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At which point said phone is no longer available for purchase in Pakistan. This attitude pervades tech-inclined folk's discussions of politics, as if the Inter

At which point said phone is no longer available for purchase in Pakistan. This attitude pervades tech-inclined folk's discussions of politics, as if the Internet is somehow above the laws and culture of the places where it operates, especially with regard to the global south. Just because you either don't comprehend or don't respect a given culture enough to learn about it, doesn't mean it no longer applies to you. I of course disagree with what's happening here, but nothing Pakistan is doing here is illegal or surprising.

ethbr0 6y ago
Not available for purchase != not available. I understand the point you're trying to make: technologists undervalue national sovereignty when it's from a non-Western / less-democratic country. But try to appreciate parent's point as well: that there are technical qualities about the internet that make it censorship-resistant.
- FlownScepter 6y ago
  I don't think that point resonates nearly as well under a less-democratic country. There's a romanticism that's applied to the Internet as though it can buck any trend or speak truth to power in a way that other prior media hasn't or can't, and there is some truth to that? But that wasn't because of some innate superiority; it was because it developed primarily in the West, where freedom to express oneself is the default, with authorities only really stepping in when needed. This ethos has followed through the Internet's spread to other parts of the world, where this is not always the case, and the reaction in general from companies especially borders on pearl clutching. "What do you mean we have to respect unjust laws and the arbitrary decisions of some banana republic?" Yes, you do. Because within the borders of that republic, regardless of how banana it might be, it is the Government and it has power. I feel like this is the penultimate expression of privilege for Westerners, to find out that the madman running around in tanks and aviator sunglasses in that part of the world, you know, over there, actually does have direct and indisputable power over MILLIONS of people and in all likelihood, is probably killing tons of them. Like, we know that, but we don't understand what that means, not really. How could we? I find it hard to conceive of something further from my reality. And ultimately, for all the legitimate strengths the Internet has to fulfill the dream of these folks, in terms of speaking truth to power, ultimately, Governments can turn it off if needed, as we've seen, if it becomes too much of a problem.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    I think we're talking about two different things here: companies and code. You're absolutely right in that companies, as legal entities, have to obey laws in whatever jurisdiction they operate. But the "internet routes around censorship" folks are usually talking about company-less code (or information), in its pure sense. That is effectively influenced by only two variables: the cost of copying and distributing it. Digital technology has driven that number far lower than it's historically existed. And in that, it's a fundamental change. To cast into concrete terms, we're talking about Facebook (company example) vs DeCSS (code). Facebook cares if Pakistan or the US says something must be so. DeCSS doesn't.
    - FlownScepter 6y ago
      > But the "internet routes around censorship" folks are usually talking about company-less code (or information), in its pure sense. Is it company-less, though? Code is useless without the silicon that brings it to life, without the people that maintain that silicon, without the power grid that energizes it, and without the data links that connect it. Like I understand what you're saying, you're saying that the pure technology itself is the liberating part, and I agree with that about halfway. But code doesn't run on nothing. To run your code, you'll need a computer, either in your home or business. That computer is sold to you by a vendor, and it's connected to internet sold to you by a different vendor, and is powered by electricity sold to you by a different vendor. Ergo, your code is dependent upon the infrastructure to which you are in turn beholden to. And none of this changes if you use AWS or whatever, you're just adding more vendors and more middlemen, who in turn are buying the needed things from whomever else, etc. Ultimately, if whatever authority decides you must not proceed with what you're doing, that can be enforced in numerous ways, all of which mean that you will not proceed. Or at the very least, will make it much harder. We saw this recently with the Parler fiasco. > To cast into concrete terms, we're talking about Facebook (company example) vs DeCSS (code). But DeCSS only works with DVD drives sold to you by manufacturers in PC's sold to you by manufacturers, running on electricity sold to you by a utility. The code, the information, that's free. But taking it and doing something useful with it, in this case decrypting DVD's, requires hardware, and if for whatever odd reason the U.S. State Department decided that nobody was ever going to use it in the States again, maybe they couldn't stop it entirely, sure, but they can make it infinitely more difficult to do so.
Jetrel 6y ago
