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YouTube disrupted in Pakistan as former PM Khan streams speech
- keepquestioning 4y agoHow likely is Pakistan to fail? They have nukes.
- ShivShankaran 4y agook
- jbirer 4y agoThe damage control by the Pakistani army is pretty crazy right now. Pakistan is on the verge of devolving into mass riots as Imran Khan has a massive fanbase.
- chamanbuga 4y agoIt certainly looks like this from the outside. The establishment has always kept control over Pakistan even when such social change was in the air. I expect the same to happen. Also I'm expecting IK to start dialling it back given the recent riots.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoAre you in Pakistan? What are things on the ground like? Arresting IK right now would be national harakiri. Surely they’re not going to do that?
- walrus01 4y agoFor those people who haven't studied Pakistan extensively, the army has always run things, the politicians are just the thin veneer of pretense at democracy as a public face. The Army and the military forces in general are the people who really control the country. Pakistan makes a public show of having a parliamentary democracy with elected MPs and such but it's all a farce. Doesn't particularly matter whether Bhutto, Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan or anyone else.
- m00dy 4y ago"the army has always run things" sounds like Turkia but like 40 years ago
- travisgriggs 4y agoAnd Egypt. And a bunch of countries in Asia.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y agoWhen you have more guns than money, you get military dictatorship. When you have more money than guns, you get oligarchy.
- labster 4y agoSure, but if you have more holy books than guns or money, you get a theocracy.
- quadrifoliate 4y agoWell from time to time they make it pretty explicit too – like under Ayub Khan, Zia-ul-Haq, or Musharraf. About 30-odd of Pakistan's 75 years as an independent country have been explicitly under military dictatorships.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoNone of their civilian governments have lasted an entire term. Pretty damning.
- nabeelam 4y agoThat isn't correct since 2008. Two have: • 2008-13 PPP-led coalition government, which transferred power to the • 2013-18 PML(N) government, which transferred power to the • 2018-22 PTI (Khan's party) government, which was ousted in its penultimate year by a vote of no-confidence in the National Assembly.
- edgyquant 4y agoMy hunch is that the real geopolitical upheaval of the next 50-100 years will be post-decolonization. A number of these nations were thrown together by a completely foreign power not just with an interest in splitting countries up or grouping them together but doing so in a way that prevents them becoming a peer level opponent.
- pphysch 4y ago50-100 years is quite a long time; it's already happening at an accelerating rate. Washington is rapidly losing its foothold in Latin America and SEA, France is losing West Africa. The West is in an unprecedented crisis right now and will be unable to compete with the next gen foreign policies coming out of China, Russia, and the many other "enemy states".
- HappySweeney 4y agoCould you elaborate on "next gen foreign policies"?
- selimthegrim 4y agoMaybe he’s been listening to Zaid Hamid too much.
- jessaustin 4y agoNot OP, but I would offer "not sanctioning/embargoing a third of the world"...
- pphysch 4y agoBRI, BRICS+, SCO, EAEU/"petroruble". the post-Washington Consensus
- daemoens 4y agoThe "post-Washingtion consensus" is too fragmented to have any real coordinated actions. BRICS is not some united force willing to work together. BRICS was meant for economies of similar scale to work together. China is already more than three times the size of the other 4 combined.The only thing that aligns all 5 now is generally anti-americanism which isn't much of a unifying force. China and India continue to worsen ties and Russia has become a bit of a pariah. Brazil and South Africa are too far apart from the rest for any meaningful cooperation.
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- jessaustin 4y ago
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
- frank_nitti 4y agoWhat do you mean? That seems to be quite literally what is happening? > Metrics corroborate reports of a disruption to YouTube in Pakistan on multiple internet providers; the incident comes as former PM Imran Khan live streams on the platform despite a ban by media regulator PEMRA > … Access was restored after the speech concluded. PEMRA is the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority You may disagree with the notion of a “deep state” but how can you say that censorship of a populist is “not even remotely what happened” ?
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoI have no proof to back it up, but most politically sensitive subjects are likely monitored by various interested parties ( in old country, it is a job to troll internet forums[1] to sway public opinion one way or the other. Needless to say, even on HN I started to view some comments on political news as tainted. It is unfortunate. And HN is in a good position to being able to spot most attempts to derail threads and so on. [1]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/01/undercover-reporter-reveals-life-in-a-polish-troll-farm https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/01/undercover-rep...
- pessimizer 4y agoAnd the dismissal in this case is purely content free, it's just a random insult, and then a successful flagkill. Oh... and snarky twitter tone. > in old country, it is a job to troll internet forums[1] to sway public opinion one way or the other. It's a job everywhere. Right now someone being paid to troll internet forums and comment sections to disrupt conversations about the food coloring used in Skittles.
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- user3939382 4y agoThe story I heard on this is that the US "asked" Khan to play ball on Ukraine/anti-Russia and he basically said no, came out with a statement like "Are we your slaves?" https://www.ibtimes.com/are-we-your-slaves-pakistans-khan-slams-western-urging-condemn-russian-invasion-3426183 https://www.ibtimes.com/are-we-your-slaves-pakistans-khan-sl... and about 2 weeks later he was removed from office. There's no concrete evidence the US was connected to regime change here but it sure looks that way and it wouldn't be the first time.
- selimthegrim 4y agoUkraine was actually pro-Pakistan on the Kashmir issue and sold them battle tanks. He needs to fire whoever in the Foreign Office advised him to do this.
- ShivShankaran 4y agois this true? I would like to read more about it.
- selimthegrim 4y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan–Ukraine_relations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan–Ukraine_relations https://mobile.twitter.com/kanchangupta/status/1497071498825068544 https://mobile.twitter.com/kanchangupta/status/1497071498825...
