YouTube disrupted in Pakistan as former PM Khan streams speech

https://netblocks.org/reports/youtube-disrupted-in-pakistan-as-former-pm-khan-streams-speech-XADMq6Bg

by xbmcuser • 4 years ago

233 210 4 years ago

jbirer• 4 years ago

The damage control by the Pakistani army is pretty crazy right now. Pakistan is on the verge of devolving into mass riots as Imran Khan has a massive fanbase.

chamanbuga• 4 years ago

It certainly looks like this from the outside. The establishment has always kept control over Pakistan even when such social change was in the air. I expect the same to happen. Also I'm expecting IK to start dialling it back given the recent riots.

spaceman_20203• 4 years ago

Are you in Pakistan? What are things on the ground like?

Arresting IK right now would be national harakiri. Surely they’re not going to do that?

walrus014• 4 years ago

For those people who haven't studied Pakistan extensively, the army has always run things, the politicians are just the thin veneer of pretense at democracy as a public face.

The Army and the military forces in general are the people who really control the country.

Pakistan makes a public show of having a parliamentary democracy with elected MPs and such but it's all a farce.

Doesn't particularly matter whether Bhutto, Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan or anyone else.

m00dy• 4 years ago

"the army has always run things"

sounds like Turkia but like 40 years ago

quadrifoliate• 4 years ago

Well from time to time they make it pretty explicit too – like under Ayub Khan, Zia-ul-Haq, or Musharraf. About 30-odd of Pakistan's 75 years as an independent country have been explicitly under military dictatorships.

johnyzee• 4 years ago

To be fair, they do have "a parliamentary democracy with elected MPs". It's just that those elected MPs have some fairly strict limits on what they are allowed to govern (anything that does not involve the military, which in Pakistan is not a lot).

Of course it doesn't help that the elected MPs have almost exclusively belonged to the same class of robber barons, Imran Khan being one notable exception.

Pakistan actually has a pretty vibrant and critical media, in contrast to (other) military dictatorships. They have a lot of great political satire (that, again, stops short of criticizing the military).

namaria2• 4 years ago

American programs of "war on drugs" and "war on terror" has done a great job of making sure most of their client states are run by beefed up security forces behind a thin veneer of democracy.

bhedgeoser2• 4 years ago

How's that different for USA? Do you believe Biden has power?

hadlock• 4 years ago

Also, Khan made the mistake of signing a weapons deal with russia, I think literally 24 hours before Russia invaded ukraine. Within a week he was pushed out of power despite being wildly popular both domestically and internationally. It's not provable, but sure looks like a Very Popular politician being ousted via fast was regime change and he was being made an example to other leaders looking to make unapproved arms deals. I can't make any claims but if you look closely at what happened, the timing, it does not look great.

bfuller3• 4 years ago

I would argue that it does matter because the will of the masses is an extraordinarily powerful force and provoking them by ousting someone universally loved like Khan (heck I am a huge Khan fan and wish we had politicians like that in the USA!) can cause huge societal waves.

But I do agree with you, having the pleasure to know some upper class Pakistanis, that the military is the basis of the government.

edgyquant2• 4 years ago

My hunch is that the real geopolitical upheaval of the next 50-100 years will be post-decolonization. A number of these nations were thrown together by a completely foreign power not just with an interest in splitting countries up or grouping them together but doing so in a way that prevents them becoming a peer level opponent.

pphysch8• 4 years ago

50-100 years is quite a long time; it's already happening at an accelerating rate. Washington is rapidly losing its foothold in Latin America and SEA, France is losing West Africa. The West is in an unprecedented crisis right now and will be unable to compete with the next gen foreign policies coming out of China, Russia, and the many other "enemy states".

robocat2• 4 years ago

splitting countries up or grouping them together [] in a way that prevents them becoming a peer level opponent.

Any links to research that shows (a) this was the intent, and (b) shows that it works?

Aren’t there plenty of counterexamples to that thesis (null hypothesis), of more homogeneous nations or island nations where countries haven’t become “first world”. Even the USA is rooted in non-homogeneous immigration.

spaceman_20203• 4 years ago

You’re 100% right.

Democracies are going to collapse in a lot of places because the people in these places never really wanted democracy or even cared much for it. They were just handed it down because the people the colonizers left in charge were born and bred within the colonizer’s own political systems.

jollybean5• 4 years ago

N1) no, that phase mostly already happened.

