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Internet disrupted in Burkina Faso amid military uprising

72 points by openknot 5y ago

throwaway_rukma 5y ago
https://ooni.org https://ooni.org reported on this previously: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1484228749755396097?cxt=HHwWgsC9qeSLhZkpAAAA https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/14842287497553960...
KarlKemp 5y ago
First Mali, now this. It’s the sign of a robust cultural hegemony when they copy even your worst ideas, I guess. Like McDonald’s, 70+-year copyright terms, or the violent descent from democracy into chaos.
- Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
  There's historically been a whole list of neo colonial "adventurers" out to forment coups just to make some cash and damn the population to poverty, violence and chaos. And you better believe it's all done with an approving nod by the Western powers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thatcher https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thatcher
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    "And you better believe it's all done with an approving nod by the Western powers." Maybe often, but surely not always. The recent coup d'etat in Mali for example was certainly not approved by the west (or went out of hands) as the new government rather shifts to china and russia.
    - Guessnotgauss 5y ago
      Seems like the west is busy at the moment... thats why they let China get their hooks in instead of playing thr same move themselves.
- TheGigaChad 5y ago
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
I was going to skip this one, because there's no comments yet. And I thought that Burkina Faso doesn't deserve my attention. But then I realized how myopic and sad I was. So, here it is. Burkina Faso is a land-locked country in West Africa, above Ghana, a bit West of Nigeria. [0] As big as Nevada or Colorado (105,900 sq. miles), with 20M people. Or, for us using the metric system, 275,000 sq. km. Poor as hell. Recent history full of coup d'é·tat, killings, etc. Internet disruption can mean a lot of nasty things. It includes mobile as well: > Analysis of Google Transparency metrics corroborates user reports of a mobile internet blackout We take the internet, and our freedoms, mostly for granted. It's a good thing to remind ourselves that they are not. I hope that people in Burkina Faso will be ok. I know nothing about geopolitics in Africa, but I'd also wish that a few large companies (e.g. Tesla) would source their minerals from countries that can demonstrate political stability and avoid violence. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkina_Faso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkina_Faso
- perihelions 5y ago
  >"We take the internet, and our freedoms, mostly for granted. It's a good thing to remind ourselves that they are not." The office of the US President has unchecked authority to shut down the US internet [0]. That that's never happened yet reflects on the discretion of individuals in office (and general historical luck), not on any legal or institutional safeguards. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/representatives-propose-bill-limiting-presidential-internet-kill-switch/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/representatives-propose-bi... ("Representatives propose bill limiting presidential internet ‘kill switch’")
  - lmm 5y ago
    > That that's never happened yet reflects on the discretion of individuals in office (and general historical luck), not on any legal or institutional safeguards. I'd say it's a stronger reflection on US culture than on individual presidents. Our legal system exists to manage the details of dispute resolution; it doesn't (and shouldn't!) determine our values.
    - 5y ago
baybal2 5y ago
I very much hope it's not a France sponsored coup Western countries sponsoring coups in their former colonial posessions in 2022 will be a great insult to the whole idea of West trying to fix the world, and not the other way around.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  Well, all these coups and civil wars are the price for other people's good lifes. We only have one planet so someone has to pay the price. I know this is not a popular opinion, especially on US sites, but it's the truth. It's incredibly racist to think otherwise. Because what's the alternative? Half the world is made of idiots born in utter poverty because they are idiots and can't get their countries straight?
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    Coups don't help. They make things worse and that's about it. I don't know a proper solution. All I can suggest: donate money to education. Invite foreign children temporarily to US, educate them and send educated ones back in their home country. Do it on scale. Don't allow them to stay in US (because most of them will want to stay, that's harsh thing to say, for sure). Educated smart people will eventually get the power and hopefully they'll build better home country.
    - baybal2 5y ago
      Russia has the highest tertiary education rate in the world, aaaand? In reality, both are needed, but, immediately, tanks, military training, and other powerful weapons are of way more use for democracy.
      - filoleg 5y ago
