"Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has degraded Wikipedia services in the country on account of not blocking / removing sacrilegious contents.
Wikipedia was approached for blocking / removal of the said contents by issuing a notice under applicable law and court order(s). An opportunity of hearing was also provided, however, the platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority.
Given the intentional failure on part of the platform to comply with the directions of PTA, the services of Wikipedia have been degraded for 48 hours with the direction to block / remove the reported contents. In case of non-compliance by Wikipedia the platform will be blocked within Pakistan.
The restoration of the services of Wikipedia will be reconsidered subject to blocking / removal of the reported unlawful contents. PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws."
It would be nice if it would be free knowledge. But, like the rest of the internet, wikipedia became a victim of people with an agenda (to not say 3 letter agencies).
Okay, they might care. But they won't care in a way that causes them to censor anything, so it's a moot point. Pakistan is just not going to affect the editorial policy of Wikipedia. They know this, so they made a decision to block the site. Oh well, sucks for Pakistanis, and since it's a democracy, all I can say is - elect better governments.
Because people who don't want to access Wikipedia already can decide to not access it, but the ones who want to can't. Pakistan is not a singular person.
Because the law of a country (a very populated country) prohibits it.
In the same sense they supposedly would remove whatever violates hate speech laws or copyright laws in some other countries that the ones they operate in.
Citizens would read blashpemous material, commit blashpemy and then will be lynched by the crowd
Wish it was a joke but sadly lynching due to alleged blashpemy is a huge issue in pakistan. Recently a Sri Lankan citizen was burned alive with a few hundred witnesses who just watched.
I would love wag the finger but first I would have to clean up my own country, the United States of America. When the US government stops pressuring social media platforms to censor speech and they stop happily complying then perhaps I might have room to criticize other nations.
[Edit] And how should this be addressed in the US? Simple. Only censor things that are explicitly and clearly illegal under federal law and the laws of the state the company is headquartered in. If another state has an issue with that, then they must create their own competing platform.
Machine learning, what people today are mistakenly calling "AI" must tag anything that is not explicitly illegal with unobtrusive labels such as "hate speech" or "propaganda" or "misinformation" and so on.... Each label must link to the Machine Learning "Showing Its Work" to describe in detail exactly how it reached that conclusion and the members of the platform must have a way to contest and override the labels. The posts must show how many people disagree with said labels. No hidden algorithms, no hidden data-sets. The Machine Learning must show its work and show its references.
Members must have the ability to hide any content that has labels they do not wish to see just like the capabilities in StackExchange.
If there is one thing that can reliably eliminate nuance from any discussion, it is politics. Alleged censorship in social media is a hot topic in the last few years amongst partisans.
I think it's also worth remembering that this isn't just some random quirk but something actively cultivated by many social groups. Many religious encourage that us-versus-them divide because it's a very effective mechanism for keeping people from leaving (my experience with this was fundamentalist Christianity where shunning was practiced so anyone breaking with official doctrine was going to have to give up most of their friends/family and possibly even a marriage), and the Republican Party relies on the “help, we're being oppressed!” mythology to keep people riled up and donating/voting no matter who the candidate is.
In both cases, tolerating nuance would make it harder to control the message since disagreement could lead to power shifting away from the current top of the hierarchy. Unsurprisingly the people who benefit from that are strongly opposed to sharing.
I don’t think it’s limited to religious people or republicans. I see it on both sides.
I do agree that it’s partially due to programming. If you look at movies for example you’ll see this black and white thinking. There’s a good guy and a bad guy and it’s all very simple.
It’s not exclusive to those groups but it’s quite noticeably stronger there. I think that’s because those groups push positions which are unpopular with a majority of the population, so you have to link that to things they do want or think they must do and push it as a package deal. “We’re under attack constantly by deceptive forces” is an effective way to prevent the culture of questioning any part of the package — e.g. someone who notices that Jesus didn’t actually say they have to shun their gay kid is is almost certainly going to wonder what other doctrine is like that.
I think it's just as strong on both sides, the difference is intention and outcomes. The right uses this to reinforce their own power. The left uses it to try and correct injustices but ends up creating problems because of it.
Take a look at feminism for example. It started as "hey women should have equal rights", which is good. But now we see far too many people treating men as a monolith and demonizing them. So now we have a narrative that women = good, and men = bad. I see this all the time on social media from the left and it has to stop. Male suicide rates are far too high right now, and I partly blame this narrative and the lack of nuance that caused it.
That just tells me that you follow a lot of right-wing sources. That's not a popular feminist position but it's exactly how the right-wing characterizes it to avoid honest engagement with, for example, the feminists who've written thoughtfully and compassionately about how traditional gender roles negatively impact men. The suicide rates you mention, for example, are commonly attributed to the intersection of economic declines for traditional working-class jobs and the traditional belief that men are supposed to be the family breadwinner, which implicitly tells men that if they're not married with a reasonably high income they're failures.
No that's a common far-left cop-out. I don't follow many right wing sources, I closely observe how people talk and act, offline and online, and think for myself.
In-fact I follow mostly left-wing media and I consider myself a true leftist because I think everyone should be treated equally, and power dynamics aren't as simple as man = has all power, women = has no power. But that's exactly the narrative that the left is pushing. I guarantee that if you were to post online even the simplest thing like "women have some power over men" you'll get dogpiled by people calling you a rapist because they can't handle nuance.
I also call bullshit on your explanation for male suicide. Male loneliness plays a major role, and it's partly due to the fact that we collectively put women on a pedestal in our society. Which again goes back to lack of nuance. Something like 30% of men haven't had sex in the past year, and women generally find 80% of men unattractive on dating sites. There is real data backing up my position.
I get that you believe you're thinking independently here but you're doing a paint-by-numbers repetition of anti-feminist tropes here. I would strongly recommend reconsidering how objective your baseline is and, especially, checking primary sources and thinking critically about the interpretative narratives around them.
>Something like 30% of men haven't had sex in the past year
>women generally find 80% of men unattractive on dating sites.
For the first time in history, women actually have the societal, as well as legal right to not find a man. They are finally able to be choosy and say no when they don't want to do anything. They are no longer coerced by laws or societal norms to settle for a man, and can freely chose to only find a partner if that partner is attractive to them, physically or emotionally or whatever their preference is.
Of course, men who were brought up to think that women owe them anything hate this, because it means they have to be more than just a living paycheck to get a partner. It means millions of men who in older times would have found a wife who settled for them now have to compete with other men who may understand and treat women as individuals instead of sex objects to be claimed.
There is plenty of room to talk about how culture around men prioritizes sex and finding a partner, and discourages men from being themselves. There is plenty of room to talk about how plenty of women hate the current situation where logging into a dating app means 100 new messages, 5 unsolicited dick picks, and being called a slut when they rebuff someone's advances, as if that makes any sense.
None of this is putting women on a pedestal. A significant portion of the right wing here in the states is actively campaigning on the idea of abolishing all non-standard cultures, and demonizing independent women and single mothers especially as solely responsible for society's ills.
If you are hurt by a traditionally oppressed population finally getting the ability to direct their own life, you should consider what that says about your former position in the world.
> For the first time in history, women actually have the societal, as well as legal right to not find a man.
In the west, when was the last time a woman was legally forced to find a man? I think your brain is in the 1950s, but a lot has changed since then and you can't just project your emotional state regarding past female suffering onto our current times.
> They are no longer coerced by laws or societal norms to settle for a man, and can freely chose to only find a partner if that partner is attractive to them, physically or emotionally or whatever their preference is.
Yes and the results are astounding. Lets not pretend male and female attraction are equal or fair. I once went on a date with a woman I met online who turned out to be obese. During the date she complained that she only had sex once that month. How many obese men do you think have the problem? The way men and women judge each other is MASSIVELY skewed.
> treat women as individuals instead of sex objects to be claimed
Yet again, more BS. Most men hardly ever receive compliments or attention from the opposite sex, but the same isn't true the other way around. If you're dehydrated in the desert then you're going to be fixated on drinking water. The same is true here. I think men go straight to sex because they are starved of attention. The same attention that women get on a regular basis.
> There is plenty of room to talk about how culture around men prioritizes sex and finding a partner, and discourages men from being themselves.
Women play a huge role in reinforcing this. As a personal anecdote, I dated this woman in college who rubbed my finger nails and said they were too smooth. Then she proceeded to ask me if I worked with my hands at all. This kind of mind-fuckery is a common experience for men.
> There is plenty of room to talk about how plenty of women hate the current situation where logging into a dating app means 100 new messages, 5 unsolicited dick picks, and being called a slut when they rebuff someone's advances, as if that makes any sense.
Yet another example of female privilege. Women's sexuality is viewed as the default and morally correct sexuality, whereas men are expected to repress our own sexuality and conform to women's standards. Just look at the gay community, gay men are much more free and open with their sexuality.
Honestly, what's wrong with a dick pic? Men would love if women sent them naked pictures. It's only because women have set up these games for men to play that we judge this as morally wrong.
> None of this is putting women on a pedestal.
It absolutely is. You're doing that thing where women are the victims in every scenario and men are monsters. You're doing the same lack of nuance thing that I originally commented about.
> A significant portion of the right wing here in the states is actively campaigning on the idea of abolishing all non-standard cultures, and demonizing independent women and single mothers especially as solely responsible for society's ills.
If understanding reality is right wing then call me a right winger if that makes you feel better. Again you're doing that lack of nuance thing because you think calling out toxic femininity automatically means women will get their rights taken away.
> If you are hurt by a traditionally oppressed population finally getting the ability to direct their own life, you should consider what that says about your former position in the world.
Now I'm extra sure that you're not speaking in good faith and you're emotionally and ideologically driven instead of looking at reality as it exists. I really hope that the left eventually gets over this men = bad, women = good stupidity. It's not helping, and it's creating injustices that we'll just have to correct later. Nuance is possible, I hope you grow to understand that someday.
