Myanmar Blocks Facebook as Resistance Grows To Coup (apnews.com) 76
Myanmar's new military government blocked access to Facebook as resistance to Monday's coup surged amid calls for civil disobedience to protest the ousting of the elected government and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. From a report: Facebook is especially popular in Myanmar and is how most people access the internet. The military seized power shortly before a new session of Parliament was to convene on Monday and detained Suu Kyi and other top politicians. It said it acted because the government had refused to address its complaints that last November's general election, in which Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory, was marred by widespread voting irregularities. The state Election Commission has refuted the allegations.
[...] Facebook users said service disruptions began late Wednesday night. "Telecom providers in Myanmar have been ordered to temporarily block Facebook. We urge authorities to restore connectivity so that people in Myanmar can communicate with family and friends and access important information," Facebook said in a statement. In 2018, Facebook removed several accounts linked to Myanmar's military, including that of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the officer who led this week's coup, following complaints that they appeared to fuel hatred toward the country's Muslim Rohingya minority. The Rohingya were targeted in a brutal 2017 army counterinsurgency campaign that drove more than 700,000 to neighboring Bangladesh. Critics say the army's actions constituted genocide. A Norway-based humanitarian group said Thursday that Myanmar's political crisis could create a humanitarian disaster affecting 1 million vulnerable people if international aid groups are restricted further.
[...] Facebook users said service disruptions began late Wednesday night. "Telecom providers in Myanmar have been ordered to temporarily block Facebook. We urge authorities to restore connectivity so that people in Myanmar can communicate with family and friends and access important information," Facebook said in a statement. In 2018, Facebook removed several accounts linked to Myanmar's military, including that of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the officer who led this week's coup, following complaints that they appeared to fuel hatred toward the country's Muslim Rohingya minority. The Rohingya were targeted in a brutal 2017 army counterinsurgency campaign that drove more than 700,000 to neighboring Bangladesh. Critics say the army's actions constituted genocide. A Norway-based humanitarian group said Thursday that Myanmar's political crisis could create a humanitarian disaster affecting 1 million vulnerable people if international aid groups are restricted further.
How ironic! (Score:2, Insightful)
In the West, information is controlled by a cabal of Big Tech soys, Davos billionaires, Chinese investors, and demagogues.
In the East, they just control it directly.
It seems that democracy is collapsing everywhere under the onslaught of open discussion and the resulting dissident information, some of it even accurate, that is being spread around.
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Uh, I think you mistyped that one...
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A coup can be achieved in many ways...
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You keep reading and posting, but there is no confusion: a corrupt President lost the electoral college and popular vote and spread lies about the election to raise money and attempt to stay in office by illegitimate means. His newly installed personnel refused to provide National Guard assistance in protecting the Capitol and Trump looked on approvingly as the crowd of supporters he promised a "wild" time at Capitol were told that force was necessary and soon after invaded the Capitol looking for elected
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Not one of your accusations are provably right or wrong, because they are merely your own interpretations of events.
It's important not to let one's opinions about facts have a greater weight than the facts themselves. If you get out over your surfboard, you just go overboard.
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I'm not going to waste any time on this, but there is verifiable proof that the RW propaganda outfits saying that Dominion rigged the election retracted their stories. That Republican legislatures, secretaries of state, governors, and judges oversaw or reviewed the election and did not find fraud. Trumps statements were public, as were those of this lawyer, children, and supporters in the Senate and invading the Capitol. The letter from the DOD refusing to allow the National Guard to protect the Capitol is
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The "election" was the coup. The democrats took over by fraud.
No they didn't/
And Trump threw away a landslide victory
He didn't even get a majority the first time around; he was never going to get a landslide after four years of just talking crap over and over again.
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He, at the very very least, downplayed it and downplayed common place measures (like masks) that save lives. He even mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask.
The biggest problem was leadership though: he could have worked to present a united front against the virus, a "we are all in this together" mentality that might have brought people together, and if he had done so he would still be president today. Instead, it became yet another divisive red vs. blu
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Was it the Capitol riot or the fraudulent election?
What fraudulent election? The one in your head?
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Facebook was happily supporting trump and the traitors.
And why do you think that FB is against a coup in Burma?