        I assume that when the parent comment said “educated”, they didn’t mean just things like literacy and math, but also educated culturally in terms of western ideals and civic values. As someone who actually grew up in Russia and was fortunate enough to immigrate to the US with my family around high school and has spent over a decade here so far, I can assure you that the civic values and the whole relationship of citizens with the law and the government are wildly different between those two countries. So I am definitely somewhat seeing the point of what the parent comment is proposing. P.S. I ask people replying ahead of time, please do not derail the thread with assessment of western ideals themselves or bringing up a bunch of unsavory moments from western history. That’s obviously not what we are talking about here.
Sunspark 5y ago
Burkina Faso had a great man once, Thomas Sankara. He actually gave the country the name it has today. If you are interested, check out this collection of clips of him speaking and marvel at the contrast between him and what we have today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKgvakY_Io https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKgvakY_Io
- snowgrove 5y ago
  Sankara took power in a military coup himself. While he led positive reforms such as literacy and vaccination campaigns, he also banned trade unions and the free press. His Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and Popular Revolutionary Tribunals engaged in torture, execution and arbitrary detention. It’s hard to find unbiased accounts of his rule, as anti-communists tend to ignore his achievements while communists have practically declared him a saint, but I’d take hagiographic accounts of the man with a grain of salt.
  - cuteboy19 5y ago
    Modern liberal democracy could not have existed without Napoleon. Yet you don't see liberals venerating him as a saint or anything. It's puzzling why communists insist on canonizing every dictator that happens to use a red flag.
    - lucian1900 5y ago
      We don't. Stalin and Mao both made mistakes, the common assessment is ~70/30. Sankara and Castro made fewer mistakes. All led movements that drastically improved the lives of millions of workers and that is why they are held in high regard. The problem is that most of us live under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, otherwise called liberal democracy. It's hard to have an objective assessment in the face of constant and pervasive anti-communist propaganda. Even you used the term "dictator", which is simply not supported by historical fact. On the other hand, there's not much point to propaganda for or against Napoleon.
      - 5y ago
Jerry2 5y ago
Looks like a repeat of the Guinea coup from few months ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/world/africa/guinea-coup-americans.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/world/africa/guinea-coup-... Also, an interestring video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6O2T_-4Wls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6O2T_-4Wls
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kodah 5y ago
I was interested in why there's a coup. Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60102087 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60102087 The mutineers made several demands, including: * the dismissal of the army chief of staff and the head of the intelligence service * the deployment of more troops to the front line to fight the insurgents * better care for wounded solders, and the families of those killed in battle. This apparently centers around: > The killing of 53 people by suspected jihadists in November heightened public outrage against the government, and raised fears that the military would take power - just as it had in neighbouring Mali in May. > On Saturday, dozens of people were arrested in Ouagadougou for holding a banned rally to protest against what they described as the government's inability to deal with the militants.
- panchicore3 5y ago
  It's official now https://m.facebook.com/faso226226/videos/451555413125409/?extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C&refsrc=deprecated&ref=sharing&_rdr https://m.facebook.com/faso226226/videos/451555413125409/?ex...
jakuboboza 5y ago
This might not shock you but it is a funny story. When I was in high school we used to learn Geography and capital of Burkina Faso "Wagadugu" stuck in my head. So every time someone was trying to be all jumpy and show off how smart she/he is I would ask "what is the capital of Burkina Faso". This is how little I know about Burkina Faso. "Not great not terrible", maybe terrible.
- thematrixturtle 5y ago
  *Ouagadougou (but indeed pronounced "Wagadugu" in English, since the spelling is French)
YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
The problem is mostly broadband and abondening dial up connections. When the arab spring happenend telecomixx went and booted up old dial up hardware to give them internet access back or at least a form of outside communication. Now we are stuck with satellite if the broadband and cell infrastructre gets hit in countries like Burkino Faso. We need to support legacy systems for longer not for us but for other places without modern infrastructure.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

72 points by openknot 5y ago

https://ooni.org https://ooni.org reported on this previously: https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/1484228749755396097?cxt=HHwWgsC9qeSLhZkpAAAA https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/14842287497553960...