And also equivocating “pressuring companies to deal with their hate speech problem which makes online communities best case unwelcome, worst case unsafe for the people and groups being targeted” and “censoring religious blasphemy to try and maintain existing theocratic power structures.”
Like when the US actually starts trying to censor ideas rather than their hateful expressions I’ll start to be worried. Because lord knows it is your god given right to be an absolute piece of shit writing think pieces about all your bigoted opinions but content like /r/c__ntown is just hate with no substance at all.
"Someone reported this to the FBI, it's not actionable on a criminal level, but it breaks your TOS, heads-up" versus "we have deleted the encyclopedia for religious reasons". Yep, definitely comparable scenarios.
I think it is. Pakastan can create whatever laws fit its culture. I would never dare to imagine imposing my values or beliefs on them. They should create their own Wiki alternative and make it popular within their nation.
[Edit] Or if their people see fit change their laws, overthrow their government or whatever they deem appropriate for their culture. But that is entirely on them. Now if they want to ask how to bypass censorship, I would be happy to provide a myriad of methods just as I did for the Iranians that posted here in the recent past.
The death penalty is abhorrent and indefensible, and religious freedom and the right to free expression are both included in the universal declaration of human rights, to which Pakistan is a signatory.
Believe it or not, but some places don't have the resources to hold people in jail for decades.
If there was a murderer and the place had no way to actually keep the murderer away from the general population, what would you recommend? Just ask the murderer to not murder again?
"Even the bankrupt Taliban manages to keep 14k people in their prisons"
Yes, but if they actually jailed all criminals the number would be far higher.
Afghanistan's murder rate is approx 2800 people per year (6.7/100k, population 40 million). Assuming only a 10 year sentence for murder they should have twice as many people in prison -- assuming no other crimes whatsoever, which of course isn't the case.
"They're not opting for executions for the cost savings."
Don't be so sure. I agree with the above commenter - maintaining jails can be prohibitively expensive for undeveloped countries.
To be clear, I was just using murder as an example. You have to add in rape, terrorism, and other crimes that the Taliban executes people for.
We have no clue how many people they are holding in jail and how many are executed. Do you think they could actually hold thousands of additional prisoners who are amongst the most violent?
We also don't know how many of the guards agree with the terrorists. It probably wouldn't be a good thing to have a prison full of terrorists where the guards agree. They likely would "accidentally" let some of them escape.
The problem is that you cannot ascertain with certainty that someone is, in fact, a murderer. Countries with the death penalty will always execute innocent people. Roughly 5% of convicted persons are estimated to be innocent, and an execution makes the possibility of appeal or exoneration moot. At least 190 people in the United States have been sentenced to death and were later found to be innocent.
I don't think anybody is denying that innocent people will be killed by the death penalty.
Which is worse: 100 innocent people being killed by the death penalty or 100 innocent people getting killed by murderers? This is the calculation that many underdeveloped countries have to look at.
Allowing a murderer to live in a country that doesn't have the means to support them will lead to additional suffering of the prisoner (due to less resources), additional suffering of those not in prison (due to additional taxes), and an additional risk to additional murders by the murderer (if they kill other prisoners, guards or escape).
It is easy for people in the first world to say we don't have the need to have the death penalty, but to tell the poorest they are too stupid to know better is kind of arrogant.
I encourage you to talk to some people in extremely undeveloped countries about the problems with detaining people for decades.
I would especially recommend talking to people in the most remote areas of the underdeveloped countries. They literally are unable to keep people in prison.
Over the past few decades, most areas have been solving these issues, but there are still a few areas where there is no alternative.
> I would never dare to imagine imposing my values or beliefs on them
As I get older, I realize that while this may be idealized values - this works very poorly in the "real world". At some point, you realize that your arbitrary morals are simply better - better for everyone. Death penalty for blasphemy would be one of them - the world would simply be a better place if this did not exist.
There are plenty of articles critical of content censoring on HN already. I’d wager that the majority of censor criticism on HN are about the US. Very rarely about any other country. What are you waiting for?
What laws, exactly? US Wikipedia has many images far more graphic than a nipple. We have television with full frontal nudity (both genders). Maybe you're thinking of broadcast television, which does have relatively strong restrictions before 10pm (IIRC, could be off on the exact time of day).
You can literally post nudity on YouTube if it's educational or art, and can convince the dumb ML black box of that. You can just host a website with drawings of naked people if you want. Hell, you could host a website with naked Muhammad and there's nothing the US can do to you.
For reference, I was using one of "those" sites during the 2016 election, and an actual ad next to my chosen video was one of Donald Trump doing Hillary from behind with great gusto.
Its not nationalism, but fairness.
If nationally you can't just work people all week, then an american company with unlimited VC money, selling its user data to everybody and working its workers to death will absolutely crush any local or neighboring competitor.
There must be limits, because as we have seen, globalism as its currently is basically american everything.
While theocracy is a clear and present danger, "modern" is too broad a label to apply as a counter to it.
The more accurate counter would be policy based on empiricism. This is not predicated on the idea that the progression of time advances all things, but rather a timeless philosophy that has had its peaks and troughs throughout history.
It's because it's not accurate. The above comment was framing the argument, not making the argument. There wasn't an implicit value judgement. Someone else is free to argue that an oppressive 7th century religion is better or worse than modern times within that frame. Or argue (like you have done) that it's an inadequate framing.
One modern alternative is "no religion", which is better than any religion that enforces this kind of crap. This is the position any modern governing entity should take.
I don't have a problem with religion in principle, only when it is used as justification to mistreat others, as is happening here. At that point any spiritual benefits it offers adherents are outweighed by the societal harm it causes. There are good religions like this, they just don't preach about exciting fire and brimstone from the pulpit.
When I say "no religion" I don't mean "state mandated atheism".
I also don't think organized faith of any kind would have done anything to solve the problems with the Soviet Union. Especially when they were one despotic atheist state among countless despotic theocracies.
Fair enough. Separation of church and state has been progressing over the last thousand years. I surmised the only modern thing you could've been referring to was state atheism. Did you mean something different to both of those things?
> Especially when they were one despotic atheist state among countless despotic theocracies.
Not countless. They had plenty of democracies around them as well. And even if they hadn't, Communist China and Communist Russia's death tolls on their own populations make every other despot in history added up look like nothing.
Separation of church and state is exactly what I'm talking about. I consider it modern, even though the idea is now pretty old. Throughout most of human history, religion has been a key part of the power structure of most civilizations. In that context, the ideas brought forth and during the Age of Enlightenment are still very "modern".
There are also still many countries that have yet to adopt this ideal, and even within many developed democracies there are still forces that wish for us to regress.
But it's not really even (or just) that; Muslims (in general obviously) have their own view on what Islam is and is not, and this may not jibe with Muslims from other parts of the world. A prime example is Ahmadiyyas; they consider themselves to be Muslims but in particular some of the harder line Muslims (for example some Wahhabists) would consider them to be heretical. And hence some would argue that they are breaching the Blasphemy law.
tbf Ahmadiyyas are a particular exceptional case, and you'd be hard-pressed to find even moderate mainline Muslims accepting of them as coreligionists, since they (seemingly) violate one of the basic tenets of Islam, i.e., the Seal of the Prophets. The fact that Ahmadiyyas do accept the Seal of the Prophets but assign a sub-prophet role is the devil in the details here.
By the same token it could be argued that Islam violates the Blasphemy laws in that it treats Jesus as a prophet and not God; i.e. it violates one of the basic tenets of Christianity.
So my main point stands, because so many people claim so many different things under the colour of religion, laws like the Blasphemy law turns into a case of my sect is better / stronger than your sect. And now I have a piece of paper that proves you broke the law.
Originally this law was written to try to keep the peace, but now it has been weaponised to suppress minorities.
I agree with your assessment of Islamic beliefs would constitute as Christian blasphemy, and vice versa.
My point is directed at the specific example of the Ahmadiyyas, with the text suggesting that it's an example of the spectrum of Islamic practices. While there is definitely a spectrum in the way Islam is practiced across the world in ways that might throw off outsider Muslims, Ahmadiyya is an extreme example that I would suggest is not representative of the continuum. It's not just some hardliner believers that would consider them heretical, or even just 'some Wahabbists' - I would suggest that mainline Muslims across the spectrum would denounce the theology as heretical. Yes, there is definitely a spectrum of beliefs across the Islamic world, but the Ahmadiyya theology modifies one of the core pillars that would be a hard buy for believers.
Whether blasphemy laws should exist is an entirely other point (I don't think they should).
For the sake of argument, I'd just ignore what is/isn't a religion and lump it all into "principles" or "beliefs".
That said, (I believe, ha...) there should always be the freedom to not engage with beliefs you find hostile. In the US, the 1st Amendment is critical because you must engage with the government on some level, but you don't need to use Truth Social, 4chan, 8kun, or whatever else.
Where, how, when does Google say there are more that two genders? By the way gender is a spectrum. A narrow spectrum where two genders describes most of the spectrum. But you get exceptions. Maybe being narrow minded is not the way. Expand yourself.
It is amazing to me that we are okay with going along with all kinds of peculiar things that religious people do, even things that inconvenience non-believers (shabbat elevators, kosher/halal laws, closing liquor stores on Sunday (God's day), people walking around with ash on their foreheads, ignoring basic medical advice because it conflicts with your religious beliefs, censoring/banning textbooks, etc, but if someone feels like they don't fit neatly into him/her pronouns, half the country is up in arms over that, mostly the religious people! Just consider it part of their religious beliefs and move on with your life.
Clairvoyance (in this case: mind reading and crystal ball gazing) on the other hand: perfectly rational.
Surely these "peculiar things that Normies do" are completely harmless, in all manifestations...but let's never mind thinking about that - since it's normal, paying attention to such things is <choose from the long list of thought terminating memes that are used to dismiss anyone who makes an observation about the phenomenon>.
