5 ms·

Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over social media use

63 points by perihelions 4y ago

tomohawk 4y ago
[flagged]
- BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
  cutting off a one means of income from a wealthy, controversial influencer is not comparable to being put to death, no. that’s incredibly callous.
  - sn0w_crash 4y ago
    “Cutting off a means of income” should not be looked on so callously either. It is only a few ideological hops away from “terminating someone’s life.”
    - gallopingcomp 4y ago
      The solution is that society shouldn’t make people dependent on any single means of income for survival, not that no one gets rejected/disbarred from any occupation ever. Ultimately any negativity towards a person lies along a spectrum, and it’s important not to lose sight of the degree of harm involved. The revoking of professional licenses is not (and should not be) intended as punishment of the individual in question, but rather limiting the damage to society of their recklessness. That can sometimes be a slippery slope of its own, but I will argue that it’s a somewhat different slope (the “for the greater good” slope) from the “totalitarian government hates nonconformity” slope. Sometimes they intersect though.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    They're both on the same slippery slope of governmental punishment of wrongthink. Saudi Arabia is just way, way further down it.
    - gallopingcomp 4y ago
      Banning lead from gasoline (and paint, plumbing etc) is also governmentally-punished wrongthink, if you’ve built your whole identity and livelihood around being a salesman for leaded gasoline. Or. Could a certified driving instructor lose their license for telling their clients to drive aggressively, regardless of safety concerns? They might just become a brave martyr challenging the safety-obsessed culture that coddles our drivers.
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        Wrongthink is inherently about expressing ideas. Contrast actually putting lead in things with saying that you wish you could put lead in things.
        gallopingcomp 4y ago
        Hence the “salesman” part. The government is technically depriving you of your livelihood because your employer is out of business, or has moved to non-leaded gasoline, but you insist on only selling leaded gasoline, because you sincerely believe it is superior. Now you are out of a job. (Or rather: now there’s talk going around that you might be out of a job.)
- sn0w_crash 4y ago
  People supporting any form of “Re-education camps” or course do not end up on the right side of history. If you are in support of the forced “re education” of an individual, under threat of revoking their livelihood, no matter your ideological leanings, I would encourage you to think on this.
  - gallopingcomp 4y ago
    Yes. Back to the matter at hand: There’s a difference between (potentially) losing your professional license for beliefs and practices related to your professional practice, and being put in a re-education camp. The former isn’t always right either (and can sometimes be weaponzied for political reasons), but they’re not the same thing. (Speaking as someone from an authoritarian/totalitarian country that puts people in re-education camps, and sometimes weaponizes professional licensing for political reasons. JP’s case looks more like an unfortunate coincidence than that.)
- gallopingcomp 4y ago
  It’s curious that you chose JP, as opposed to the much better example of Hamline University (or that stupid halloween costume thing from a couple of years back; etc, etc). Instead, we choose to entertain JP’s ever-escalating persecution complex. It’s “persecution” only when someone I like loses or suffers, it’s “consequences” when it’s someone I dislike/in the outgroup (never mind the actual circumstances of their behavior in context). Or maybe the alternative is that no one on any side ever gets any consequences for doing anything. Lawyers never get disbarred, drivers never lose licenses, and everything is exactly the same shade of grey. /s
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Lawyers should never get disbarred, and drivers should never lose their licenses, for doing anything that the Constitution gives them the right to do.
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      The Canadian constitution grants one the right to speak freely with zero professional repercussion?
      - edgyquant 4y ago
        Nice bad faith question. Do better next time and come up with a real one if you want to engage
    - gallopingcomp 4y ago
      There’s an extended discussion to be had about the merits and drawbacks of professional licensing as state-enforced gatekeeping, but equating this with political persecution doesn’t seem useful. Has it not occurred to you that professionals could lose their licenses for reasons that at are not solely political? Like professional malpractice, or advocating for quackery? (There’s a line to be drawn there, too, about what constitutes reasonable standards, but you seem to be suggesting that there be no standards at all.)