KarlKemp 5y ago

First Mali, now this. It’s the sign of a robust cultural hegemony when they copy even your worst ideas, I guess. Like McDonald’s, 70+-year copyright terms, or the violent descent from democracy into chaos.

Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
There's historically been a whole list of neo colonial "adventurers" out to forment coups just to make some cash and damn the population to poverty, violence and chaos. And you better believe it's all done with an approving nod by the Western powers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thatcher https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thatcher
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  "And you better believe it's all done with an approving nod by the Western powers." Maybe often, but surely not always. The recent coup d'etat in Mali for example was certainly not approved by the west (or went out of hands) as the new government rather shifts to china and russia.
  - Guessnotgauss 5y ago
    Seems like the west is busy at the moment... thats why they let China get their hooks in instead of playing thr same move themselves.
TheGigaChad 5y ago

simonebrunozzi 5y ago

I was going to skip this one, because there's no comments yet. And I thought that Burkina Faso doesn't deserve my attention. But then I realized how myopic and sad I was. So, here it is. Burkina Faso is a land-locked country in West Africa, above Ghana, a bit West of Nigeria. [0] As big as Nevada or Colorado (105,900 sq. miles), with 20M people. Or, for us using the metric system, 275,000 sq. km. Poor as hell. Recent history full of coup d'é·tat, killings, etc. Internet disruption can mean a lot of nasty things. It includes mobile as well: > Analysis of Google Transparency metrics corroborates user reports of a mobile internet blackout We take the internet, and our freedoms, mostly for granted. It's a good thing to remind ourselves that they are not. I hope that people in Burkina Faso will be ok. I know nothing about geopolitics in Africa, but I'd also wish that a few large companies (e.g. Tesla) would source their minerals from countries that can demonstrate political stability and avoid violence. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkina_Faso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkina_Faso

perihelions 5y ago
>"We take the internet, and our freedoms, mostly for granted. It's a good thing to remind ourselves that they are not." The office of the US President has unchecked authority to shut down the US internet [0]. That that's never happened yet reflects on the discretion of individuals in office (and general historical luck), not on any legal or institutional safeguards. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/representatives-propose-bill-limiting-presidential-internet-kill-switch/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/representatives-propose-bi... ("Representatives propose bill limiting presidential internet ‘kill switch’")
- lmm 5y ago
  > That that's never happened yet reflects on the discretion of individuals in office (and general historical luck), not on any legal or institutional safeguards. I'd say it's a stronger reflection on US culture than on individual presidents. Our legal system exists to manage the details of dispute resolution; it doesn't (and shouldn't!) determine our values.
  - 5y ago

baybal2 5y ago

I very much hope it's not a France sponsored coup Western countries sponsoring coups in their former colonial posessions in 2022 will be a great insult to the whole idea of West trying to fix the world, and not the other way around.

beebeepka 5y ago
Well, all these coups and civil wars are the price for other people's good lifes. We only have one planet so someone has to pay the price. I know this is not a popular opinion, especially on US sites, but it's the truth. It's incredibly racist to think otherwise. Because what's the alternative? Half the world is made of idiots born in utter poverty because they are idiots and can't get their countries straight?
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  Coups don't help. They make things worse and that's about it. I don't know a proper solution. All I can suggest: donate money to education. Invite foreign children temporarily to US, educate them and send educated ones back in their home country. Do it on scale. Don't allow them to stay in US (because most of them will want to stay, that's harsh thing to say, for sure). Educated smart people will eventually get the power and hopefully they'll build better home country.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    Russia has the highest tertiary education rate in the world, aaaand? In reality, both are needed, but, immediately, tanks, military training, and other powerful weapons are of way more use for democracy.
    - filoleg 5y ago
      I assume that when the parent comment said “educated”, they didn’t mean just things like literacy and math, but also educated culturally in terms of western ideals and civic values. As someone who actually grew up in Russia and was fortunate enough to immigrate to the US with my family around high school and has spent over a decade here so far, I can assure you that the civic values and the whole relationship of citizens with the law and the government are wildly different between those two countries. So I am definitely somewhat seeing the point of what the parent comment is proposing. P.S. I ask people replying ahead of time, please do not derail the thread with assessment of western ideals themselves or bringing up a bunch of unsavory moments from western history. That’s obviously not what we are talking about here.