For most employees their company is not their own. They don't own any of it. Employees, in my opinion, have no other obligation to their employers beyond what is outlined in their contract and any employee who thinks otherwise has been bamboozled. Never settle for a "sense of ownership." If a company wants me to have a "sense of ownership" they should let me actually own part of the company.
It's not taboo, it's just misleading. It's like someone falling over, grazing their knee and saying, "Wow, that was like dying, but partial". It doesn't share enough key attributes with the thing you're comparing it to to be useful.
Edit: To be clear, I don't support the views expressed in 4chan. I don't participate, but I read because I find it interesting. I often think I should have been an anthropologist.
This has been a major topic in political science at least since neoliberalism became the bi-partisan consensus world view of both viable US political parties in the mid to late '80s. Stateless corporations, neocolonialism, intergovernmental regulatory regimes, et c., et c. By the '00s, at the latest, it was probably at the top of a very short list of topics that were receiving a ton of attention in the field.
The Tobin Tax and other policy ideas in response to the whole thing, concerns about interconnectedness leading to economic fragility and new kinds of global economic risk (as in e.g. the '97 "Asian Contagion", a domino-effect economic collapse that was only stopped by massive foreign [largely US] and IGO [largely IMF] intervention), the implications for state sovereignty, all that stuff's been covered and considered extensively for quite a while.
Similar things are happening in the West given US and Euro govts leaning on Social Media companies to censor dissenting/blasphemous views. Just think - what are you not allowed to say? What will get you banned or blacklisted?
The FBI sending Twitter emails about TOS violations they noticed and being executed for being an atheist are "similar" only if you really torture the definition.
"banned or blacklisted" vs "executed by the state". Definitely equivalent.
The West, in general, within its own territory, is better on just about every civil rights issue than places like Pakistan and China. That doesn't mean it's good: places like Pakistan and China set a pretty low bar.
> The West, in general, within its own territory, is better on just about every civil rights issue than places like Pakistan and China.
"
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Life of Brian Script
Scene 12: Brian Earns Jailor's Pet Title
The sketch:
eerie music
BRIAN: Slipped him a few shekels? You saw him spit in my face!
BEN: Ohh! What wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face! I sometimes hang awake at night dreaming of being spat at in the face.
BRIAN: Well, it's not exactly friendly, is it? They had me in manacles!
BEN: Manacles! Ooh oooh oh oh. My idea of heaven is to be allowed to be put in manacles... just for a few hours. They must think the sun shines out o' your arse, sonny.
BRIAN: Oh, lay off me. I've had a hard time!
BEN: You've had a hard time?! I've been here five years! They only hung me the right way up yesterday! So, don't you come 'rou--
BRIAN: All right. All right.
BEN: They must think you're Lord God Almighty.
BRIAN: What will they do to me?
BEN: Oh, you'll probably get away with crucifixion.
BRIAN: Crucifixion?!
BEN: Yeah, first offence.
BRIAN: Get away with crucifixion?! It's--
BEN: Best thing the Romans ever did for us.
BRIAN: What?!
BEN: Oh, yeah. If we didn't have crucifixion, this country would be in a right bloody mess.
BRIAN: Guards!
BEN: Nail him up, I say!
BRIAN: Guards!
BEN: Nail some sense into him!
JAILER: cough cough What do you want?
BRIAN: I want you to move me to another cell.
JAILER: Ha! ptoo
BRIAN: Aah!
BEN: Oh, look at that! Bloody favoritism!
JAILER: Shut up, you!
BEN: Sorry!
JAILER: Huhh. cough cough
BEN: Now, take my case. They hung me up here five years ago. Every night, they take me down for twenty minutes, then they hang me up again, which I regard as very fair, in view of what I done, and, if nothing else, it's taught me to respect the Romans, and it's taught me... that you'll never get anywhere in this life, unless you're prepared to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay!
BRIAN: Oh, shut up!
clank
JAILER: Ehhh.
CENTURION: Pilate wants to see you!
BRIAN: Me?
CENTURION: Come on!
BRIAN: Pilate? What does he want to see me for?
CENTURION: I think he wants to know which way up you want to be crucified.
BEN: Oh, ha ha ha haa! Ha haa! Nice one, Centurion. Like it. Like it.
CENTURION: Shut up!
BEN: Right. Right. Terrific race, the Romans. Terrific."
while it may be tempting to condense the concern to the most virulent objections of an extreme, it bears remembrance that Pakistan is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. the Holy Quran and Sunnah are effectively the books by which this nation is governed, and as such any charge of blasphemy is taken with a seriousness bordering on the academic.
this blasphemy charge could stem from any of the big 8, but the specific charges would be laid out in an almost arduous detail to the The Federal Shariat Court to make the case. only the supreme court of Pakistan can overrule the FSC.
the PTA (telecom authority) is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws, similar to content laws in the US and UK.
Well, no. Saudi Arabia is the portion of the Ottoman Empire that Ibn Saud grabbed in the early 20th century from other rival warlords. Islam and Sharia were definately guiding principles in administration, but it was no more Islamic than its neighbors.
Pakistan is different since its defining trait was to be carved out as a homeland for the Muslims of South Asia, rather than anything inherent in the land itself - its citizenry was outlined long before its actual land borders.
> it bears remembrance that Pakistan is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. the Holy Quran and Sunnah are effectively the books by which this nation is governed
Oh so that makes censorship ok? Bigotry is fine too, it’s all in the name of Islam, right?
Why didn’t you say so, that obviously activates the “free from all consequences” card. /s
They disowned their one Nobel laureate and maybe one of the greatest minds of his generation because of his Islam being different from their Islam. That place is a failed nation. Thank fuck for the internet so the people aren’t insulated from the outside world.
No, it didn't — neither Crick or Watson had any consequences for their speech anywhere near the level of being exiled or facing prosecution. An institution cutting ties after you spend years making racist claims is a disappointing tarnish to your career, but it's nothing like going to jail or potentially facing the execution (Pakistan has the death penalty for blasphemy).
Abdul Salam was neither exiled nor did he face prosecution. Let's not get sensationalist. He left Pakistan long before the official moves against Ahmadis, and the reasons for his leaving were mundane: Petty politics at the university in Pakistan.
What bias? I never even mentioned the other Muslim nations. What concern is it of theirs that Abdus existed? His own land disowning him is to their utter and ever lasting shame. This is of the order of the castration of Turing. The neighbouring nation that Pakistan always fights with would’ve gladly accepted him if he’d wanted to switch.
Exile is a frequent form of punishment and an alternative to execution. Widespread Condemnation of his group means no single country is alone in his exile. Further his group’s first leader was a supporter of the old colonial power. And they give him a place today. Your bias is supporting him while cursing another country that exiled him.
There is no widespread condemnation of ahmaddiyas anywhere outside muslim nations. Whoever the fuck his group's first leader was is irrelevant. They may worship a false prophet, they may worship a stone, they could worship an imaginary alien race. I have a bias against a sick nation that views an entire religion as outcasts. In 2023. It is absurd. No wonder the nation is absolutely dying economically.
There is a person at the center of controversy and he leads a fringe movement at odds with the rest of mainstream Islam. The poster was a follower of the movement and curses anyone who goes against the leader.
No, nashashmi is implying hnews_account_1 is an adherent of the same Muslim splinter group (known as Ahmadis or pejoratively as Qadiyanis; see [1]) as Abdus Salam [2], the sole Nobel Laureate that Pakistan has ever has. Salam was a prominent 20th physicist who predicted the existence of the W and Z bosons and the electroweak force.
nashashmi is gaslighting here by demonstrating two logical fallacies: both an appeal to authority ("Other nations also did this awful thing, so it must be OK") and putting forth a straw man argument ("I don't have any defense for what Pakistan did, so I'll accuse someone of bias").
I see no bias by hnews_account_1 here. I agree with hnews_account_1 in that the neighboring country they refer to (presumably India) would indeed have happily claimed Abdus Salam as one of their own and trumpeted his achievements; after all, Salam was educated in pre-partition India. In contrast, most Pakistanis today do not even know who Salam is because the Pakistan educational hierarchy deliberately ignores his achievements.
If anything, the notable bias (here, as shown by nashashmi, and in large, by the Pakistani establishment) is against the religious community that Salam belonged to. Since 1974, the Pakistani government (which polices who belongs to which religion, and forces you to declare your religion in government interactions) has imposed discrimination against this religious community by declaring them non-Muslim and preventing them from practicing their religion openly. Terror attacks against this community are common [3].
What gaslighting? I never did curse. And I did not defend any country nor tarnish any group. What I did do is call out bias against a country and inappropriate behavior (cursing) in this forum.
I’m no authority on the subject of dispute. And I frankly don’t care on this topic to be an SJW. But I will not be ok with information bias against a country when the source belongs to a persecuted group.
Yes, India has many faults but a long policy of offering refuge. They had refugee crises when the greeks were marching to their lands as well and had to resolve it. Of course, some recent decisions to favour hindu refugees is discriminative but it both fits the govt agenda and has some amount of logic in that there's wayyyy too much terrorist activity in the region. I still don't agree with it. But they also accepted the tibetans after the chinese drove them out and they accepted the zorastrians after the persians drove them out.
I can hardly imagine an idea more ridiculous than "blasphemy". The G-d is not a psychologically immature human being easy to offend. Nothing a human might possibly say can change the state of G-d from perfect harmony to anything else.
I don't think they are afraid of offending their god. I think they fear their human worshippers devolving into worshipping the person rather than following their religion. In other words they want to avoid the historical person superseding their god.
If G-d is eternal, omnipresent, and omnipotent. How can he logically be different from what I described? He has seen everything imaginable and unimaginable countless times, will see everthing, knows everything to happen in advance, in sub-atomic details. Also knows your whole life which made your character this way so you behave exactly like you do, also all the neurotransmitter fluctuations taking place in you and what causes them inevitably, understands you better than yourself or any psychologist ever could.
