Uganda Orders All Social Media To Be Blocked (reuters.com) 112
Uganda ordered internet service providers to block all social media platforms and messaging apps on Tuesday until further notice, a letter from the country's communications regulator seen by Reuters said. From a report: Users had complained earlier on Tuesday that they were unable to access Facebook and WhatsApp, social media platforms being widely used for campaigning ahead of Thursday's presidential election in the East African country. "Uganda Communications Commission hereby directs you to immediately suspend any access and use, direct or otherwise, of all social media platforms and online messaging applications over your network until further notice," said the letter from the commission's executive director to internet providers.
Uh oh (Score:1)
First Pakistan, then Italy, now Uganda. The Blackout is headed this way!!! 10 days of darkness!
/s
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to cause FAR more trouble than it is worth IMHO.
The world seemed a much friendlier, cohesive and civl place before FB, Twitter, etc....
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem is, the cat's out of the bag. Shutting down the big, well-known sites drives the loonies to smaller, lesser known platforms to fester in their own stew without any chance at rebuttal.
I don't know what the solution is, though I'm sure it will involve educating people, teaching them critical thinking skills, and teaching them how to analyze the information receive and separate fact from fiction. How we do that is beyond my ability to say.
Re:Uh oh (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what the solution is, though I'm sure it will involve educating people, teaching them critical thinking skills, and teaching them how to analyze the information receive and separate fact from fiction. How we do that is beyond my ability to say.
We are having problems with people that think "educating people, teaching them critical thinking skills, and teaching them how to analyze the information receive and separate fact from fiction" is brainwashing them. It's completely bonkers. Like teaching a vegan to dress a deer.
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom of speech is a great idea...provided the listeners are not idiots. A stupid person will listen to the well-supported and clear reasoning of an intelligent person, and reject it all as false, and then turn around and listen to the utter-and-obvious nonsense being spouted by a fellow stupid person, and think it sounds perfectly reasonable.
Social media is giving far too much of a platform to stupid people, to motivate other stupid people to do harmful things. It also is giving a platform to smart-but-evil people, who are similarly motivating stupid people to do stupid things. The one thing that is NOT happening on social media is productive debate in which bad ideas are revealed to be bad and ultimately rejected by everyone.
The root cause is widespread stupidity. Blocking every social media outlet on the Internet is a scramble to treat the symptom, without addressing the disease. And the cure here, widespread censorship, is probably even worse than the disease.
I am feeling kind of hopeless at the moment. We need to put smart in the water. Right now, I don't see a way.
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
The root cause is the bullshit asymmetry problem. If it takes an order of magnitude more effort to debunk bullshit than to create it, only 1 person out of 11 needs to be producing bullshit before it overwhelms the remaining 10 out of 11, even presuming they're all working to oppose the bullshit.
Being able to spread bullshit at the speed of light is the unfortunate side effect of having instant communications at all.
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Re:Uh oh (Score:4, Insightful)
Root cause is the anti-intellectualism that pervades large swaths of American culture. This is a place where the norm is for kids who do good in school to get bullied because of it rather than praised. Total "ignorance is strength" stuff. That is a broken society.
I think a healthy dose of anti-elitism is a good thing and one of the strengths of American culture. But the actual elites in the US have completely perverted that into a toxic level of anti-intellectualism.
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Post you're I.Q.
Oops! Your IQ just became obvious.
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It should also be noted that OP's use of "who's" should have been "whose".
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Interesting)
We had a guy at work go full qanon conspiracy lunacy during the work day. I'm well aware that logic and facts can't penetrate the haze of stupid.
Sadly, he used to be a pretty good dude. I'm not sure where he slipped off the rails, but we're seeing way too many people sucked into that realm now. It's sad, and frightening, how many have given in to their paranoia and fear of intelligence.
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Re-education camps.
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Watch "the Social Dilemma".
Social media, as it currently exists, is a blight on the world and a danger to civilization.
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Seconded. Watching this should be a requirement before signing up for a social media account.
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Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Insightful)
I would posit that the early internet which WAS the Wild West free-for-all was a much more friendly and civil place.
I remember on USENET, where you can pretty much say/do anything and people did....
You still had a better sound to noise ratio than you do with FB or twitter.
I preferred 100% open channels and it was fun to drop in and see what lunacy might be happening on some of them....you had the option to read/watch or not.
It was pretty much say anything you want, be anonymous, no moderating for the most part, and well....it STILL worked better than it does here today.
There just wasn't the money issue driving things....there was no incentive to drive a narrative or try to push things to people just to get "eyes" on your site.
I think that is the problem....
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Well, here's hoping more energy is spent towards building something truly bulletproof or quick healing, then we won't have to think about it anymore.