Sunspark 5y ago

Burkina Faso had a great man once, Thomas Sankara. He actually gave the country the name it has today. If you are interested, check out this collection of clips of him speaking and marvel at the contrast between him and what we have today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKgvakY_Io https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKgvakY_Io

snowgrove 5y ago
Sankara took power in a military coup himself. While he led positive reforms such as literacy and vaccination campaigns, he also banned trade unions and the free press. His Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and Popular Revolutionary Tribunals engaged in torture, execution and arbitrary detention. It’s hard to find unbiased accounts of his rule, as anti-communists tend to ignore his achievements while communists have practically declared him a saint, but I’d take hagiographic accounts of the man with a grain of salt.
- cuteboy19 5y ago
  Modern liberal democracy could not have existed without Napoleon. Yet you don't see liberals venerating him as a saint or anything. It's puzzling why communists insist on canonizing every dictator that happens to use a red flag.
  - lucian1900 5y ago
    We don't. Stalin and Mao both made mistakes, the common assessment is ~70/30. Sankara and Castro made fewer mistakes. All led movements that drastically improved the lives of millions of workers and that is why they are held in high regard. The problem is that most of us live under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, otherwise called liberal democracy. It's hard to have an objective assessment in the face of constant and pervasive anti-communist propaganda. Even you used the term "dictator", which is simply not supported by historical fact. On the other hand, there's not much point to propaganda for or against Napoleon.
    - 5y ago

Jerry2 5y ago

Looks like a repeat of the Guinea coup from few months ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/world/africa/guinea-coup-americans.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/world/africa/guinea-coup-... Also, an interestring video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6O2T_-4Wls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6O2T_-4Wls

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kodah 5y ago

I was interested in why there's a coup. Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60102087 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60102087 The mutineers made several demands, including: * the dismissal of the army chief of staff and the head of the intelligence service * the deployment of more troops to the front line to fight the insurgents * better care for wounded solders, and the families of those killed in battle. This apparently centers around: > The killing of 53 people by suspected jihadists in November heightened public outrage against the government, and raised fears that the military would take power - just as it had in neighbouring Mali in May. > On Saturday, dozens of people were arrested in Ouagadougou for holding a banned rally to protest against what they described as the government's inability to deal with the militants.

panchicore3 5y ago
It's official now https://m.facebook.com/faso226226/videos/451555413125409/?extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C&refsrc=deprecated&ref=sharing&_rdr https://m.facebook.com/faso226226/videos/451555413125409/?ex...

jakuboboza 5y ago

This might not shock you but it is a funny story. When I was in high school we used to learn Geography and capital of Burkina Faso "Wagadugu" stuck in my head. So every time someone was trying to be all jumpy and show off how smart she/he is I would ask "what is the capital of Burkina Faso". This is how little I know about Burkina Faso. "Not great not terrible", maybe terrible.

thematrixturtle 5y ago
*Ouagadougou (but indeed pronounced "Wagadugu" in English, since the spelling is French)

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago

The problem is mostly broadband and abondening dial up connections. When the arab spring happenend telecomixx went and booted up old dial up hardware to give them internet access back or at least a form of outside communication. Now we are stuck with satellite if the broadband and cell infrastructre gets hit in countries like Burkino Faso. We need to support legacy systems for longer not for us but for other places without modern infrastructure.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]