I mean, to step past the common dodge of moral relativism, the whole thing behind this is a tacit agreement amongst a lot of tech-inclined folk that quite a few cultures (including powerful, western cultural movements, past-and-present) are just plain evil. So we're using whatever tools we have to subvert and change these cultures, and we're putting leverage on companies we have cultural hegemony over to try to work around - in whatever ways they can - laws that we consider similarly evil. It's a culture war, plain and simple. I've chosen to use "we" here to be honest about my own affiliations in this particular case (of anti-Ahmadiyya censorship). A company like Google might not have the power to say no to censorship in China, but they're a lot more likely to have considerable heft against a nation that can't credibly mount a replacement for something like Google. Laws aren't absolute - like all other human institutions, they're subject to pressure. Put enough pressure on and they can switch from something being forbidden to being allowed. (In the past, corporate pressure has been "up to and including outright overthrow of a government", in the case of what was done to the Honduras on behalf of the United Fruit Company, so ... some options are off the table because they're immoral, but corporate pressure don't have any hard ceiling on what it can theoretically accomplish.)
- FlownScepter 6y ago
  > I mean, to step past the common dodge of moral relativism, the whole thing behind this is a tacit agreement amongst a lot of tech-inclined folk that quite a few cultures (including powerful, western cultural movements, past-and-present) are just plain evil. So we're using whatever tools we have to subvert and change these cultures, and we're putting leverage on companies we have cultural hegemony over to try to work around - in whatever ways they can - laws that we consider similarly evil. It's a culture war, plain and simple. I've chosen to use "we" here to be honest about my own affiliations in this particular case (of anti-Ahmadiyya censorship). And my point isn't to denigrate those efforts as they are, merely to point out that the fact you're permitted to engage in those efforts is contingent on those efforts remaining ineffective. Those in power will never concede power to those without peacefully, this is a lesson history teaches us all the way back to the city state of Ur. If you ever were to engage in efforts that caused legitimate destabilization of the power structures above you, those efforts would be put down. Probably legally, possibly violently, but they will be put down. The fact that some Governments are quicker to pull the metaphorical triggers, doesn't mean the others are therefore not armed. > A company like Google might not have the power to say no to censorship in China, but they're a lot more likely to have considerable heft against a nation that can't credibly mount a replacement for something like Google. This presumes the Government in question sees value in a thing it is trying to actively remove. Like I'm not trying to be rude, but do you think it's a major concern of Pakistan's leadership that their people have ready access to Stadia and Chrome? Or the search engine itself, for that matter?
stale2002 6y ago
> At which point said phone is no longer available for purchase in Pakistan. This isn't really supported by how other similar devices are treated. We aren't seeing all PCs having hardware level censorship functionality inserted into it, as the behest of governments. The idea that a country would stop all phones from being purchased, if phones simply worked similarly to PCs, sounds about as unlikely as a country blocking the purchase of "unlocked" PCs, which we see is not currently happening.
- FlownScepter 6y ago
  > We aren't seeing all PCs having hardware level censorship functionality inserted into it, as the behest of governments. I mean, that literally did almost happen once, right here in the US of A. And sure, points to you, no country has yet attempted it since then, but also, China has locked onto a much more productive and efficient model; controlling the flow of information itself, rather than the client devices at hand. And yeah, that's circumvent-able by users of sufficient tech literacy and bravery, but also, that fact has not presented an issue yet for China's Communist Party in their efforts to keep a stranglehold on the culture of their country, apart from perhaps Hong Kong.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    > controlling the flow of information itself, rather than the client devices at hand. > controlling the flow of information itself, rather than the client devices at hand. It is still significantly harder to enact censorship on a wide scale as china is trying to do, than it is to simply change 2 app stores. The stuff that china is doing, is much more difficult. It uses a lot of resources, and is not perfect. I would rather more barriers be put up, so as to make censorship more difficult, wherever possible. And making phones more open is another such barrier, that makes censorship more difficult. Rights are not binary. Oppression and censorship is a spectrum, and taking actions against such oppression makes the oppression less effective, even if some oppression still happens.

ethbr0 6y ago

Not available for purchase != not available. I understand the point you're trying to make: technologists undervalue national sovereignty when it's from a non-Western / less-democratic country. But try to appreciate parent's point as well: that there are technical qualities about the internet that make it censorship-resistant.

