Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46995800

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

> The most compelling reason I've read so far is that because the US sells weapons to Israel, though I think there's some good reasons to sell weapons too so it's not all negative.

Some of it is also memetic: a couple of decades ago Tibet was the cause celebre, after that it was Darfur and recall Kony 2012. Issues become important because there's active conflict and human cost, and then people discuss the issues that are getting discussed. And then sometimes those become signifiers for larger issues, e.g. anti-system politics as whole, liberal hopes, or conservative culture wars.

I think private individuals and even civil society organizations, no matter how noxious or loud they can be, have a right to have specific passions without being expected to be universalist in application or having to account for why. Particularly when it comes down to the individual, people have a right to say, I find this cause very moving for whatever reason and I don't think then there's an obligation to answer for everything else going on in the world. Especially outside of governments, international organizations, and civil society groups that claim to be universalist in their cause. If anything we should be glad people have passions outside their narrow world.

I believe that as a general principle, but also because in practice that criticism tends to get waged, dare I say weaponized, against particular causes. I don't tend to see people focused on Somalia, Haiti, or Cuba being denigrated for not caring about Iran. I don't see people shouting down advocates for Christians in Nigeria over supposed silence on the Rohingya. I think its punitive for believing in a cause, generally specific causes, rather than about integrity.

I would venture to guess you can also find ample examples across the world, and that selectivity is simply a part of human nature rather than some defect of western psyche.

By the same precedent, it opens up Iranian human rights activists to the same endless accusations — when were you vocal on M23, Haiti, Kashmir, Kurds, Muslims in India, etc etc. I don't think it's countless silent organizations, and those organizations or activists are generally not in position to be able to influence the IRI or IRGC.

I think you have distinguish between feckless organizations like the ITU, and say, college student campus activists.

Censorship, throttling, and (presumably) surveillance occurs at both layers. In some cases, also the region matters (Sistan and Baluchistan for example have experienced extended blackouts). In part that heterogeneity is because they still ideally want to keep businesses or VIPs online to mitigate the economic loss or logistical issues.

Consequently, the actual means of blocking tends to be on an ISP basis: some will simply drop packets, some will have left certain endpoints open, some will leave international DNS open, etc etc. All that changes when activists notice, exploit the opening, and then the ISP finds out. And then sometimes the TIC (the gateway) will impose blanket limitations or throttling.

My impression is that Iranian intelligence cares less about means than effectiveness, and ISP operators want to keep their license, livelihoods and lives, so they figure out how to meet the mandate. Given that this is something like the fourth blackout in recent years, they've gotten enough practice that there's few options out (that aren't Starlink).

Setting aside whether age verification is desirable or a net benefit, some of the discourse is colored by folks that want to make it as painful and controversial as possible so they don’t have to do it.

[1] https://americarenewing.com/issues/identity-on-the-internet-...

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43638616

Points: 48

# Comments: 15

But your point about support — eg reversibility and fraud prevention — is very valid. Credit cards aren’t merely transactions in databases, but a set of customers and services.