Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by requerdanos on Sunday September 05 2021, @06:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the stifle-opposition-quash-free-speech-and-muzzle-expression dept.

Internet shutdowns by governments have 'proliferated at a truly alarming pace':

The number of government-led internet shutdowns has exploded over the last decade as states seek to stifle dissent and protest by limiting citizens' access to the web.

Nearly 850 intentional shutdowns have been recorded over the past 10 years by nonprofit Access Now's Shutdown Tracker Optimization Project (STOP), and although the group acknowledges that data on incidents before 2016 is "patchy," some 768 of these shutdowns took place in the last five years. There were 213 shutdowns in 2019 alone, with this figure ticking down to 155 in 2020 as the world adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic (which delayed elections and led to lockdowns that kept populations at home more often). And already in the first five months of 2021 there have been 50 shutdowns across 21 countries.

"Since we began tracking government-initiated internet shutdowns, their use has proliferated at a truly alarming pace," Access Now's Felicia Anthonio, campaigner and #KeepItOn lead, said in a new report on the issue in The Current, a publication of Google's internet thinktank Jigsaw. "As governments across the globe learn this authoritarian tactic from each other, it has moved from the fringes to become a common method many authorities use to stifle opposition, quash free speech and muzzle expression."


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 06 2021, @02:14PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 06 2021, @02:14PM (#1174953) Journal

    You're comparing a government turning off internet access of its population to private entities deciding what you can do with their property. Do you see the difference or do I have to point it out?

    You're going to point out that the private entities are conveniently acting as proxies for the government's interest in those situations, right? I wager most of the intentional government-led shutdowns listed in that study are actually implemented by private parties rather than by a government actor directly.

  • (Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday September 06 2021, @03:18PM (1 child)

    by Opportunist (5545) on Monday September 06 2021, @03:18PM (#1174974)

    You really think Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and whatever antisocial media are there give half a fuck about what the US government wants? They care about profit. If anything, they tell the government to be happy with the info they throw them and shut up or they pack up and leave and then the US government can try to get anything from them anymore.

    I think you grossly misinterpret who owns whom in this game.

    The antisocial crapfests care first and foremost about money. That's it. They have no allegiance, no loyalty, no political agenda. They want money. Yes, money also means power, but for that they don't need politics. If they do, they buy a few politicians to do that for them.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 06 2021, @08:15PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 06 2021, @08:15PM (#1175101) Journal

      You really think Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and whatever antisocial media are there give half a fuck about what the US government wants?

      Absolutely.

      They care about profit.

      And that is why. It's vastly more profitable to get some quid pro quo from the government than to subject oneself to the considerable problems that a displeased government and its regulators and law enforcement agencies can provide.

      I think you grossly misinterpret who owns whom in this game.

      Government is top dog here. The "but Facebook has money" is an absolutely ridiculous argument. Think about it. Facebook has revenue [macrotrends.net] of around $100 billion presently. Sounds like a lot of money, right? Well the US government has revenue of $3.4 trillion over the same period. I get that billions and trillions sound alike, but one is much bigger than the other.

      But it's worse than that. Facebook has to use most of that revenue just to insure that it has a future revenue stream - paying people, marketing, etc. That results in a net income somewhere around $30 billion per year. The US government does a bit of that too, but it's expenditures to keep the revenue going are much smaller. For example, the IRS (the US agency tasked with collecting most taxes) has a budget of roughly $12 billion a year. The budgets for the revenue collecting part of the federal government is minuscule. Thus, the similar net income for the US government is in excess of $3 trillion.

      This also extends to borrowing. The US borrowed something like $3 trillion this year. They didn't get the serious analysis that a private business would have received for borrowing nearly the same amount as their annual revenue.

      Then there's the bookkeeping. Facebook accountants would go to jail for the games that US government accountants are allowed to play - such as being allowed to completely ignore long term liabilities.

      Finally, there is the raw power that governments have. Facebook can't start wars. It can't force large businesses like itself to follow very unprofitable rules that Facebook doesn't have to follow. It can't jail people.

      Sorry, profit/money cooties don't make Facebook the owner. The US government has something like two orders of magnitude more of those things.