FlownScepter 6y ago
I don't think that point resonates nearly as well under a less-democratic country. There's a romanticism that's applied to the Internet as though it can buck any trend or speak truth to power in a way that other prior media hasn't or can't, and there is some truth to that? But that wasn't because of some innate superiority; it was because it developed primarily in the West, where freedom to express oneself is the default, with authorities only really stepping in when needed. This ethos has followed through the Internet's spread to other parts of the world, where this is not always the case, and the reaction in general from companies especially borders on pearl clutching. "What do you mean we have to respect unjust laws and the arbitrary decisions of some banana republic?" Yes, you do. Because within the borders of that republic, regardless of how banana it might be, it is the Government and it has power. I feel like this is the penultimate expression of privilege for Westerners, to find out that the madman running around in tanks and aviator sunglasses in that part of the world, you know, over there, actually does have direct and indisputable power over MILLIONS of people and in all likelihood, is probably killing tons of them. Like, we know that, but we don't understand what that means, not really. How could we? I find it hard to conceive of something further from my reality. And ultimately, for all the legitimate strengths the Internet has to fulfill the dream of these folks, in terms of speaking truth to power, ultimately, Governments can turn it off if needed, as we've seen, if it becomes too much of a problem.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  I think we're talking about two different things here: companies and code. You're absolutely right in that companies, as legal entities, have to obey laws in whatever jurisdiction they operate. But the "internet routes around censorship" folks are usually talking about company-less code (or information), in its pure sense. That is effectively influenced by only two variables: the cost of copying and distributing it. Digital technology has driven that number far lower than it's historically existed. And in that, it's a fundamental change. To cast into concrete terms, we're talking about Facebook (company example) vs DeCSS (code). Facebook cares if Pakistan or the US says something must be so. DeCSS doesn't.
  - FlownScepter 6y ago
    > But the "internet routes around censorship" folks are usually talking about company-less code (or information), in its pure sense. Is it company-less, though? Code is useless without the silicon that brings it to life, without the people that maintain that silicon, without the power grid that energizes it, and without the data links that connect it. Like I understand what you're saying, you're saying that the pure technology itself is the liberating part, and I agree with that about halfway. But code doesn't run on nothing. To run your code, you'll need a computer, either in your home or business. That computer is sold to you by a vendor, and it's connected to internet sold to you by a different vendor, and is powered by electricity sold to you by a different vendor. Ergo, your code is dependent upon the infrastructure to which you are in turn beholden to. And none of this changes if you use AWS or whatever, you're just adding more vendors and more middlemen, who in turn are buying the needed things from whomever else, etc. Ultimately, if whatever authority decides you must not proceed with what you're doing, that can be enforced in numerous ways, all of which mean that you will not proceed. Or at the very least, will make it much harder. We saw this recently with the Parler fiasco. > To cast into concrete terms, we're talking about Facebook (company example) vs DeCSS (code). But DeCSS only works with DVD drives sold to you by manufacturers in PC's sold to you by manufacturers, running on electricity sold to you by a utility. The code, the information, that's free. But taking it and doing something useful with it, in this case decrypting DVD's, requires hardware, and if for whatever odd reason the U.S. State Department decided that nobody was ever going to use it in the States again, maybe they couldn't stop it entirely, sure, but they can make it infinitely more difficult to do so.

