The argument here - I signed that petition, as a progressive Venezuelan - is that the Social Media Services widely used worldwide are mostly US based, and are usually not responsive to any other jurisdiction; so whereas the US Government can certainly subpoena records - well, we know by now the NSA does a lot more than that, or rather has an ongoing all-out subpoena OF EVERY DIGITSL RECORD, thanks to the PATRIOT ACT! - to use in criminal investigations of unlawful and violent behaviour, other countries have little recourse, especially in time-sensitive, explosive situations, than to block the services altogether for the sake of the population at large, when they're predominantly used for violent purposes, and are not widespread. Those 2 services fit the description above to a tee; neither Facebook nor Twitter, nor Google services, orders of magnitude more popular, were blocked, and if they were it was for a very short period of time, due to overzealous nutjobs in the government bureaucracy, reversed quickly. On Mar 7, 2014 2:03 PM, "Dan Staples" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Although the article addresses a number of specific issues relating to > access of information and censorship during the recent protests, it > attempts to justify censorship using the argument that "the right to > live trumps the right to free information". > > This argument is made in reference to the likely government-imposed > censorship of Zello and Pastebin. The problem with this argument is that > it is not Zello or Pastebin or any other communications medium that is > responsible for the right-wing violence that has been occurring. Those > groups that commit the violence, right-wing or not, state-sponsored or > not, are responsible for their actions. Those groups, and the political > ideologies that drive and justify the violence, are what should be > condemned. > > It is not justifiable to censor entire communication mediums that are > used by violent groups, since those mediums are used by the public for > legitimate reasons. Zello and Pastebin are both popular services used by > lots of people. It is not justifiable to block all of Zello because some > groups use it to plan violent actions, just as it is not justifiable for > the NSA to compromise and surveil all Skype communications for > purportedly similar reasons. There is no justice in forbidding use of > the printing press just because some have used it to print calls to > arms, to use an analogy. > > There is certainly a disproportionate amount of uncritical and > inaccurate reporting on the situation in Venezuela, no doubt, and much > of it is used to misrepresent elite-backed right-wing extremists as > deserving victims of a tyrannical regime. But this type of justification > for censorship is without merit. > > I'd really love to hear more people's thoughts on this, especially those > with experience in the country. > > -Dan > > On 03/03/2014 07:11 PM, Damian Fossi wrote: > > Original text in spanish: http://www.aporrea.org/tecno/n246101.html > > > > Text in english: http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10437 > > > > Best Regards, > > > > -- > http://disman.tl > OpenPGP key: http://disman.tl/pgp.asc > Fingerprint: 2480 095D 4B16 436F 35AB 7305 F670 74ED BD86 43A9 > -- > Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations > of list guidelines will get you moderated: > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at > [email protected]. >
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