Discussed a couple days ago <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25704433" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25704433</a><p>with an informative top comment from a Ugandan HNer.
Opposition candidate Bobi Wine had his home raided by the Ugandan military in the middle of a podcast:<p><a href="https://citizentv.co.ke/news/bobi-wine-cuts-short-interview-with-hot-96-radio-as-military-breaks-into-his-home-4123144/" rel="nofollow">https://citizentv.co.ke/news/bobi-wine-cuts-short-interview-...</a><p><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/uganda-presidential-candidate-bobi-wine-says-army-raided-his-home-arrested-staff/a-56199731" rel="nofollow">https://www.dw.com/en/uganda-presidential-candidate-bobi-win...</a>
The predictable [and unfortunate] side effect of censorship on private platforms is it creates the illusion that the truth is being covered up.<p>I have no doubts the next surveillance and encryption backdoor bills will be based upon the incidents happening right now. It's far better for society to keep discussions in plain sight, even if they are woefully misguided.
> A source in Uganda’s telecom sector said the government had made clear to executives at telecoms companies that the social media ban was in retaliation for Facebook blocking some pro-government accounts.<p>This is probably the interesting bit - a retaliatory move by a regime trying to silence the opposition. I don't think this has too many parallels (except for blocking of accounts) with the current US events, which is why this is probably being upvoted?
This is how Zuckerberg's dream of connecting the entire population of the world comes to an end. Countries that don't want foreign influence (of both good and bad varieties) injected directly through their citizens eyeballs will ban social media first. Then a "nextdoor" style social media company will appear and allow individual countries to control how their social media is used. That or a Docker image with a Generic Social Media App can be bought and loaded onto a regional datacenter controlled by said country, because "cloud" will get a well justified bad label of being associated with foreign influence.<p>Does a multi-country-specific social media company already exist? In any case, the 2020's will be an interesting decade for this space.
Am I the only one that’s starting to think the US should do this too? I don’t care about censoring any ideas I’m just sick of all the obnoxious people screaming at each other and not changing a single mind in the process.
This is totalitarianism disguised as "combating disinformation".<p>"I'm from the government, I'm here to help" -- run, run for your fucking life.
Disappointed yet again with upvoted comments on hacker news defending murderers and terrorists. There's defending free speech then there's defending terrorism. This is not ok.
You might enjoy a song from Bobi Wine <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTrm5uPDuE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shTrm5uPDuE</a>