Imagine a terribly disabled person, crippled physically and mentally, unable to carry a kilogram for a second or multiply 2x3, traumatised to the point of insanity, striuggling from dementia. Also imagine you are a world-famous olympic athlette with four doctorate degrees in diverse areas. What if the cripple would say an insult about you, would you feel anything but compassion? This is a rough approximation of the difference between any person and the G-d.
You're still approaching this from a human (and indeed personal) perspective - well, if I was eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent then I would feel a particular way. Who knows how a being might behave?
With your example about being insulted by someone so wretched, I agree - I would feel compassion but that's an emotional response based on my current personality. You do sometimes see very successful people being riled up by minor criticisms from nobodies and you do think "Why on Earth do they care?". Some people are just petty minded and cruel, even when there is no need.
I'm not a believer, but I must say the idea of a God capable of petty cruelties does at least seem to match how the world actually is vs a God who is both omnipotent and all loving.
> You do sometimes see very successful people being riled up by minor criticisms from nobodies and you do think "Why on Earth do they care?". Some people are just petty minded
That's possible because they are just humans. They have basically monkey brains on steroids and didn't have eternity to mature their wisdom.
Any being, no matter how advanced, can happen to find necessary what we would consider evil or unfortunate. But getting insulted and angry is a primitive animal reflex meant to help animals protect their social status among similarly primitive creatures, obviously not an attribute of G-d.
> I would feel compassion but that's an emotional response based on my current personality.
Have you had a chance to observe how does your personality mature? The more you experience, know and understand, the harder it becomes to make you angry, insecure or disbalance you in any other emotional way, isn't it? Who the heck we are to think we can affect G-d?
This is common in Judaism. I am not Jewish, so someone please correct me: I understand taking the name in vain or destroying the word once written are a no-go -- so if you never write it then there is not a big issue here.
>Judaism considers some names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: YHWH, Adonai, El ("God"), Elohim ("God," a plural noun), Shaddai ("Almighty"), and Tzevaot ("[of] Hosts"); some also include Ehyeh ("I Will Be"). Early authorities considered other Hebrew names mere epithets or descriptions of God, and wrote that they and names in other languages may be written and erased freely. Some moderns advise special care even in these cases, and many Orthodox Jews have adopted the chumras of writing "G-d" instead of "God" in English
Writing 'God' is disrespectful vs drawing God is disrespectful... Both of these are absurd. The above comment criticizing one while deferring from the other is comically absurd.
I just enjoy writing it this way in accordance with what some bibilical traditions suggest. Sort of OCD/perfectionism. I could come up with many explanations if I had time&mood.
That's very different from the god described in the bible or the quran.
There was this one time where god got so mad, he flooded the whole earth, killing everyone. He was upset because people weren't worshipping him enough. So basically like Stalin, but worse.
>The G-d is not a psychologically immature human being easy to offend. Nothing a human might possibly say can change the state of G-d from perfect harmony to anything else.
That's a very idealized and personal definition of God. I suspect that the God that most religious people believe in is closer to how North Koreans think about Kim Il Sung.
"Blasphemy" as an excuse is no better or worse than its American cousins such as "election interference" and "sowing discord/disunity" as an excuse for quashing rights of expression.
How do you feel about banning hate speech? Blasphemy can be viewed by a believer of any faith as hate speech against God. Likewise, hate speech can be viewed as blasphemy against the values of liberalism.
edit I meant why didn't the Pakistani government just edit Wikipedia like any other person. I realized my post could be taken as saying "why didn't Wikipedia just do what they want" which was not what I meant.
Maybe? I don't know how many editors Urdu Wikipedia has nor how many have views similar to the government, but I wonder if they even tried the official Wikipedia method.
Encyclopedias are not warped to fit a minority groups opinion like Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is a website, not a trusted source. Not sure when Wikipedia became something more than a crowdsourced opinion site.
I'd describe Twitter as closer to a news site in the modern era. There are a lot of journalists and other important public figures sharing information there, and that's especially true for important live news events like earthquakes. (Twitter is the first place I check if I feel the house shake, for example.)
Absolutely not. A news site presumes that a majority of the content on there is vetted, researched, and somewhat accurate within the bounds of typical news bias.
Twitter is an open platform that anyone can say anything on. It's a social media site, and people happen to post their personal stories/experiences. Nothing more. I believe we wouldn't have such issues with misinformation if people stopped giving so much weight to everything they read on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc.
the presence of journalists does not make twitter a "news" site. Twitter is a firehose of misinformation and nonsense, a fraction of which has some value.
I agree with your point. But to be fair, many news sites are also a source of misinformation and nonsense, a fraction of which has some value. When hearing any news, I think it's important to get some independent verification before doing anything serious with it. News sites should be doing that verification, but they are strongly pressured to get news out fast, and verification often suffers.
I'd say it's more a bulletin or news board than a news website itself. Journalists don't work for Twitter and write news articles, they just share it via Twitter as a medium.
I'm asking you to explain why that difference is relevant to the consideration of receiving censorship demands from foreign governments. In my view, there is no relevant difference and both organizations should refuse these demands.
So yes, that is a chat. However, >99.9% of views of Wikipedia are not the history/chat. Less sure about this one, but probably greater than 99% of people using Wikipedia don't even know that that exists.
This is quite the rabbit hole because many people believe falsehoods that believe they have a right to spread. This is why Musk bought Twitter in the first place.
The reason some conservatives want to regulate social media companies like utilities: 1) these companies have made a lot of money in spite of preventing the spread of fake news 2) all conservative leaning platforms have been rejected by the public.
> Wikipedia is not pro-free speech. They are advocates of "woke" culture and have censored/altered/etc many wikipedia articles. Any wikipedia article that was critical of western "religion" ( wokism, lgbt, zionism, etc ) are removed, edited, altered, etc.
The western religion is capitalism. The things you mention are statistical anomalies. Most of the people complaining probably don't even know any LGBT people because they live relatively insular lives (and even then don't have any conflict with them). It seems strange to get hung up on things that don't effect daily life.
Government mandated belief in a deity, and censoring contradictory content has nothing to do with belief or a god, but is designed to preserve a power structure.
In recent years I've come around to viewing the American ideal of absolute "free speech" as not being all that nuanced, particularly because we know know the speed at which viral false and illegitimate claims travel and the slower speed at which reasoned responses to those speech travel.
I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad, even if they fall squarely under free speech, are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities of a large chunk of people that abide to certain customs and norms. The hope here is that these folks come around to their viewpoints and say "sigh, I don't like what you're doing, but I'm just going to turn away". The debate is front and center, let's see how it evolves.
Absolutely disagree. The trend of censoring people that depict Mohammed is relatively recent - nobody cared about the Superfriends episode back around 2000 - and giving in to it gives grounds to the same people that attack ex-Muslims for leaving Islam.
We can probably all agree that a great many things on the web are considered in poor taste by someone somewhere in the world. That doesn't mean that web content should be limited to things that no one anywhere considers in poor taste.
You'd be wrong. Many of us think that judging content by whether it offends someone is a terrible idea. Viewers should self-censor if they find something objectionable rather than subject everyone else to their personal opinions.
This is the kind of take that only exists on HN and is obviously wrong flat on its face if thought through for even a little bit. Someone can and does have the right to tell dead baby jokes to a father who has just lost a child but that doesn't mean it's okay that someone should, and indeed in a civilized and social society there are guardrails to prevent that sort of thing: that someone would get rebuked and if they continue being a jerk, that someone would in some manner be punished or rejected from that local community.
We judge the content of what others find offensive all the time, and we even agree that it is subjective, different people of different ages, backgrounds, experiences have different sensibilities, and as social beings we understand and respect this. The internet of course throws a wrench in all of this because it's hard to enforce moderation on a local basis as we do in the real world. But that does not mean that the way we have been living forever goes out the window.
I'm not saying we should do away with free speech, rather just that we have to work through things carefully and slowly. My hope is that after a little bit of debate, a liberal attitude prevails in Pakistan. But to respond with how folks are responding in this thread, of just putting gasoline on the fire, that's not really how progress is made, it is how we further elevate and agitate an already volatile happening -- we should probably not do that.
> I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad, even if they fall squarely under free speech, are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities of a large chunk of people that abide to certain customs and norms.
Nope. But nice try.
> particularly because we know know the speed at which viral false and illegitimate claims travel and the slower speed at which reasoned responses to those speech travel.
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes" is not a new observation. This has been abused since antiquity to oppress.
Great attitude to have for the Politburo I'm sure. Cardinal Richelieu. Jihadis of all sorts. The Spanish Inquisition (least you get offended I am picking on Jihadis) - No thanks.
Bans on ideas and art rarely work. This is about as effective as claiming territory based on maps that governments force on others - India with Kashmir and Argentina with the Falkland Islands are two prominent examples.
The US does not have absolute free speech. No nation does and it is wrong to continue to claim that. What the US has is far fewer restrictions on speech relative to the rest of the world.
It's not supposed to be nuanced. Nuanced takes on free speech are politically motivated, that is, people who have everything to gain by limiting speech making the decisions.
I'd rather have absolute free speech than self-interested dotards limiting my speech.
"Poor taste" is subjective. Drawing Mohammad should be legal, even if people don't have to like it. Terrorism in response is despicable no matter what speech occurred beforehand.
> I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad [...] are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities
I disagree, because the slippery slope is VERY slippery here. Eating meat triggers the sensibility of some vegans, so does hunting, something isn't "in poor taste" just because it triggers.
An encyclopedia only journals what already exists in the world. There already exist many cultural illustrations of Muhammad and that's the only reason why Wikipedia also discusses them. This is a case of shooting the messenger.
> I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad, even if they fall squarely under free speech, are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities of a large chunk of people that abide to certain customs and norms.