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Oh I don't know, I definitely enjoy how far spam filters have come. . . . .
But yeah, long gone are the Wild Wild West of sites like million dollar pixel and universal chat apps like pigeon (or trillium).
Damn... nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
Yo Grark
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lol, those were post wild west. Gopher, archie and spider are more like it.
I preferred the days of checking someones .plan file.
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I remember on USENET
I remember Usenet. It very much was a place with limited access to a special kind of nerd. Maybe we should start our own social network with beer, hookers, and you have to pass an IQ test before we send out the activation email.
The world hasn't changed, it's as shitty as its always been. The difference is that now every mouth breathing moron can voice their opinion on the internet with their phone, where as in the past they at least had to go buy a copy of Usenet for dummies and a PC from which to post.
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Before you re-invent the wheel, remember that Usenet is still there, and a lot of tools for using it are already developed.
You can even build higher levels on top of it, sort of like how NZBs did.
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Maybe we should start our own social network with beer, hookers, and you have to pass an IQ test before we send out the activation email.
Exactly this social network really exists. It's called Mensa Connect. Take the test and see if you can get on it.
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I remember on USENET, where you can pretty much say/do anything and people did....
You still had a better sound to noise ratio than you do with FB or twitter.
Facebook and twitter are composed largely of average people, and as Brad Dourif once remarked, "Average is dumb." Before Eternal September, USENET was largely only populated by people who were smart enough to wrangle USENET access - mostly university students. Then AOL and WebTV got involved, the barriers to entry dropped, and we started seeing the level of discourse drop in quality.
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Part of the difference was Usenet was populated by mostly intelligent people experimenting with new forms of communication, but anyone can (and does) use Farcebook.
If they block social media it will force (Score:2)
people to find common cause with their IRL freinds and neigbors rather than align with linke minded conspiracy theorists and face book "freinds" on the other side of the country. Think how bad that could get!
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Problem with that is that your IRL neighbors are mostly assholes. And bringing together like-minded people happened on the Internet before "social media", and the political power of those groupings accelerated social progress on things like marriage equality.
Social media has fueled tech innovation. I just read an account of Tiktok users coming together to make a better pill dispenser for Parkinson's patients - from one Parkinson's patient's complaint to a finished product for them to use, in one week.
You ca
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Before giant social networks that polarized and spied on its users, people used forums where they shared common interests and hobbies. And if you didn't have any interest in the hobbies, then you simply didn't have an account on those websites.
These days everyone on social media is forced into a single space where conflicts are bound to happen. People learn about things they didn't even know existed, and start public crusades for/against it. People who knew about the things but didn't really care one way or
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with social media is the business model is about penetrating into your life so thoroughly that you're constantly available to be sold to advertisers. Look at Facebook's ridiculously intrusive mobile app. It has no respect for your privacy at all.
Most people didn't join Facebook to be proselytized politically. They certainly didn't join to be pecked to death by demands for attention. They joined to keep up with their childhood friends or share kid pictures with their cousins, but the things that *users* want don't make as much money as selling their users. Stoking fear and resentment is good for engagement metrics, and although they will occasionally take dramatic actions when its brand is in danger of tarnishment, social media companies will soon be back to their old, profitable tricks.
Social media apps like Facebook are a lot like Windows. By in large Microsoft's customer isn't the user, it's people who decide what OS to put on computers: IT departments and manufacturers. You're just along for the ride, and it shows. All of the problems with Facebook would disappear if you were the *customer*, not the product.
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Stoking fear and resentment is good for engagement metrics, and although they will occasionally take dramatic actions when its brand is in danger of tarnishment, social media companies will soon be back to their old, profitable tricks.
It's not just that, though, it's that they've basically automated away everything in favor of "engagement metrics" without paying any attention to what those automated systems were doing. Facebook didn't set out to stoke fear and resentment. They set out to increase the amount of time people spend in the app. The AI figured out that certain metrics (like posting comments and leaving certain reactions) tended to cause more time spent in the app, so it optimizes for that.
Then, add in people who've figured out
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If users were the customers, then raw engagement metrics would not be the overriding concern. Back in 2015, Facebook made about $11/user/per year. $1/month subscription for opting out of advertising and data sharing would do the trick. But now Facebook is making more like $30 year. It shows what they're doing works, if all you care about is revenue.
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I take it you don't have a lot of distant friends and family that you like to keep in touch with.
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Actually I do.
I've never had social media accounts (FB, twitter, etc)...and yet, I've had no problem keeping in touch with them all over the US, many I touch base with daily.
Those close to be, I take time to visit face to face in meatspace (pre-covid)....