- alistairSH 4y ago
  “Canada” here being a quasi-governmental professional organization tasked with ensuring the safety of patients and professionalism of practitioners. Not remotely the same as the government-proper arresting him and threatening him with death.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    If the government passes a law saying "you can only be a psychologist if you have a license from the College of Psychologists", and the College of Psychologists will only let you have a license if you go to a re-education camp, why should we look upon that any differently than if the government passes a law saying "you can only be a psychologist if you go to a re-education camp" directly? If you choose to delegate your authority for something to others, shouldn't you be responsible for what they do with it?
    - defrost 4y ago
      It's different for many reasons; * Second hand biased reporting makes it unclear what the official statement from the the College of Psychologists of Ontario actually is and whether they can pull his licence if he ignores them. * The Government does not auto-kneejerk magically back the College and Peterson has a right of appeal, he's already publicaly grandstanding on the issue and claiming to have preemptively filed application for judicial review with the Ontario Divisional Court. Going by past performative peak Peterson this is likely a mountain of outrage in response to a molehill of criticism .. and far removed from the spectacle of beiong dragged away and beheaded w/out appeal.
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      Re-education camp is Jordan’s words. As far as I’ve seen, it doesn’t appear in the correspondence from the professional group.
nobodyandproud 4y ago
A long time ago, some Jewish coworkers told me about Saudi Arabia as very extreme (a lot of frank discussions about Israel’s issues, Palestinians, and the middle east). Naive as I was, I didn’t believe them at the time but time has proven them right.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  Well this was because you were completely ignorant of Saudi Arabia and the peninsula in general then. No one has ever mistook the Saudis for non-extremists and they’re liberal compared to the population they govern.
  - jacooper 4y ago
    Not anymore, certainly not since MBS arrived. Its getting closer and closer to Dubai there.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      Faint praise.
      - jacooper 4y ago
        I really didn't mean it as praise, but I can see how one might read it as such.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      AFAICT, MBS himself is not a religious extremist, just a power-hungry tyrant who doesn't tolerate dissent. There's a difference. The dynamic has long been that the royals running the place are much more liberal than the Wahhabis who enforce the religion, and have slowly been trying to liberalize things. It's another great example of why democracy isn't some kind of silver bullet that will magically make populations accept socially liberal values. If Saudi Arabia lost its monarchy and became democratic, it'd be even worse than it is now.
rippercushions 4y ago
> the use of social media and other communications has been criminalised inside the kingdom since the beginning of Prince Mohammed’s reign. I don't understand the harping on about "social media" here? It's not using social media that's illegal in Saudi Arabia, it's public dissent, and that's been the case since day one. Previously people were jailed or executed for spraying graffiti on overhead bridges, but the authorities were too clueless to care/understand about posting on the Internet. Now the dinosaurs have been replaced by MBS, who does care about the online world, so they've started applying the same old punishments to people posting the same sentiments online.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  When it was spraying graffiti, at least that's actually bad and universally recognized as a crime, so it was just a really disproportionate punishment for it. Posting on social media isn't supposed to be a crime at all.
  - tessierashpool 4y ago
    it's very widely recognized as an art form, and it's not necessarily bad at all.
    - throwaway_au_1 4y ago
      I'd be surprised if you appreciated if the 'art' that is 90% of graffiti appeared on the exterior of your home or business.
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      Graffiti is only a legitimate art form when it's done with the permission of the owner of the thing being painted. It's pure vandalism otherwise.
  - sandworm101 4y ago
    The crime is not the post. The crime is the statement contained in the post. Who told you that online statements were not crimes? They are exactly as much a crime as a statement in a newspaper or on tv.