Nope. Fuck their customs and norms. Out here in the non-psychotic world, we also have "customs and norms". Those include not cutting facts out of our accounts of history, and not telling other people what they can say in general.
By the way, those exact same "customs and norms" also say that, although they can keep me from drawing some guy because it's offensive to them, I can't criticize a book that's full of literal, direct exhortations to kill a shit-ton of people, including me personally-- exhortations that have been and still are being acted upon throughout the book's history-- because questioning that book is also offensive to them. In addition to glorifying violence, that book also goes on for page after page denigrating other religions, by the way.
When you're prepared to systematically shun (at least) all Abrahamic scriptures and everybody who spreads them, along with all the other "false and illegitimate claims", and along with anything else that conflicts with anybody's "customs and norms", then you'll be in a self-consistent position. You'll still be wrong, but you'll at least be consistent. Ready to go there?
By the way, trying frame your position as something that every reasonable person obviously must already accept is a really pitiful rhetorical tactic.
People love to reference the logical fallacy[1] as though there have been no instances where momentum builds from a series of decisions and cascades in a massive shift. But then again, thinkers like these are happy to comfortably think about the past while many suffer, instead of applying realism towards the future.
People love to cite the fallacy because it’s one that’s used a lot.
Sure, momentum builds. Sometimes. But the fallacy is proclaiming with 100% certainty both that the momentum will build, and the specific way it’s going to roll.
We don’t know the future. We can’t claim with certainty that something will happen as a result of another action. Claiming anything otherwise is falling right into the fallacy.
Drawing a downward slope is a fallacy when you have a single datapoint and you're just asserting that the datapoint exists as part of a trend. If you have more than a single datapoint, then claiming to see a trend is no longer fallacious.
In the real world, there is rarely a single datapoint. In the case of religions demanding censorship, there is A LOT of data.
The real world is not a math formula. A trend can just as quickly plateau, spike, or plummet. That's the point, that none of us can predict the next step, regardless how much we think we can.
The fallacy is proclaiming that a specific chain of events will occur due to one action. Can it happen? Sure. Will it happen with 100% certainty? Of course not, so don't pretend like it will, regardless how many datapoints exist.
I mean, that’s just straight up not the definition of the fallacy, so I guess if you can redefine it to whatever you like, then sure, you’re definitely right.
I don't think most people that use it in casual conversation (which isn't logically sound to begin with) are using it in good faith. In my experience, it's used to shut down concerns that people have based on previous experiences or history. It's also usually served with a "Gotcha!" attitude, as if the listener has found some golden ticket to shut down conversation.
Some countries used to block specific articles, but that's not possible anymore thanks to HTTPS. Local editors in such places are at risk of prosecution though.
It is power and the drive to preserve power that is behind much of this. Religion is a convenient scapegoat in the case of islam because much of the islamic world is some combination of poor and lacking freedom. Islam is also in the relatively unique situation of mixing religion with politics that leads to the power struggle in the first place.
Nah it's religion. Power and the desire to preserve power is behind religion. Religion is just "you'd better d̶o̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶s̶a̶y̶ do what god says (he said you should listen to me) or I̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶g̶r̶y̶ god will be really angry and punish you after you die!"
God never talks to anyone directly - there's always some human who conveniently relays god's message. Usually an authority figure, like a parent or a priest. It's just a tactic they use to reinforce their authority and help them control other people.
You can call me and my view "insane". However, according to Amnesty International, the choices that Israel has done and is still doing ranks up with genocides, apartheids, holocausts, and other crimes against humanity.
Just because you paint me as "insane" does not invalidate any of these points.
> During the armed conflict in May, Israel committed apparent war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.2 According to the OHCHR and the WHO, 242 Palestinians were killed, including 63 children, and some 9,000 were injured. More than 74,000 Palestinians were displaced. According to the World Bank, the housing needs of 4,000 families, including 7,000 children, whose homes were damaged or destroyed had not been met by December.
> On 10 May, Israel bombed the seawater desalination plant in north Gaza, cutting water supplies to more than 250,000 people until it was temporarily repaired on 23 May.
> In the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli forces killed 75 and injured 14,679 Palestinians, according to the UN OCHA-OPT, some during arrests in Palestinian homes, others during protests that were mainly against Jewish Israeli settler activities.
> During the May conflict, Israel heavily restricted entry of trucks carrying humanitarian supplies. Only five fuel tankers were allowed to enter and no fuel was allowed through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom pipeline for Gaza’s power plant. Israel’s Erez passenger crossing remained closed. Around 600 patients could not receive treatment outside Gaza in May. Israel allowed 25,630 truckloads of construction material into Gaza, down from 45,359 in 2020.
> Palestinian prisoners were subjected to unfair trials before military courts, prolonged solitary confinement and inadequate medical treatment, and illegal transfer from the OPT to prisons in Israel. According to Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner support organization, 500 were administratively detained without charge or trial at the end of 2021, and 170 children were incarcerated. A survey by Save the Children found that officers beat over 80% of child detainees, and denied access to a lawyer to 47%.
> Israel’s system of governing Palestinians through oppression and domination constituted apartheid, a crime under international law. Palestinians faced routine and systematic discrimination, and therefore human rights violations, in the context of their rights to nationality, freedom of movement, the highest attainable standard of health, family life, education, work and participation in public life.
> Divorce and other personal status laws governed by religious courts continued to discriminate against women. According to Mavoi Satum, an Israeli women’s rights organization, courts forced some 1,700 women to remain in abusive marriages every year.
> Israel purchased some 30 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines and vaccinated 64% of citizens of Israel, residents of East Jerusalem, migrant workers and Palestinian prisoners with two doses by October; administered third doses to more than 4 million citizens; and started vaccinating five-year-olds in November, according to Israel’s health ministry. Israel transferred 5,000 doses to the Palestinian Authority in March and April, while it had sent thousands of doses to diplomatic allies Guatemala, Honduras and the Czech Republic in February, according to press reports.
Other big most visited web-pages need to degrade their connection in to Pakistan in solidarity with Wikipedia, if they care even one bit about free and open Web, otherwise it will never stop and more and more countries will use these methods to get their demands through.
I don't know why anyone is surprised. Internet is censored in one form or other by almost all countries. And if censorship is hurting business, companies comply to the demands.
As for Wikipedia I know it's not a business, but the above logic of countries controlling access of content applies here. It's not the first time or first country censoring Wikipedia.
I think we need to understand the main cause behind all this. One thing we need to understand more which is not the cause but symptom the right & left wing populism across world.
What if
What if an AI
writes a blasphemy?
and the faithful already
are asking for its beheading?
I also thought of something else
to write, but I'd rather not
for I also have a head
one can chop.
The creation of Pakistan is one of the biggest mistakes in modern history. The only country created on the basis of religion, thanks to the nonsensical Two Nation Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-nation_theory. It was created so Muslims can be safe in their own country, but ironically Muslims in India enjoy a way better life and future prospects. As an Indian I wish the country gets rid of its weird Muslim superiority complex and adopts secular values so peace between our nations becomes a real possiblity.
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[ 6.6 ms ] story [ 304 ms ] threadWikipedia was approached for blocking / removal of the said contents by issuing a notice under applicable law and court order(s). An opportunity of hearing was also provided, however, the platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority.
Given the intentional failure on part of the platform to comply with the directions of PTA, the services of Wikipedia have been degraded for 48 hours with the direction to block / remove the reported contents. In case of non-compliance by Wikipedia the platform will be blocked within Pakistan.
The restoration of the services of Wikipedia will be reconsidered subject to blocking / removal of the reported unlawful contents. PTA is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws."
Wikipedia is more valuable with accurate content, even if some countries make it harder to access.
In the same sense they supposedly would remove whatever violates hate speech laws or copyright laws in some other countries that the ones they operate in.
s/law/rulers/g
You don't need to replace them. They are equivalent.
How would Pakistani citizens be unsafe if that content remains? will there be total chaos? riots? more suicide bombings?
Wish it was a joke but sadly lynching due to alleged blashpemy is a huge issue in pakistan. Recently a Sri Lankan citizen was burned alive with a few hundred witnesses who just watched.
[1] - https://archive.ph/cKPf8
[Edit] And how should this be addressed in the US? Simple. Only censor things that are explicitly and clearly illegal under federal law and the laws of the state the company is headquartered in. If another state has an issue with that, then they must create their own competing platform.
Machine learning, what people today are mistakenly calling "AI" must tag anything that is not explicitly illegal with unobtrusive labels such as "hate speech" or "propaganda" or "misinformation" and so on.... Each label must link to the Machine Learning "Showing Its Work" to describe in detail exactly how it reached that conclusion and the members of the platform must have a way to contest and override the labels. The posts must show how many people disagree with said labels. No hidden algorithms, no hidden data-sets. The Machine Learning must show its work and show its references.
Members must have the ability to hide any content that has labels they do not wish to see just like the capabilities in StackExchange.
- Things are either bad or good.
- Only one side can be right which means the other side is automagically wrong.
- Multiple things can’t be true at the same time.
- etc.
In both cases, tolerating nuance would make it harder to control the message since disagreement could lead to power shifting away from the current top of the hierarchy. Unsurprisingly the people who benefit from that are strongly opposed to sharing.
I do agree that it’s partially due to programming. If you look at movies for example you’ll see this black and white thinking. There’s a good guy and a bad guy and it’s all very simple.
Take a look at feminism for example. It started as "hey women should have equal rights", which is good. But now we see far too many people treating men as a monolith and demonizing them. So now we have a narrative that women = good, and men = bad. I see this all the time on social media from the left and it has to stop. Male suicide rates are far too high right now, and I partly blame this narrative and the lack of nuance that caused it.