Others I text, group text, phone call and FaceTime with....
Everyone that needs to know where I am....knows how to get me.
I can't imagine anything I've mis
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Interesting)
The world seemed a much friendlier, cohesive and civl place before FB, Twitter, etc....
Was it really though? I mean for decades before the Internet became mainstream, talk radio was filled with hosts railing about evil democrats and call-ins where private citizens would rave about they needed to be wiped out and so on.
I remember personally overhearing conversations between extremist fundamentalist Christians when Clinton was elected talking about how this surely was the end times and they needed to be prepared to take up arms against the socialists.
My point being, is it that there is more incivility, hatred and just overall crazy now, or has it all just been dragged out into the open where everyone can see it and have a record of it preserved?
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You are right, the world was 'a much friendlier, cohesive and civl place before FB, Twitter, etc....'
A month long world-wide social media blackout is what the world needs. Block all post-2000 sm sites. Throw MSM and Apps in there as well. At least in the US for sure. People will scream, yell, and show outrage but it will settle down in a few days and maybe people might do the unthinkable and actually begin to talk to others again and realize once again that it's all right for people to have different vi
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You mean, after World War 2, right?
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The world seemed a much friendlier, cohesive and civl place before...
Said every generation ever.
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And why can't one of then be right?
When you look back you get to cherry-pick the good parts. And today there's more news than ever about the bad things.
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The world seemed a much friendlier, cohesive and civl place before FB, Twitter, etc....
You only say that in your sheltered +3 filtered view of Slashdot. I've seen more people tell each other to go fuck themselves or hoping they will die here on Slashdot than I have on Facebook and Twitter in the past few days.
Browse at -1 and you'll realise it's not Facebook / Twitter that's the problem, it's the damn people.
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Hey, go fuck yourself!
With love,
lessSock morePuppet
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In the 60s when people started getting involved in politics, protesting on the street and making their voice heard, there was quite a bit of concern that society would fall apart.
It didn't fall apart then, and it won't fall apart now.
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The big coming problem is printing presses. I read that they cause literacy. Once people start reading the bible themselves, what are they going to need the Catholic church for?
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Actually, I think it was the START back then of the long, downhill process...that we see now steamrolling ahead to where it falls apart, possibly sooner rather than later.
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Nah, in another 5-10 years we'll be flooded with yuppies.
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The world seemed a much friendlier, cohesive and civl place before FB, Twitter, etc....
People have always been this nasty and smart people knew this even before social media made it so obvious that it's a slap in the face. The only difference from before social media and now is that now we can see it and confirm it and more simple minded people can now see it too. Are you more in support for "ignorance is bliss"? That's a very bad thing. More knowledge is always better no matter the level of bad news it brings. If we can't see it, people will drag their feet and argue against it. With this pr
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Already started, the big tech firms are going to monitor, curate and present only acceptable discussion. Ron Paul saying the fed should be audited? BAD! Nancy Pelosi in 2017 saying the election was hijacked? GOOD!
Be well and maybe your duckspeak be doubleplusgood, citizen!
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I find myself surprisingly of mixed emotions on this. If this is a temporary ban until after the election then it may actually be a good thing. The multinationals and foreign governments are undoubtedly flooding Farcebook and Twitter with scientifically designed propaganda that the Ugandan candidates and public are ill-equipped to combat. Let Ugandans talk to Ugandans in the run up to the election. I think that blocking the messaging apps is wrong, though.
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I find myself surprisingly of mixed emotions on this. If this is a temporary ban until after the election then it may actually be a good thing. The multinationals and foreign governments are undoubtedly flooding Farcebook and Twitter with scientifically designed propaganda that the Ugandan candidates and public are ill-equipped to combat. Let Ugandans talk to Ugandans in the run up to the election. I think that blocking the messaging apps is wrong, though.
I'm pretty sure it has more to do with the Ugandan government trying to shut down Bobi Wine supporters.
Re: Uh oh (Score:1)
Never happened in Italy, although I would have enjoyed it big style
Re: Uh oh (Score:2)
Was making a reference to the wacky qanon conspiracy theories about a coming operation,, that the pope had been arrested and a blackout in the Vatican was part of that, the blackout in Pakistan was part of that, etc. These people are fucking nuts.
Terrorism (Score:1, Interesting)
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Speech facilitates domestic terrorism and hate, but I still believe in the ideal of free speech. By that, I don't just mean the US Constitution 1st Amendment protections against the government cutting off speech, but the general ideal of free speech.
An important question is how widely speech can be heard, and who bears responsibility for that speech when it is heard. Absent technology, speech is heard only in the immediate vicinity of the speaker (and writing is read only in the immediate vicinity of the
Great way to win (Score:1)
Oh yeah, piss off your electorate. What could go wrong?