- ShivShankaran 4y agothank you. Good to learn about something I never knew. Probably one of the reason why Indian-related subreddit were agaisnt ukraine but the reddit admins came down and deleted all subreddits that were critical of war, even the massively popular ones
- prvit 4y ago> deleted all subreddits that were critical of war hmmmmm Or wait, are you confusing subreddits with threads and admins with subreddit mods? That’s the only way your comment doesn’t read as downright insane.
- awaisraad 4y ago
- awaisraad 4y ago
- cato_the_elder 4y ago> This class of disruption can be worked around using VPN services, which are able to circumvent government internet censorship measures. Well, here's something for people who insist all VPN services are a "scam". VPNs play an important role by circumventing censorship in countries with more network level internet censorship.
- yieldcrv 4y agoThat's.... not what people criticizing VPNs are referring to. VPN's privacy claims are a scam. Reselling their own internet connection works, but advertising it that way doesn't. The customer has no way of having any assurance of a privacy claim, and even past assurances can change at any time, and even if active monitoring or surveillance wasn't being done by the VPN provider, their data center, a third party along the way or the government, the VPN provider would still respond to a court order from the government undermining your privacy. Thats the part people call a scam. Changing your reported location has nothing to do with that.
- skinnymuch 4y agoAre you in tech? People have specific reasons for VPN issues. What you’re referring to is not something people have an issue with.
- mercy_dude 4y agoPakistan is a classic case of what moral bankruptcy looks like when you harbour terror just so you can hurt your neighbours. For decades, they allowed terror camps and bases because it would hurt India and in the process military was under supreme control of the state. All along, US supported them because a) they were always suspicious of India being a Russian ally and b) they somehow thought by some crazy logic that Pakistan is going to be their ally in war on terror. But then the snake they were growing in the backyard with the hope of hurting their neighbours started biting them. First the collapse in Afghanistan and then decade long war on terror followed by economic stagnation coupled with corruption at the military led the mass to basically become completely robbed. This is the populous that somehow thought India is their arch enemy and their leaders are all on their side because the state religion Islam was used as a tool. Ya I don’t have much sympathy for them.
- helixfelix 4y agoLets not pretend that there is only a single guilty party here. No doubt pakistan tried to control mujahideen to fight their proxy wars. Just like Indian intelligence has funded the Balochistan insurgency inside Pakistan. This of course all started with US asking Pakistan to setup these mujahideen to counter Russia in 1980.
- mercy_dude 4y agoThis is a false equivalency. The extent to which Pakistan used its military apparatus to train militias and other terrorist organizations is unparalleled. There is a reason Osama Bin Laden found a safe heaven. This is the what aboutism that most politicians toy with when they want to fool the public. But like I said this is a populous that are truly detached and delusional. They brought it on themselves.
- getcrunk 4y agoReally its unparalleled? Even by america.
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- curious_cat_163 4y agoThis is not the first time that the powers that be in Pakistan are trying to pull this gimmick. The last time they tried (and failed) resulted in a massive BGP blackhole: https://www.wired.com/2008/02/pakistans-accid/ https://www.wired.com/2008/02/pakistans-accid/ (edited)
- malshe 4y agoThis WSJ article (no paywall) explains the current developments there. I had no idea things are so bad. The inflation is at 42%! https://www.wsj.com/articles/ousted-pakistan-prime-minister-imran-khan-faces-arrest-on-terror-charge-11661190203?st=5p4hyt8u1tqmzqn&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink https://www.wsj.com/articles/ousted-pakistan-prime-minister-...
- throwaways85989 4y agoThey are also out of foreign currency like Sri Lanka. Which accelerates chinas problems, as pakistan is one of its debtors and will likely default on those credits.
- somedude895 4y agoI'm sure China will see this as an opportunity as Pakistan hands over some of its BRI infrastructure: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambantota_International_Port https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambantota_International_Por...
- efitz 4y agoI think the thing that makes me most sad about the internet is how susceptible it is to control and censorship. Back in the early 90s we were all about PGP and anonymous remailers and we’ve let the forces of government and big business slowly nullify every mitigation we’ve tried. As technologists we haven’t used our positions on technical standards boards, etc., to force protocols that would preserve freedom by not providing the capabilities needed for control. So now I guess we’re just supplicants on the internet we created.
- spacemark 4y agoI think you overestimate how much control we technologists actually have. Takes far more than a few seats on some standards boards.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoIn the 90s, you had a few people on the internet, who knew all that stuff, but because the internet was "hard", they (we?) represented the majority of internet users. Now, they/we are all still here, knowing all the ways of private communications, protocols, etc. + all the new, better ways to communicate privately and securely. The only difference now is, that a few billions of "normal people" joined us online, and they don't know and don't care about all that, so the propaganda just moved from TV to facebook and youtube.
- jasonfarnon 4y agoI think the real difference is those same 90's Internet users actually have a lot of power right now, and it's become too hard to cede that. It's easy to argue that power should be distributed when you don't think you have much of a stake in it, a little harder when you command a huge chunk of the national economy and culture. I doubt it's because of the Internet's barrier to entry back then. Are you supposing the ability to set up a SLIP/PPP script is associated with some kind of sensitivity to power imbalances?
- bfuller 4y agoYeah sadly all the old heads that tell me stories of putting think tanks together so that consumers owned their metadata, all the excitement of activism by those few super nerds end up telling it to me from their mansions bought by creating SaaS services or whatever. I'd say the 90s hacktivists for the most part took the golden handcuffs and left the rest of humanity out to dry. We need like 1000 more Pavel Durovs,
- renewiltord 4y agoMilitarizing this country and supporting it as much as the US did definitely already paid negative returns. The geopoliticists in Washington are not particularly competent. It certainly looks like their actions in this region are net negative. If they were a company, it would have folded from bad decision making.
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