In-fact I follow mostly left-wing media and I consider myself a true leftist because I think everyone should be treated equally, and power dynamics aren't as simple as man = has all power, women = has no power. But that's exactly the narrative that the left is pushing. I guarantee that if you were to post online even the simplest thing like "women have some power over men" you'll get dogpiled by people calling you a rapist because they can't handle nuance.
I also call bullshit on your explanation for male suicide. Male loneliness plays a major role, and it's partly due to the fact that we collectively put women on a pedestal in our society. Which again goes back to lack of nuance. Something like 30% of men haven't had sex in the past year, and women generally find 80% of men unattractive on dating sites. There is real data backing up my position.
For the first time in history, women actually have the societal, as well as legal right to not find a man. They are finally able to be choosy and say no when they don't want to do anything. They are no longer coerced by laws or societal norms to settle for a man, and can freely chose to only find a partner if that partner is attractive to them, physically or emotionally or whatever their preference is.
Of course, men who were brought up to think that women owe them anything hate this, because it means they have to be more than just a living paycheck to get a partner. It means millions of men who in older times would have found a wife who settled for them now have to compete with other men who may understand and treat women as individuals instead of sex objects to be claimed.
There is plenty of room to talk about how culture around men prioritizes sex and finding a partner, and discourages men from being themselves. There is plenty of room to talk about how plenty of women hate the current situation where logging into a dating app means 100 new messages, 5 unsolicited dick picks, and being called a slut when they rebuff someone's advances, as if that makes any sense.
None of this is putting women on a pedestal. A significant portion of the right wing here in the states is actively campaigning on the idea of abolishing all non-standard cultures, and demonizing independent women and single mothers especially as solely responsible for society's ills.
If you are hurt by a traditionally oppressed population finally getting the ability to direct their own life, you should consider what that says about your former position in the world.
In the west, when was the last time a woman was legally forced to find a man? I think your brain is in the 1950s, but a lot has changed since then and you can't just project your emotional state regarding past female suffering onto our current times.
> They are no longer coerced by laws or societal norms to settle for a man, and can freely chose to only find a partner if that partner is attractive to them, physically or emotionally or whatever their preference is.
Yes and the results are astounding. Lets not pretend male and female attraction are equal or fair. I once went on a date with a woman I met online who turned out to be obese. During the date she complained that she only had sex once that month. How many obese men do you think have the problem? The way men and women judge each other is MASSIVELY skewed.
> treat women as individuals instead of sex objects to be claimed
Yet again, more BS. Most men hardly ever receive compliments or attention from the opposite sex, but the same isn't true the other way around. If you're dehydrated in the desert then you're going to be fixated on drinking water. The same is true here. I think men go straight to sex because they are starved of attention. The same attention that women get on a regular basis.
> There is plenty of room to talk about how culture around men prioritizes sex and finding a partner, and discourages men from being themselves.
Women play a huge role in reinforcing this. As a personal anecdote, I dated this woman in college who rubbed my finger nails and said they were too smooth. Then she proceeded to ask me if I worked with my hands at all. This kind of mind-fuckery is a common experience for men.
> There is plenty of room to talk about how plenty of women hate the current situation where logging into a dating app means 100 new messages, 5 unsolicited dick picks, and being called a slut when they rebuff someone's advances, as if that makes any sense.
Yet another example of female privilege. Women's sexuality is viewed as the default and morally correct sexuality, whereas men are expected to repress our own sexuality and conform to women's standards. Just look at the gay community, gay men are much more free and open with their sexuality.
Honestly, what's wrong with a dick pic? Men would love if women sent them naked pictures. It's only because women have set up these games for men to play that we judge this as morally wrong.
> None of this is putting women on a pedestal.
It absolutely is. You're doing that thing where women are the victims in every scenario and men are monsters. You're doing the same lack of nuance thing that I originally commented about.
> A significant portion of the right wing here in the states is actively campaigning on the idea of abolishing all non-standard cultures, and demonizing independent women and single mothers especially as solely responsible for society's ills.
If understanding reality is right wing then call me a right winger if that makes you feel better. Again you're doing that lack of nuance thing because you think calling out toxic femininity automatically means women will get their rights taken away.
> If you are hurt by a traditionally oppressed population finally getting the ability to direct their own life, you should consider what that says about your former position in the world.
Now I'm extra sure that you're not speaking in good faith and you're emotionally and ideologically driven instead of looking at reality as it exists. I really hope that the left eventually gets over this men = bad, women = good stupidity. It's not helping, and it's creating injustices that we'll just have to correct later. Nuance is possible, I hope you grow to understand that someday.
Like when the US actually starts trying to censor ideas rather than their hateful expressions I’ll start to be worried. Because lord knows it is your god given right to be an absolute piece of shit writing think pieces about all your bigoted opinions but content like /r/c__ntown is just hate with no substance at all.
Blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan
I think it is. Pakastan can create whatever laws fit its culture. I would never dare to imagine imposing my values or beliefs on them. They should create their own Wiki alternative and make it popular within their nation.
[Edit] Or if their people see fit change their laws, overthrow their government or whatever they deem appropriate for their culture. But that is entirely on them. Now if they want to ask how to bypass censorship, I would be happy to provide a myriad of methods just as I did for the Iranians that posted here in the recent past.
Believe it or not, but some places don't have the resources to hold people in jail for decades.
If there was a murderer and the place had no way to actually keep the murderer away from the general population, what would you recommend? Just ask the murderer to not murder again?
Even the bankrupt Taliban manages to keep 14k people in their prisons. https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-refill-afghan-jails/693518...
Burundi's the last on the list of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... and manages prisons, as well.
They're not opting for executions for the cost savings.
Yes, but if they actually jailed all criminals the number would be far higher.
Afghanistan's murder rate is approx 2800 people per year (6.7/100k, population 40 million). Assuming only a 10 year sentence for murder they should have twice as many people in prison -- assuming no other crimes whatsoever, which of course isn't the case.
"They're not opting for executions for the cost savings."
Don't be so sure. I agree with the above commenter - maintaining jails can be prohibitively expensive for undeveloped countries.
We have no clue how many people they are holding in jail and how many are executed. Do you think they could actually hold thousands of additional prisoners who are amongst the most violent?
We also don't know how many of the guards agree with the terrorists. It probably wouldn't be a good thing to have a prison full of terrorists where the guards agree. They likely would "accidentally" let some of them escape.
Which is worse: 100 innocent people being killed by the death penalty or 100 innocent people getting killed by murderers? This is the calculation that many underdeveloped countries have to look at.
Allowing a murderer to live in a country that doesn't have the means to support them will lead to additional suffering of the prisoner (due to less resources), additional suffering of those not in prison (due to additional taxes), and an additional risk to additional murders by the murderer (if they kill other prisoners, guards or escape).
It is easy for people in the first world to say we don't have the need to have the death penalty, but to tell the poorest they are too stupid to know better is kind of arrogant.
I would especially recommend talking to people in the most remote areas of the underdeveloped countries. They literally are unable to keep people in prison.
Over the past few decades, most areas have been solving these issues, but there are still a few areas where there is no alternative.
As I get older, I realize that while this may be idealized values - this works very poorly in the "real world". At some point, you realize that your arbitrary morals are simply better - better for everyone. Death penalty for blasphemy would be one of them - the world would simply be a better place if this did not exist.
For reference, I was using one of "those" sites during the 2016 election, and an actual ad next to my chosen video was one of Donald Trump doing Hillary from behind with great gusto.
It's not a crime. It was also hilarious.
"Congress shall make no law"...
Your own country and its cleanliness is totally irrelevant to Pakistan censoring Wikipedia.
E.g. multinational corporations vs national tax laws
E.g. global internet services vs national privacy laws
E.g. global internet services vs national decency laws (the posted issue)
I'm starting to realise this mismatch is where a lot of friction is and will continue to be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_vs._McWorld
There must be limits, because as we have seen, globalism as its currently is basically american everything.
There are limits. There is no unlimited VC money, and America's a crazy place to give an example of as having no workers' rights.
While theocracy is a clear and present danger, "modern" is too broad a label to apply as a counter to it.
The more accurate counter would be policy based on empiricism. This is not predicated on the idea that the progression of time advances all things, but rather a timeless philosophy that has had its peaks and troughs throughout history.
I don't have a problem with religion in principle, only when it is used as justification to mistreat others, as is happening here. At that point any spiritual benefits it offers adherents are outweighed by the societal harm it causes. There are good religions like this, they just don't preach about exciting fire and brimstone from the pulpit.
I also don't think organized faith of any kind would have done anything to solve the problems with the Soviet Union. Especially when they were one despotic atheist state among countless despotic theocracies.
> Especially when they were one despotic atheist state among countless despotic theocracies.
Not countless. They had plenty of democracies around them as well. And even if they hadn't, Communist China and Communist Russia's death tolls on their own populations make every other despot in history added up look like nothing.
There are also still many countries that have yet to adopt this ideal, and even within many developed democracies there are still forces that wish for us to regress.
So my main point stands, because so many people claim so many different things under the colour of religion, laws like the Blasphemy law turns into a case of my sect is better / stronger than your sect. And now I have a piece of paper that proves you broke the law.
Originally this law was written to try to keep the peace, but now it has been weaponised to suppress minorities.
My point is directed at the specific example of the Ahmadiyyas, with the text suggesting that it's an example of the spectrum of Islamic practices. While there is definitely a spectrum in the way Islam is practiced across the world in ways that might throw off outsider Muslims, Ahmadiyya is an extreme example that I would suggest is not representative of the continuum. It's not just some hardliner believers that would consider them heretical, or even just 'some Wahabbists' - I would suggest that mainline Muslims across the spectrum would denounce the theology as heretical. Yes, there is definitely a spectrum of beliefs across the Islamic world, but the Ahmadiyya theology modifies one of the core pillars that would be a hard buy for believers.
Whether blasphemy laws should exist is an entirely other point (I don't think they should).
If countries would stop censoring free speech, we wouldn't have the problem at all.