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Not sure that elections in Uganda really depend very much on an "electorate".
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Well the Uganda government is scare enough of the people to block social media, that should tell you something.
No bruddas (Score:2)
What Did You Expect? (Score:2, Insightful)
The large social media interests have now shown that they are political and no longer just a (sponsored) commons for the free exchange of information. No government in their right minds should risk allowing these woke virtual giants into their governing processes.
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Since when did social media ever guarantee a "free exchange of information"? Nobody is stopping you from starting your own site to speak from. In fact I will offer this handy flow chart. https://i.redd.it/uazhmn3neta6... [i.redd.it]
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If no company wants you as a customer that isn't a monopoly. It means you're not worth the trouble. 8chan is hosted in eastern Europe somewhere because no US company wants to deal with the toxic content.
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no one will work with Parler?
Are you quite sure? I can't help but think that Tencent of Ali Baba might be pleased as punch with the chance to host a group actively attempting to overthrow the US government.
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Funny, I never used the word "guarantee", nor did I imply such a contract in my post. Your post is a non sequitur.
You'll note that Uganda isn't going after infrastructure (i.e. "shut it all down"), just applications that apparently have enough leverage to unduly influence processes that some people still hold dear.
Yell at Edith to go get you another Schlitz.
Fuck you big tech!!! (Score:2)
Big tech asked for this. They decided they controlled the Internet and now the world's governments are reminding them that they only exist because the world governments allow it.
Corporations only exist because we the people allow government to allow them to exist.
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Is it time for high-schools exams again? (Score:2)
Ah no, that's Algeria switching off the entire internet for those exams, every year.
Re: Is it time for high-schools exams again? (Score:2)
It seems to work fine over here in Germany.
So clearly not all of the Internet.
The Great Firewall of Uganda (Score:4, Interesting)
The Chinese govt is investing heavily in Uganda's infrastructure and I guess now they 'help' with the internet as well.
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That's fine - I firewalled all Ugandan IP address ranges months ago to stop the crap email being sent out from there.
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The Chinese govt is investing heavily in Uganda's infrastructure and I guess now they 'help' with the internet as well.
That's outrageous. Everyone knows that if you want to censor the internet you buy good ol' American. Worked for the entire middle east thanks to McAfee, CISCO, Palo Alto Networks, though the Canadians have been known to help in the past too.
Why would you trust the Chinese with internet censorship service. Even they bought American: CISCO.
Well (Score:2)
No such thing as online social media. (Score:2)
It is anti-social by the very definition of it being remote communication that numbs empathy.
The only actually social medium, is air. ;)
(Ok, anything you can bathe in too. Especially kinky stuff.
With blocking comes circumvention (Score:1)
I am curious to see what new tech will be developed to get around the blockage. The internet is supposed to be famous for routing around the damage. I hope it's true.
unsure what to think (Score:1)
Social media companies are getting dangerously close to this line. These companies have consciously, deliberately allowed themselves to be tools of various political factions in order t
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Social media is a medium. You're not arguing against "shouting fire in a theater" - you're arguing that people shouldn't be allowing in the theater to begin with because someone may shout "fire".
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Social media is a medium. You're not arguing against "shouting fire in a theater" - you're arguing that people shouldn't be allowing in the theater to begin with because someone may shout "fire".
OTOH, someone who is known to shout fire in a theater regularly certainkly can be prevented from entering....
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The answer is no. I can play music in my house, but if I reach a certain decibel level that shatters the ears of my neighbors, the cops can come, write me a ticket, and if I keep blasting, they can actually arrest me and shut down my equipment.
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Your analogy isn't making any sense. The volume argument refers to physical issues. Social media's variable is just in reach - something that has always been available (even in the time of the 1st amendment was written via newspapers).
What you're basically arguing is that free speech is good, just not for the general populace - and that's basically arguing against the whole point of the amendment. Understand that that amendment was written by a bunch of men who has just violently overthrown their own gov
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What does Uganda and the Leftist Socialist Media (Score:2)
have in common...?
Banning speech.
Uganda be kidding me! (Score:2)
Good (Score:1)
Pretty sure this is to steal an election (Score:2)
Now why does that sound strangely familiar?
Existential Crisis (Score:1)
More accurately: "Uganda Blocks All Social Media Leading Up To Election". I actually agree with this - perhaps the Ugandan Government wants voters to form their own opinions (gasp!) and vote as they see fit instead of being influenced by the mega-echo-chamb
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We would be so fortunate that the west blocked all social media!
Not that I believe in censorship
"I'm not a racist, BUT . . ."
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