Jetrel 6y ago

I mean, to step past the common dodge of moral relativism, the whole thing behind this is a tacit agreement amongst a lot of tech-inclined folk that quite a few cultures (including powerful, western cultural movements, past-and-present) are just plain evil. So we're using whatever tools we have to subvert and change these cultures, and we're putting leverage on companies we have cultural hegemony over to try to work around - in whatever ways they can - laws that we consider similarly evil. It's a culture war, plain and simple. I've chosen to use "we" here to be honest about my own affiliations in this particular case (of anti-Ahmadiyya censorship). A company like Google might not have the power to say no to censorship in China, but they're a lot more likely to have considerable heft against a nation that can't credibly mount a replacement for something like Google. Laws aren't absolute - like all other human institutions, they're subject to pressure. Put enough pressure on and they can switch from something being forbidden to being allowed. (In the past, corporate pressure has been "up to and including outright overthrow of a government", in the case of what was done to the Honduras on behalf of the United Fruit Company, so ... some options are off the table because they're immoral, but corporate pressure don't have any hard ceiling on what it can theoretically accomplish.)

FlownScepter 6y ago
> I mean, to step past the common dodge of moral relativism, the whole thing behind this is a tacit agreement amongst a lot of tech-inclined folk that quite a few cultures (including powerful, western cultural movements, past-and-present) are just plain evil. So we're using whatever tools we have to subvert and change these cultures, and we're putting leverage on companies we have cultural hegemony over to try to work around - in whatever ways they can - laws that we consider similarly evil. It's a culture war, plain and simple. I've chosen to use "we" here to be honest about my own affiliations in this particular case (of anti-Ahmadiyya censorship). And my point isn't to denigrate those efforts as they are, merely to point out that the fact you're permitted to engage in those efforts is contingent on those efforts remaining ineffective. Those in power will never concede power to those without peacefully, this is a lesson history teaches us all the way back to the city state of Ur. If you ever were to engage in efforts that caused legitimate destabilization of the power structures above you, those efforts would be put down. Probably legally, possibly violently, but they will be put down. The fact that some Governments are quicker to pull the metaphorical triggers, doesn't mean the others are therefore not armed. > A company like Google might not have the power to say no to censorship in China, but they're a lot more likely to have considerable heft against a nation that can't credibly mount a replacement for something like Google. This presumes the Government in question sees value in a thing it is trying to actively remove. Like I'm not trying to be rude, but do you think it's a major concern of Pakistan's leadership that their people have ready access to Stadia and Chrome? Or the search engine itself, for that matter?

stale2002 6y ago

> At which point said phone is no longer available for purchase in Pakistan. This isn't really supported by how other similar devices are treated. We aren't seeing all PCs having hardware level censorship functionality inserted into it, as the behest of governments. The idea that a country would stop all phones from being purchased, if phones simply worked similarly to PCs, sounds about as unlikely as a country blocking the purchase of "unlocked" PCs, which we see is not currently happening.

FlownScepter 6y ago
> We aren't seeing all PCs having hardware level censorship functionality inserted into it, as the behest of governments. I mean, that literally did almost happen once, right here in the US of A. And sure, points to you, no country has yet attempted it since then, but also, China has locked onto a much more productive and efficient model; controlling the flow of information itself, rather than the client devices at hand. And yeah, that's circumvent-able by users of sufficient tech literacy and bravery, but also, that fact has not presented an issue yet for China's Communist Party in their efforts to keep a stranglehold on the culture of their country, apart from perhaps Hong Kong.
- stale2002 6y ago
  > controlling the flow of information itself, rather than the client devices at hand. > controlling the flow of information itself, rather than the client devices at hand. It is still significantly harder to enact censorship on a wide scale as china is trying to do, than it is to simply change 2 app stores. The stuff that china is doing, is much more difficult. It uses a lot of resources, and is not perfect. I would rather more barriers be put up, so as to make censorship more difficult, wherever possible. And making phones more open is another such barrier, that makes censorship more difficult. Rights are not binary. Oppression and censorship is a spectrum, and taking actions against such oppression makes the oppression less effective, even if some oppression still happens.