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You're right, I might be giving FB too much credit on both counts. Facebook allows too much conspiracy craziness and has some Breitbart guy on their board. But I think they are banning some of the openly dangerous groups. My conservative friends don't even share "Ben Shapiro destroys . . ." videos with me, so I don't see much of the nuttiness.
Also, I assumed from the fact that FB was banned that they were willing to be used in opposition to the junta. But maybe they are just indifferent or too slow in thei
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Just goes to show... "It's an ill wind..."
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It seems that democracy is collapsing everywhere under the onslaught of open discussion
When, as in Myanmar, the open discussion led to the election of genocidal mass-murderers, is the collapse of democracy a bad thing?
You know your country is dysfunctional when a military coup is an improvement.
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It seems that democracy is collapsing everywhere under the onslaught of open discussion
When, as in Myanmar, the open discussion led to the election of genocidal mass-murderers, is the collapse of democracy a bad thing?
You know your country is dysfunctional when a military coup is an improvement.
What are you talking about? The military lost the election and this is their response. This is not democracy; its the opposite of democracy which we call a coup.
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What are you talking about?
I am talking about this: Rohingya genocide [wikipedia.org].
The military lost the election and this is their response.
Correct. And the first thing the democratically elected government did was launch a campaign of burning, raping, and murdering hundreds of thousands of people.
This is not democracy; its the opposite of democracy which we call a coup.
Correct. It is not democracy. But when the will of the people is to murder their fellow citizens, democracy may not be for the best.
Which is worse, a military junta or genocide? Take your pick.
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It seems that democracy is collapsing everywhere
No, just in 3rd countries and a couple of moronic 1st world countries. The majority of the world is doing just fine.
Mixed feelings (Score:4, Funny)
I have a lot of antipathy for people doing military coups but a lot of sympathy for people blocking facebook.
Same (Score:1)
If I were an autocratic government, I might block social media and most news sources just to install sanity and perspective in my population.
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Then you'd be just like Castro. But you hate socialism, don't you? Weird.
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Did he (either of them) do anything right? Starving one's own population is objectively bad. The irresponsible lack of earthquake safety regulations has resulted in quite a lot of deaths too, and there was this one time he got into a nuclear missile standoff with the biggest nuclear power on the planet. I'm no historian though. I'm sure you can dig up more dirt if you're actually trying to look for it somewhere other than Facebook or here.
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Keep in mind that Trump asked everyone to remain peaceful:
https://reason.com/2021/01/06/... [reason.com]
You would have to have the mind of a three-year old to not spot that Trump's standard operating procedure was to encourage action while appending a few insincere words about it not being his fault if someone did something about what he was complaining about.
"I've heard is said."
"I don't know, but some people are saying."
"Some people could see it that way, I suppose; I'm not so sure."
What a pathetic loser he was.
Congratulations, you have the mind of a three-year-old.
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so how do you rate the democrats calling for riots all summer long?
Less problematic than calling for the overthrow of Democracy and the installation of an unelected government, basically.
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How is this protest [usatoday.com] different than the supposed Jan coup?
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This one also comes to mind.
https://www.newsweek.com/prote... [newsweek.com]
Directly comparable in the level of threat to the political leaders.
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The silence from the leftist is deafening on this one. And we saw these sort of stunts from the left go on for 4 years.
That's how you know the gloves are off (Score:2)
When Facebook gets blocked. (as it is on many LANs across corporate America)
I think I'd like some better metrics than "Facebook" in discussing a nation's backslide into military junta.
Unlimited data plans (Score:1)
This is why cellular providers sell unlimited data plans. You can whip out your phone and spend all day scrolling through Facebook and Twitter once you have done the fifteen minutes of real world that you do every day.
Well good. (Score:2, Insightful)
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No one is "cancelling" Facebook. This is government censorship, and while I find Facebook is shitty in ways your horse manure doesn't begin to describe there's nothing "good" about the government deciding to simply turn it off.
I finally get why facebook is so popular. (Score:2)
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Don't the phones still work?
Most people in Myanmar don't have phones.
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Yes they do, virtually everyone there has a cellphone even people living in small isolated villages.
And aside from a couple of hours shutdown on one day and now facebook being blocked, they all still work.
only one standard matters - the junta's (Score:4, Insightful)
It's very illegal to overthrow an autocratic government. Even without violence, such a government uses the term treason,
Re:only one standard matters - the junta's (Score:4, Insightful)
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Mod parent up. Funny and insightful, both!