63 points by perihelions 4y ago

tomohawk 4y ago

[flagged]

BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
cutting off a one means of income from a wealthy, controversial influencer is not comparable to being put to death, no. that’s incredibly callous.
- sn0w_crash 4y ago
  “Cutting off a means of income” should not be looked on so callously either. It is only a few ideological hops away from “terminating someone’s life.”
  - gallopingcomp 4y ago
    The solution is that society shouldn’t make people dependent on any single means of income for survival, not that no one gets rejected/disbarred from any occupation ever. Ultimately any negativity towards a person lies along a spectrum, and it’s important not to lose sight of the degree of harm involved. The revoking of professional licenses is not (and should not be) intended as punishment of the individual in question, but rather limiting the damage to society of their recklessness. That can sometimes be a slippery slope of its own, but I will argue that it’s a somewhat different slope (the “for the greater good” slope) from the “totalitarian government hates nonconformity” slope. Sometimes they intersect though.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  They're both on the same slippery slope of governmental punishment of wrongthink. Saudi Arabia is just way, way further down it.
  - gallopingcomp 4y ago
    Banning lead from gasoline (and paint, plumbing etc) is also governmentally-punished wrongthink, if you’ve built your whole identity and livelihood around being a salesman for leaded gasoline. Or. Could a certified driving instructor lose their license for telling their clients to drive aggressively, regardless of safety concerns? They might just become a brave martyr challenging the safety-obsessed culture that coddles our drivers.
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      Wrongthink is inherently about expressing ideas. Contrast actually putting lead in things with saying that you wish you could put lead in things.
      - gallopingcomp 4y ago
        Hence the “salesman” part. The government is technically depriving you of your livelihood because your employer is out of business, or has moved to non-leaded gasoline, but you insist on only selling leaded gasoline, because you sincerely believe it is superior. Now you are out of a job. (Or rather: now there’s talk going around that you might be out of a job.)
sn0w_crash 4y ago
People supporting any form of “Re-education camps” or course do not end up on the right side of history. If you are in support of the forced “re education” of an individual, under threat of revoking their livelihood, no matter your ideological leanings, I would encourage you to think on this.
- gallopingcomp 4y ago
  Yes. Back to the matter at hand: There’s a difference between (potentially) losing your professional license for beliefs and practices related to your professional practice, and being put in a re-education camp. The former isn’t always right either (and can sometimes be weaponzied for political reasons), but they’re not the same thing. (Speaking as someone from an authoritarian/totalitarian country that puts people in re-education camps, and sometimes weaponizes professional licensing for political reasons. JP’s case looks more like an unfortunate coincidence than that.)
gallopingcomp 4y ago
It’s curious that you chose JP, as opposed to the much better example of Hamline University (or that stupid halloween costume thing from a couple of years back; etc, etc). Instead, we choose to entertain JP’s ever-escalating persecution complex. It’s “persecution” only when someone I like loses or suffers, it’s “consequences” when it’s someone I dislike/in the outgroup (never mind the actual circumstances of their behavior in context). Or maybe the alternative is that no one on any side ever gets any consequences for doing anything. Lawyers never get disbarred, drivers never lose licenses, and everything is exactly the same shade of grey. /s
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Lawyers should never get disbarred, and drivers should never lose their licenses, for doing anything that the Constitution gives them the right to do.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    The Canadian constitution grants one the right to speak freely with zero professional repercussion?
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      Nice bad faith question. Do better next time and come up with a real one if you want to engage
  - gallopingcomp 4y ago
    There’s an extended discussion to be had about the merits and drawbacks of professional licensing as state-enforced gatekeeping, but equating this with political persecution doesn’t seem useful. Has it not occurred to you that professionals could lose their licenses for reasons that at are not solely political? Like professional malpractice, or advocating for quackery? (There’s a line to be drawn there, too, about what constitutes reasonable standards, but you seem to be suggesting that there be no standards at all.)
alistairSH 4y ago
“Canada” here being a quasi-governmental professional organization tasked with ensuring the safety of patients and professionalism of practitioners. Not remotely the same as the government-proper arresting him and threatening him with death.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  If the government passes a law saying "you can only be a psychologist if you have a license from the College of Psychologists", and the College of Psychologists will only let you have a license if you go to a re-education camp, why should we look upon that any differently than if the government passes a law saying "you can only be a psychologist if you go to a re-education camp" directly? If you choose to delegate your authority for something to others, shouldn't you be responsible for what they do with it?
  - defrost 4y ago
    It's different for many reasons; * Second hand biased reporting makes it unclear what the official statement from the the College of Psychologists of Ontario actually is and whether they can pull his licence if he ignores them. * The Government does not auto-kneejerk magically back the College and Peterson has a right of appeal, he's already publicaly grandstanding on the issue and claiming to have preemptively filed application for judicial review with the Ontario Divisional Court. Going by past performative peak Peterson this is likely a mountain of outrage in response to a molehill of criticism .. and far removed from the spectacle of beiong dragged away and beheaded w/out appeal.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    Re-education camp is Jordan’s words. As far as I’ve seen, it doesn’t appear in the correspondence from the professional group.

nobodyandproud 4y ago

A long time ago, some Jewish coworkers told me about Saudi Arabia as very extreme (a lot of frank discussions about Israel’s issues, Palestinians, and the middle east). Naive as I was, I didn’t believe them at the time but time has proven them right.

edgyquant 4y ago
Well this was because you were completely ignorant of Saudi Arabia and the peninsula in general then. No one has ever mistook the Saudis for non-extremists and they’re liberal compared to the population they govern.
- jacooper 4y ago
  Not anymore, certainly not since MBS arrived. Its getting closer and closer to Dubai there.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    Faint praise.
    - jacooper 4y ago
      I really didn't mean it as praise, but I can see how one might read it as such.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    AFAICT, MBS himself is not a religious extremist, just a power-hungry tyrant who doesn't tolerate dissent. There's a difference. The dynamic has long been that the royals running the place are much more liberal than the Wahhabis who enforce the religion, and have slowly been trying to liberalize things. It's another great example of why democracy isn't some kind of silver bullet that will magically make populations accept socially liberal values. If Saudi Arabia lost its monarchy and became democratic, it'd be even worse than it is now.

rippercushions 4y ago

> the use of social media and other communications has been criminalised inside the kingdom since the beginning of Prince Mohammed’s reign. I don't understand the harping on about "social media" here? It's not using social media that's illegal in Saudi Arabia, it's public dissent, and that's been the case since day one. Previously people were jailed or executed for spraying graffiti on overhead bridges, but the authorities were too clueless to care/understand about posting on the Internet. Now the dinosaurs have been replaced by MBS, who does care about the online world, so they've started applying the same old punishments to people posting the same sentiments online.

josephcsible 4y ago
When it was spraying graffiti, at least that's actually bad and universally recognized as a crime, so it was just a really disproportionate punishment for it. Posting on social media isn't supposed to be a crime at all.
- tessierashpool 4y ago
  it's very widely recognized as an art form, and it's not necessarily bad at all.
  - throwaway_au_1 4y ago
    I'd be surprised if you appreciated if the 'art' that is 90% of graffiti appeared on the exterior of your home or business.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Graffiti is only a legitimate art form when it's done with the permission of the owner of the thing being painted. It's pure vandalism otherwise.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  The crime is not the post. The crime is the statement contained in the post. Who told you that online statements were not crimes? They are exactly as much a crime as a statement in a newspaper or on tv.