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So where's the donkey and where's the cart. It reads like: citizens have been protesting the government using social media, government desperate to curb dissen
by netsharc 1y ago
So where's the donkey and where's the cart.
It reads like: citizens have been protesting the government using social media, government desperate to curb dissent bans social media, dissent is now on the streets..
Or maybe it's as straightforward as the media has been reporting.
- paganel 1y agoIt shows that the Nepalese have a higher civic response compared to many in the West, just look at the Brits, where in effect there is a social media ban on lots and lots of things that affect day-to-day life.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoBecause people in the West have been indoctrinated to trust their governments far too much to an unhealthy degree to actually think that maybe their government doesn't have their best interest at heart and to start protesting. And also because they're in the trap of a government provided cushy lifestyle which the government can terminate at will without violence (de-banking, de-pensioning, de-uneployment, de-social housing, etc) if they're caught protesting. People in underdeveloped countries don't have anything more to loose anyway but their chains.
- myrmidon 1y ago> Because people in the West have been indoctrinated to trust their governments far too much to an unhealthy degree Can you give specific examples? I frequently find the US outlook to be exactly the reverse, where people pretend like "the government" is some conspiratorial shadow organisation undermining all the citizens at every step (which seems quite silly to me because it basically consists only of people that you directly or indirectly voted for). My view is that if you have incompetent, selfish administrators in a western democracy, then just don't vote for them next time; if they keep getting elected, then maybe your countries actual problem are the idiot voters instead (or possibly not-actually-independent mass media, the importance of which can not be overstated).
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago>Can you give specific examples? Most rich western/northern European countries. >which seems quite silly to me because it basically consists only of people that you directly or indirectly voted for It's not silly when you consider that the candidates you can vote for, are all managed oppositions, each owned and supported by various mega-money interest groups. Why else did Bernie Sanders never got nominated as a presidential candidate even though many people supported him? Because he's not bought and paid for by the lobbyist groups. In every country it's like that.
- glhaynes 1y agoWhy else did Bernie Sanders never got nominated as a presidential candidate even though many people supported him? Because more people supported someone else.
- salawat 1y agoWrong. Democratic super delegates overrode the nomination in favor of someone more friendly to the true pro-business party line.
- glhaynes 1y agoDemocratic super delegates overrode the nomination This literally didn't happen. This sort of conspiracy-theorizing nonsense is akin to Trump's about the 2020 election and has lead to a bunch of low-info voters making bad decisions.
- myrmidon 1y agoI'm not disputing that there is gonna be some degree of plutocracy when political funding is uncontrolled and media presence can be bought for cheap. But I think "managed opposition is the best you can get as voter" is incorrect; Trump is in my view neither managed nor "pro-establishment" in any way, and if everything was actually under "capitalist" control, then people like Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez or Tim Walz would never be allowed even close to a position of power. Anti-establishment populists in Europe have seen comparable success (e.g. Italy where they are in power, or Germany where it just looks like a matter of time).
- koonsolo 1y agoHey, Belgian here. Our government cannot just de-bank, de-pension or de- anything else you are suggesting, and definitely not by the "crime" of protesting (what a ridiculous statement!) We protest here too by the way, this weekend about 100k in Brussels. That you make these claims is just plain up ridiculous.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoAre you aware that the world(and Europe for that matter) is much larger than Belgium, with way different laws on what the state can do to you? For example in Canada they de-banked the truckers, in Germany they de-pensioned a retiree who was planning to bring back the Kaiser. So yeah, it happens, you're just ignorant from your bubble.
- koonsolo 1y agoYou were talking about "people in the West". Belgians are people in the west, and we don't comply to your statements. Secondly, I don't believe a word you say about Germany. Source please. Don't generalize what happened once in Canada to the whole "Western world" and all kinds of de-.... And as far as I remember, those truckers were protesting. So they certainly didn't comply to your description of being indoctrinated to trust their government.
- rkomorn 1y agoNews to me that the French, for example, trust their government and do not protest.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoTrust is orthogonal to protests. Frech protest when the government takes away their gibs, not because it's spying on them.
- jama211 1y agoLet’s not pretend the level of ban is equivalent, or the effect it has on people’s lives. More should be done, but there are levels of severity. UK citizens can and do still log on to many services daily that are not accessible in Nepal.
- ta1243 1y agoThe only ban on media I've seen is from Farage, who's banned the media from covering local government where he has the power https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-media-ban-nottinghamshire-live-farage-free-speech-b2817293.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-media-... Trump has a similar playbook. https://apnews.com/article/trump-ap-white-house-press-pool-ban-cdf091900ae5371329234ddfafef3a91 https://apnews.com/article/trump-ap-white-house-press-pool-b... Then there's also the normal US style limits (fighting words are banned, speech which harms big companies is banned, "obscenity" is restricted or banned, death threats to the president are banned (the UK also bans threats to people who aren't the president)
- gadders 1y ago>>the UK also bans threats to people who aren't the president It also bans non-specific jokey threats and arrests you with five armed police officers.
- MangoToupe 1y agoIt also seems reasonable that companies have to follow local laws to operate there. Corporations superseding states seems just as dystopian as state repression of dissent. Granted, there is either confusion or misrepresentation as Mastodon is also banned. The reporting seems pretty meagre; even strictly with these events, how are so many dying from batons and rubber bullets? Sure these can kill, but fourteen people?
- netsharc 1y agoIt's awkward isn't it, because following local laws could mean being a helping hand of the oppressor... For an extreme example, an email company that is forced by a new law to reveal all emails of citizens of country X, or a payment app that has to upload all transactions to the government (and where the supreme court has ruled in favour of the surveillance state). The "moral" company would probably rather shut their operations, but even trillion-dollar companies relent... And who has the last word on what's moral?
- monkeyelite 1y ago> And who has the last word on what's moral? The standard assumption in business is that you follow local laws and customs as they are a proxy for the moral system of the local people. Are you operating a business or promoting western ideas?
- graemep 1y agoFreedom is a western idea? Justice is a western idea?
- monkeyelite 1y agoIf you’re suggesting you have distilled humanity to the essential rights and values that are obviously true and transcend culture. Yes that’s a western value.
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- seer 1y agoJust a random tourist caught up in all of this in Nepal right now, but what I gathered was that corruption and anti-government sentiment was the reason, but the social networks ban tipped people over the edge to start protesting.
- mothballed 1y agoNepal government made the classic mistake of not realizing if you let people scream into the ether on whatever the youth use as twitter, they won't meet up with their friends to scream on the street or even worse.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- BoxFour 1y agoSocial media has proven to be quite an effective tool for mobilizing protests and beyond. I get how the short-sighted might see it as a tactical move to "cripple logistics" by banning social media. But, the reason I call it short-sighted is exactly what you said: Removing those earlier pressure-release valves doesn’t solve the underlying issue at all and just increases the risk of a more volatile outcome.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> Social media has proven to be quite an effective tool for mobilizing protests Gatherings, yes. Effective protest, I’m less convinced. Effective protests “have clear strategic goals, use protest to broaden coalitions, seek to enlist more powerful individuals in their cause, and connect expressions of discontent to broader political and electoral mobilization” [1]. Social media helps enlist the elite. But it absolutely trashes clarity of goals and coalition broadening, often degrading into no true Scotsman contests. If a protest is well planned, social media can help it organize. But if a movement is developing, social media will as often keep it in a leaderless, undisciplined and thus ineffective state. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-power-of-protest-in-the-us/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-power-of-protest-in-t...