota. Sure many people in uganda speak english and can probably move discussions to other regions, but that would also be possible with more "regional social networks".

rubyist5eva 6y ago

This is totalitarianism disguised as "combating disinformation". "I'm from the government, I'm here to help" -- run, run for your fucking life.

eranima 6y ago

Disappointed yet again with upvoted comments on hacker news defending murderers and terrorists. There's defending free speech then there's defending terrorism. This is not ok.

linksen 6y ago

You might enjoy a song from Bobi Wine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTrm5uPDuE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTrm5uPDuE

dang 6y ago

Discussed a couple days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25704433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25704433 with an informative top comment from a Ugandan HNer.

jimkleiber 6y ago
The post discussed a few days ago was about shutting off the app stores and YouTube, whereas this new post is about an escalation to block off WhatsApp and other social media and messaging platforms. I think even VPNs have been blocked, as my Ugandan friends with VPN can't even access these platforms. It seems significantly different to me to not be a dupe, and yet I really appreciate how you moderate HN so I leave that decision up to you. Thanks for your work!
- dang 6y ago
  Ok, I totally missed that nuance—sorry, and thanks for the clarification. I'll take the [dupe] marker off the top and remove the downweight. Do you know if what https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 says is true, that they do this every election? That seems relevant if so, and the comment sounds credible.
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    It's ok :-) I figure you have a lot to read and might miss things here and there. > Do you know if what https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711941 says is true, that they do this every election? That seems relevant if so, and the comment sounds credible. I don't know if they do it every election, but I'm guessing they may have started to do it in the 2016 election and this one in 2021 (they have elections every 5 years), and I could see it being a trend that may continue if the leadership remains the same.