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More Governments Cracking Down On Internet Criticism
from the afraid-of-the-truth-coming-out? dept
The topic of governments shutting off internet access to sites that cover diseenting viewpoints has been covered many times before, but it's appearing again and again. Now we have two more countries to add to the list. First, is the story coming out of Uzbekistan, that the government has shut down some websites in an effort to prevent stories of rampant government corruption from spreading. I would imagine this will have the opposite effect. The stories are already widespread and shutting down the site seems to lend it an air of legitimacy. Of course, government officials say they had nothing to do with it, and maybe the site just had "technical problems". Though, honestly, if I were this site, I would think that mysteriously shutting it down could get you the sort of publicity you hoped for since everyone would assume the government had taken you down. Meanwhile, head southeast a bit and you find that the Malaysian government has raided an online news site and shut down their operations for posting "false allegations" online.
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Does Dissent Accomplish Much?
- Osama bin Laden is a dissident against the Saudi government.
- In the Muslim world, "dissidents" are typically anti-American fundamentalists. Central Asia's "dissidents" include pro-Iranian fundamentalists. Such dissidents spread false rumors about us, that we put pig blood in McDonald's hamburgers or whatever.
- Many Westerners think Falun Gong is a "good" movement just because it opposed the communist government of China; but could it be that Falun Gong is advocating its own brand of religion-based fascism, a Chinese Taliban in training?
- Latin America's "dissidents" are typically pro-Castro communists who think America is the source of all evil.
- Greece or Germany's "dissidents" are people who bomb and kill Americans.
We are conditioned to believe that even if dissidents are anti-American, dialogue will induce progress. But what if "dialogue" just serves to perpetuate false rumors? Often, dissidents that expose corruption in their government will claim that corruption is all America's fault.
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