Re:only one standard matters - the junta's (Score:4, Insightful)
The only difference between a Revolution and an attempted-coup is who wins. The American founding fathers are seen as revered patriots because we won the American Revolution. If we'd have lost, history would record them as the traitors that instigated the uprising in the American colonies in 1776.
I am very biased by my own culture (Score:2)
I would rather error on the side of the people. Whichever leads to more personal liberty, more human rights, and more democracy is the authentic government. Any authoritarian, totalitarian, fascist, or despotic regime is simply a transitionary government that exists before the people rise up and take it back.
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It's very illegal to overthrow an autocratic government. Even without violence, such a government uses the term treason,
From what I have read, the Myanmar military used the powers given to them by their constitution to do this. Given the history of that country, it is not surprising for the military to have that in the constitution when they "opened up" to have election. After all, their law still gives the military 1/4 of the seats without needing to be elected.
This "coup" is as "illegal" as an impeachment against the president in the US would be.
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Nobody should worship a document as their absolute ruler. It's obvious their Constitution is trash and the people need one not written in the hand of their military.
This "coup" is as "illegal" as an impeachment against the president in the US would be.
That's a whole other can of worms given how profoundly ignorant some 40% of the US population appears to be of their own government.
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I don't think an illegitimate government has a genuine monopoly on violence. Clearly Facebook took sides by deciding which government was legitimate: in the US Facebook took sides with the popular and electoral college winner according to the Constitutional order of the past 200+ years; in Myanmar/Burma they took sides with the most recently elected government.
There are obviously some grey areas. For example, in Ukraine, the Russia-friendly government was ostensibly elected, but the "coup" had actual popul
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You may have missed this, so I think I should remind you, the Left actually did do that in 2016/2017. I can't seem to find any articles about the protests I remember occuring inside the actual Capitol building, but I may be confusing all the Kavanaugh protests.
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There were many sometime violent protests against Trump's election. Heck, you even had Pelosi claiming that the elect
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None of the things you linked to were "people on the Left [attempting] to overrun the Capitol to force Congress to bend to the undisputed will of the majority."
Protests (including dumb symbolic votes not supported by any Senator) are not the same as invading the Capitol and killing police officers to stop the counting of electoral votes. But thank you for providing links so rightist loons can figure out how to protest properly the next time they lose a game rigged in their favor.
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Splitting hairs. Funny that you try and say that these were "proper" protests when there were more people arrested for violence in the left wing protests.
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Indeed there were many more people arrested for BLM protests than for invading the Capitol. Also more tear gas and fewer selfies with police. https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
This is not a good measure of whether a protest is proper. A protest against authority is more likely to result in arrests than a protest in favor of authority . . . especially when that authority is making arrests. If you want to know more about how the world works, I'll explain as much as my time and patience permit. Be warned tho
Do they WANT people insurrecting? (Score:2)
Don't take away the things that keep them at home.
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Don't take away the things that keep them at home.
If you really want to start a riot, block PornHub and XHamster.
Burma, India, so much blockage (Score:1, Funny)
We need a laxative!
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Fear not - Facebook and Twitter will get their fact checkers to post some footnotes under the Myanmar military posts so that we get control of this situation.
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They have made claims and presented evidence to the election commission, but the detailed claims and evidence have not been made public.
Their claim is that just under 10 million votes were found to be fraudulent, and the election commission refused to investigate it.
It doesn't make sense that the winning party would have committed fraud, they enjoy huge popular support and would easily win a fair election. But on the other hand, it doesn't make sense that they wouldn't want to investigate evidence of fraud.
Their reason to block? (Score:1)
Platform used for incitement to violence.
Seems fair. And they actually beat Amazon to it. Well done.
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And for spreading lots of false rumours which are causing further instability, for instance this:
https://www.mmtimes.com/news/c... [mmtimes.com]
Some people spread rumours that the currency would be demonetised, causing people to panic.
Various other false rumours have been spread via facebook including that the military have been shooting people on the streets (so far there have been no shootings) and that all internet/phone services would be shut off again at night (so far aside from the couple of hours on the morning of
Oh, I get it (Score:1)