That said, (I believe, ha...) there should always be the freedom to not engage with beliefs you find hostile. In the US, the 1st Amendment is critical because you must engage with the government on some level, but you don't need to use Truth Social, 4chan, 8kun, or whatever else.
Surely these "peculiar things that Normies do" are completely harmless, in all manifestations...but let's never mind thinking about that - since it's normal, paying attention to such things is <choose from the long list of thought terminating memes that are used to dismiss anyone who makes an observation about the phenomenon>.
individual humans vs the collective groups which we come together to form;
like employees vs their own company
humans vs corporations but corporations are made (in part) from humans.
heck, it's like we're having some kind of an autoimmune reaction: the cells in a single individual human fighting against the individual human.
...but hey, for most of my life people chose to say I'm crazy and ignore what I say.
For most employees their company is not their own. They don't own any of it. Employees, in my opinion, have no other obligation to their employers beyond what is outlined in their contract and any employee who thinks otherwise has been bamboozled. Never settle for a "sense of ownership." If a company wants me to have a "sense of ownership" they should let me actually own part of the company.
But comparing employment to slavery is a taboo
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=globalhomo
Edit: To be clear, I don't support the views expressed in 4chan. I don't participate, but I read because I find it interesting. I often think I should have been an anthropologist.
The Tobin Tax and other policy ideas in response to the whole thing, concerns about interconnectedness leading to economic fragility and new kinds of global economic risk (as in e.g. the '97 "Asian Contagion", a domino-effect economic collapse that was only stopped by massive foreign [largely US] and IGO [largely IMF] intervention), the implications for state sovereignty, all that stuff's been covered and considered extensively for quite a while.
The FBI sending Twitter emails about TOS violations they noticed and being executed for being an atheist are "similar" only if you really torture the definition.
The West, in general, within its own territory, is better on just about every civil rights issue than places like Pakistan and China. That doesn't mean it's good: places like Pakistan and China set a pretty low bar.
" Another Bleedin Monty Python Website banner image image HomeTV Series Holy Grail Meaning of LifeLife of BrianSilly Links Life of Brian Script Scene 12: Brian Earns Jailor's Pet Title The sketch: eerie music
VOICE: Huo!
whip
VOICE: Hoo hoo hoo! Oh!
clank
whump
BRIAN: Eh.
clank
JAILER: Eh, heh heh ha. ptoo
BRIAN: Aah! Eh.
JAILER: Eh, heh heh. cough cough cough cough cough
BEN: You lucky bastard.
BRIAN: Who's that?
BEN: You lucky, lucky bastard.
BRIAN: What?
BEN: Proper little jailer's pet, aren't we?
BRIAN: What do you mean?
BEN: You must have slipped him a few shekels, eh?
BRIAN: Slipped him a few shekels? You saw him spit in my face!
BEN: Ohh! What wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face! I sometimes hang awake at night dreaming of being spat at in the face.
BRIAN: Well, it's not exactly friendly, is it? They had me in manacles!
BEN: Manacles! Ooh oooh oh oh. My idea of heaven is to be allowed to be put in manacles... just for a few hours. They must think the sun shines out o' your arse, sonny.
BRIAN: Oh, lay off me. I've had a hard time!
BEN: You've had a hard time?! I've been here five years! They only hung me the right way up yesterday! So, don't you come 'rou--
BRIAN: All right. All right.
BEN: They must think you're Lord God Almighty.
BRIAN: What will they do to me?
BEN: Oh, you'll probably get away with crucifixion.
BRIAN: Crucifixion?!
BEN: Yeah, first offence.
BRIAN: Get away with crucifixion?! It's--
BEN: Best thing the Romans ever did for us.
BRIAN: What?!
BEN: Oh, yeah. If we didn't have crucifixion, this country would be in a right bloody mess.
BRIAN: Guards!
BEN: Nail him up, I say!
BRIAN: Guards!
BEN: Nail some sense into him!
JAILER: cough cough What do you want?
BRIAN: I want you to move me to another cell.
JAILER: Ha! ptoo
BRIAN: Aah!
BEN: Oh, look at that! Bloody favoritism!
JAILER: Shut up, you!
BEN: Sorry!
JAILER: Huhh. cough cough
BEN: Now, take my case. They hung me up here five years ago. Every night, they take me down for twenty minutes, then they hang me up again, which I regard as very fair, in view of what I done, and, if nothing else, it's taught me to respect the Romans, and it's taught me... that you'll never get anywhere in this life, unless you're prepared to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay!
BRIAN: Oh, shut up!
clank
JAILER: Ehhh.
CENTURION: Pilate wants to see you!
BRIAN: Me?
CENTURION: Come on!
BRIAN: Pilate? What does he want to see me for?
CENTURION: I think he wants to know which way up you want to be crucified.
BEN: Oh, ha ha ha haa! Ha haa! Nice one, Centurion. Like it. Like it.
CENTURION: Shut up!
BEN: Right. Right. Terrific race, the Romans. Terrific."
The threat of that is very real.
Twitter did exactly that in some cases, with no apparent repercussions.
In the most recent transparency report (https://transparency.twitter.com/en/reports/countries/us.htm...) Twitter declined ~30% of data requests from US government agencies.
They are also suing the government over NSLs; https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/a/2014/taking-the-fi...
> Wikipedia was approached for blocking / removal of the said contents
> platform neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the Authority.
Anyone know what sacrilegious/blasphemous content they are referring to?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#Pakist...
Includes a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends (South Park episode) which contains an image of Muhammad.
this blasphemy charge could stem from any of the big 8, but the specific charges would be laid out in an almost arduous detail to the The Federal Shariat Court to make the case. only the supreme court of Pakistan can overrule the FSC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan
daily Pakistan reports this is due to 'sacrilege,' a far less dire charge:
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/01-Feb-2023/pakistan-degrade...
the PTA (telecom authority) is committed to ensuring a safe online experience for all Pakistani citizens according to local laws, similar to content laws in the US and UK.
No? Saudi Arabia exists
Pakistan is different since its defining trait was to be carved out as a homeland for the Muslims of South Asia, rather than anything inherent in the land itself - its citizenry was outlined long before its actual land borders.
Oh so that makes censorship ok? Bigotry is fine too, it’s all in the name of Islam, right?
Why didn’t you say so, that obviously activates the “free from all consequences” card. /s
This is not the catch-all excuse you think it is.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_issue_No._1178
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Comments_on_race
Edit: the psychology of creating an account to make that particular comment is fascinating to me.
Ah, yes, the "Latin" skin pigment. From black in the Caribbean, to nordic White/Ginger found in Spain and Chile/Argentina. Very accurate.
> At the very commencement of his accession, he found himself forced into exile from Pakistan in response to pressure from the Government of Pakistan.
Is that inaccurate?
Never mind: You are talking about Mirza. I'm talking about the Nobel Laureate. Two different people.
nashashmi is gaslighting here by demonstrating two logical fallacies: both an appeal to authority ("Other nations also did this awful thing, so it must be OK") and putting forth a straw man argument ("I don't have any defense for what Pakistan did, so I'll accuse someone of bias").
I see no bias by hnews_account_1 here. I agree with hnews_account_1 in that the neighboring country they refer to (presumably India) would indeed have happily claimed Abdus Salam as one of their own and trumpeted his achievements; after all, Salam was educated in pre-partition India. In contrast, most Pakistanis today do not even know who Salam is because the Pakistan educational hierarchy deliberately ignores his achievements.
If anything, the notable bias (here, as shown by nashashmi, and in large, by the Pakistani establishment) is against the religious community that Salam belonged to. Since 1974, the Pakistani government (which polices who belongs to which religion, and forces you to declare your religion in government interactions) has imposed discrimination against this religious community by declaring them non-Muslim and preventing them from practicing their religion openly. Terror attacks against this community are common [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdus_Salam [3] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2020/11/paki...
I’m no authority on the subject of dispute. And I frankly don’t care on this topic to be an SJW. But I will not be ok with information bias against a country when the source belongs to a persecuted group.
Imagine a terribly disabled person, crippled physically and mentally, unable to carry a kilogram for a second or multiply 2x3, traumatised to the point of insanity, striuggling from dementia. Also imagine you are a world-famous olympic athlette with four doctorate degrees in diverse areas. What if the cripple would say an insult about you, would you feel anything but compassion? This is a rough approximation of the difference between any person and the G-d.
With your example about being insulted by someone so wretched, I agree - I would feel compassion but that's an emotional response based on my current personality. You do sometimes see very successful people being riled up by minor criticisms from nobodies and you do think "Why on Earth do they care?". Some people are just petty minded and cruel, even when there is no need.
I'm not a believer, but I must say the idea of a God capable of petty cruelties does at least seem to match how the world actually is vs a God who is both omnipotent and all loving.
That's possible because they are just humans. They have basically monkey brains on steroids and didn't have eternity to mature their wisdom.
Any being, no matter how advanced, can happen to find necessary what we would consider evil or unfortunate. But getting insulted and angry is a primitive animal reflex meant to help animals protect their social status among similarly primitive creatures, obviously not an attribute of G-d.
> I would feel compassion but that's an emotional response based on my current personality.
Have you had a chance to observe how does your personality mature? The more you experience, know and understand, the harder it becomes to make you angry, insecure or disbalance you in any other emotional way, isn't it? Who the heck we are to think we can affect G-d?
>Judaism considers some names of God so holy that, once written, they should not be erased: YHWH, Adonai, El ("God"), Elohim ("God," a plural noun), Shaddai ("Almighty"), and Tzevaot ("[of] Hosts"); some also include Ehyeh ("I Will Be"). Early authorities considered other Hebrew names mere epithets or descriptions of God, and wrote that they and names in other languages may be written and erased freely. Some moderns advise special care even in these cases, and many Orthodox Jews have adopted the chumras of writing "G-d" instead of "God" in English
IMO a little bit ironic considering the post contents.
There was this one time where god got so mad, he flooded the whole earth, killing everyone. He was upset because people weren't worshipping him enough. So basically like Stalin, but worse.
That's a very idealized and personal definition of God. I suspect that the God that most religious people believe in is closer to how North Koreans think about Kim Il Sung.
edit I meant why didn't the Pakistani government just edit Wikipedia like any other person. I realized my post could be taken as saying "why didn't Wikipedia just do what they want" which was not what I meant.
It does look like Wikipedia is ahead of Twitter in the free speech absolutist game if it prefers being blocked to compliance.
Encyclopedias are not warped to fit a minority groups opinion like Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is a website, not a trusted source. Not sure when Wikipedia became something more than a crowdsourced opinion site.
Twitter is an open platform that anyone can say anything on. It's a social media site, and people happen to post their personal stories/experiences. Nothing more. I believe we wouldn't have such issues with misinformation if people stopped giving so much weight to everything they read on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc.
I don't know where you live, but here a news site is a site following political views or creating new stories which have nothing to do with reality.
"researched, and somewhat accurate" is below 1 pecent of the site content.
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
Wikipedia is also a "grup chat". Just look at the history of any page. (Hint: discussion).
The point here isn't about editing or altering, it's about who gets to edit and alter.
The reason some conservatives want to regulate social media companies like utilities: 1) these companies have made a lot of money in spite of preventing the spread of fake news 2) all conservative leaning platforms have been rejected by the public.
> Wikipedia is not pro-free speech. They are advocates of "woke" culture and have censored/altered/etc many wikipedia articles. Any wikipedia article that was critical of western "religion" ( wokism, lgbt, zionism, etc ) are removed, edited, altered, etc.
The western religion is capitalism. The things you mention are statistical anomalies. Most of the people complaining probably don't even know any LGBT people because they live relatively insular lives (and even then don't have any conflict with them). It seems strange to get hung up on things that don't effect daily life.
In recent years I've come around to viewing the American ideal of absolute "free speech" as not being all that nuanced, particularly because we know know the speed at which viral false and illegitimate claims travel and the slower speed at which reasoned responses to those speech travel.
I think we can all agree that artistic depictions of Mohammad, even if they fall squarely under free speech, are something that are of poor taste because they trigger the sensibilities of a large chunk of people that abide to certain customs and norms. The hope here is that these folks come around to their viewpoints and say "sigh, I don't like what you're doing, but I'm just going to turn away". The debate is front and center, let's see how it evolves.
You'd be wrong. Many of us think that judging content by whether it offends someone is a terrible idea. Viewers should self-censor if they find something objectionable rather than subject everyone else to their personal opinions.
We judge the content of what others find offensive all the time, and we even agree that it is subjective, different people of different ages, backgrounds, experiences have different sensibilities, and as social beings we understand and respect this. The internet of course throws a wrench in all of this because it's hard to enforce moderation on a local basis as we do in the real world. But that does not mean that the way we have been living forever goes out the window.
I'm not saying we should do away with free speech, rather just that we have to work through things carefully and slowly. My hope is that after a little bit of debate, a liberal attitude prevails in Pakistan. But to respond with how folks are responding in this thread, of just putting gasoline on the fire, that's not really how progress is made, it is how we further elevate and agitate an already volatile happening -- we should probably not do that.
To reach Wikipedia, you have to make a deliberate action, it's not like Wikipedia has kids in the street screaming to sell their product.
It's not a tv channel broadcasted in some restaurant.
It's not a radio you might ear in a bus.
That's where the debate should lie, not around religious views because everyone here could find problematic content on Wikipedia.
Nope. But nice try.
> particularly because we know know the speed at which viral false and illegitimate claims travel and the slower speed at which reasoned responses to those speech travel.
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes" is not a new observation. This has been abused since antiquity to oppress.
Great attitude to have for the Politburo I'm sure. Cardinal Richelieu. Jihadis of all sorts. The Spanish Inquisition (least you get offended I am picking on Jihadis) - No thanks.
The US does not have absolute free speech. No nation does and it is wrong to continue to claim that. What the US has is far fewer restrictions on speech relative to the rest of the world.
I'd rather have absolute free speech than self-interested dotards limiting my speech.
"Poor taste" is subjective. Drawing Mohammad should be legal, even if people don't have to like it. Terrorism in response is despicable no matter what speech occurred beforehand.
E2A: https://www.theonion.com/no-one-murdered-because-of-this-ima... (NSFW)
I disagree, because the slippery slope is VERY slippery here. Eating meat triggers the sensibility of some vegans, so does hunting, something isn't "in poor taste" just because it triggers.
No.
Nope. Fuck their customs and norms. Out here in the non-psychotic world, we also have "customs and norms". Those include not cutting facts out of our accounts of history, and not telling other people what they can say in general.
By the way, those exact same "customs and norms" also say that, although they can keep me from drawing some guy because it's offensive to them, I can't criticize a book that's full of literal, direct exhortations to kill a shit-ton of people, including me personally-- exhortations that have been and still are being acted upon throughout the book's history-- because questioning that book is also offensive to them. In addition to glorifying violence, that book also goes on for page after page denigrating other religions, by the way.
When you're prepared to systematically shun (at least) all Abrahamic scriptures and everybody who spreads them, along with all the other "false and illegitimate claims", and along with anything else that conflicts with anybody's "customs and norms", then you'll be in a self-consistent position. You'll still be wrong, but you'll at least be consistent. Ready to go there?
By the way, trying frame your position as something that every reasonable person obviously must already accept is a really pitiful rhetorical tactic.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
Sure, momentum builds. Sometimes. But the fallacy is proclaiming with 100% certainty both that the momentum will build, and the specific way it’s going to roll.
We don’t know the future. We can’t claim with certainty that something will happen as a result of another action. Claiming anything otherwise is falling right into the fallacy.
In the real world, there is rarely a single datapoint. In the case of religions demanding censorship, there is A LOT of data.
The fallacy is proclaiming that a specific chain of events will occur due to one action. Can it happen? Sure. Will it happen with 100% certainty? Of course not, so don't pretend like it will, regardless how many datapoints exist.
When you draw a trend line that goes down: Um sweety, that's a heckin fallacy.
> The fallacy is proclaiming that a specific chain of events will occur due to one action.
As I said myself and you rejected, the fallacy is asserting a trend from a single data point. I guess you just like hearing it in your own words more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia
Some countries used to block specific articles, but that's not possible anymore thanks to HTTPS. Local editors in such places are at risk of prosecution though.
There were a series of large scale terrorist attacks in Pakistan recently, with recent killing 101 people.
This has caused an extreme level of criticism of the government, and the government is trying desperately to find a way to do a diversion.
Ban on Wikipedia is a highly visible attempt to distract Pakistani literati class from security issues.
Nothing to do with religion
Why are people so eager to give the first of those religions a pass?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
God never talks to anyone directly - there's always some human who conveniently relays god's message. Usually an authority figure, like a parent or a priest. It's just a tactic they use to reinforce their authority and help them control other people.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Completely insane and delusional take on that conflict
Just because you paint me as "insane" does not invalidate any of these points.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...
> During the armed conflict in May, Israel committed apparent war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.2 According to the OHCHR and the WHO, 242 Palestinians were killed, including 63 children, and some 9,000 were injured. More than 74,000 Palestinians were displaced. According to the World Bank, the housing needs of 4,000 families, including 7,000 children, whose homes were damaged or destroyed had not been met by December.
> On 10 May, Israel bombed the seawater desalination plant in north Gaza, cutting water supplies to more than 250,000 people until it was temporarily repaired on 23 May.
> In the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli forces killed 75 and injured 14,679 Palestinians, according to the UN OCHA-OPT, some during arrests in Palestinian homes, others during protests that were mainly against Jewish Israeli settler activities.
> During the May conflict, Israel heavily restricted entry of trucks carrying humanitarian supplies. Only five fuel tankers were allowed to enter and no fuel was allowed through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom pipeline for Gaza’s power plant. Israel’s Erez passenger crossing remained closed. Around 600 patients could not receive treatment outside Gaza in May. Israel allowed 25,630 truckloads of construction material into Gaza, down from 45,359 in 2020.
> Palestinian prisoners were subjected to unfair trials before military courts, prolonged solitary confinement and inadequate medical treatment, and illegal transfer from the OPT to prisons in Israel. According to Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner support organization, 500 were administratively detained without charge or trial at the end of 2021, and 170 children were incarcerated. A survey by Save the Children found that officers beat over 80% of child detainees, and denied access to a lawyer to 47%.
> Israel’s system of governing Palestinians through oppression and domination constituted apartheid, a crime under international law. Palestinians faced routine and systematic discrimination, and therefore human rights violations, in the context of their rights to nationality, freedom of movement, the highest attainable standard of health, family life, education, work and participation in public life.
> Divorce and other personal status laws governed by religious courts continued to discriminate against women. According to Mavoi Satum, an Israeli women’s rights organization, courts forced some 1,700 women to remain in abusive marriages every year.
> Israel purchased some 30 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines and vaccinated 64% of citizens of Israel, residents of East Jerusalem, migrant workers and Palestinian prisoners with two doses by October; administered third doses to more than 4 million citizens; and started vaccinating five-year-olds in November, according to Israel’s health ministry. Israel transferred 5,000 doses to the Palestinian Authority in March and April, while it had sent thousands of doses to diplomatic allies Guatemala, Honduras and the Czech Republic in February, according to press reports.
seriously what could go wrong in that country if the content is not blocked?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Internet_censorship_b...
As for Wikipedia I know it's not a business, but the above logic of countries controlling access of content applies here. It's not the first time or first country censoring Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia
I think we need to understand the main cause behind all this. One thing we need to understand more which is not the cause but symptom the right & left wing populism across world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_populism
The UK would like to politely dissagree.