It's what took place after WW2 and was the battle ground for the cold war.

That's a little bit Pakistan can into existence in the first place.

Singapore, Jamaica, heck, even Canada made it's own constitution. Most of Africa (both sub saharan and north saharan), much of the Middle East. Huge portion of the world map.

2) This 'Colonials set everything pit one group against the other' is also wrong. Obviously, there were favourites and artifacts of that, but for the most part, left to their own devices, it would still be tribal chaos in most places.

The presupposition in that anti-colonial statment is that somehow, before foreign intervention, things worked in some meaningful way. In most places, it did not, and, there were previous colonial/external interventions. i.e. Ottoman Empire ruled over much of the Middle East ruthlessly, previous Islamic Caliphates were all over NE Africa with the slave trade for many centuries etc. etc..

Relatively few places are like 'Thailand' with a fairly coherent history.

rajeshp1986• 4 years ago

Absolutely, the neighbor Afghanistan is an example. US tried so hard to enforce democracy but in the end it didn't work. Western Media might say it was unplanned and chaotic evacuation by US but large swath of population supported Taliban and welcomed them.

user3939382• 4 years ago

The story I heard on this is that the US "asked" Khan to play ball on Ukraine/anti-Russia and he basically said no, came out with a statement like "Are we your slaves?" https://www.ibtimes.com/are-we-your-slaves-pakistans-khan-sl... and about 2 weeks later he was removed from office. There's no concrete evidence the US was connected to regime change here but it sure looks that way and it wouldn't be the first time.

guelo5• 4 years ago

At some point Pakistanis are going to have to open their eyes to how their politicians use the US as a convenient excuse to blame for all their problems.

lifeplusplus3• 4 years ago

not an excuse if it's probably true.. same thing happened when Iraq was invaded, Bush famously said you are either with us or against us

selimthegrim8• 4 years ago

Ukraine was actually pro-Pakistan on the Kashmir issue and sold them battle tanks. He needs to fire whoever in the Foreign Office advised him to do this.

ShivShankaran5• 4 years ago

is this true? I would like to read more about it.

lsllc• 4 years ago

Heh, "play ball" -- I see what you did there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imran_Khan#Cricket_career

CommanderData• 4 years ago

It stinks of interference and that's a pretty big statement to make. No surprises if he's pissed off a few.

tibbydudeza2• 4 years ago

Much like in Egypt (bye bye to the Muslim Brotherhood aligned democratically elected PM) the army in Pakistan get a lot of US $$$ "assistance".

monetus2• 4 years ago

Didn't morsi try to dissolve the judiciary?

alpha_squared• 4 years ago

Egyptian here, hello.

Some pretty big quotes should surround "democratically". Also, the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to enact constitutional Sharia Law, something unfavorable even amongst the Muslim-majority populace. If we're going to cherry-pick Egypt as an example here, would be nice to provide the whole picture of what went down (which this comment certainly isn't).

tenpies• 4 years ago

Khan is definitely not an American puppet, but I don't think the Biden administration has any grip on Pakistan at this time compared to before. In that region, Biden surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban, but they also effectively surrendered Pakistan to China some time ago. Pakistan is much more aligned with the BRICS, although they will gladly entertain the US for funding/weapons without delivering anything.

That said, if one is suspicious of American technology being weaponized for foreign policy, then Poland will be the place to watch next year. The Biden administration has every clearly told Poland they want a regime change. The EU is also on board.

fatherzine• 4 years ago

US has plenty of power to enact regime change, ie destabilize entire countries and/or regions. What the US manifestly lacks is power to bring up a decent replacement regime to provide order around a set of resonant moral values. And so chaos slowly engulfs the world as the sun sets over the American Empire. Chaos age, until the next Empire.

ShivShankaran5• 4 years ago

It was absolutely this. US funds the pakistan army and a high level meeting happened where they threatened to pull out funds if they didnt dispose off Khan.

We have a saying that most countries have an army but in Pakistan the army has a country.

Gaddafi was killed and his sons were murdered in front of him because he threatened petro dollar. before that he was given red carpet in france and even camped in sarcozy lawn.

now Russia and China threaten the petro dollar and I am worried what the US is going to do.

selimthegrim8• 4 years ago

Sitting in India (presumably) what evidence have you got for this?

throw_m2393393• 4 years ago

Gaddafi was killed and his sons were murdered in front of him because he threatened petro dollar. before that he was given red carpet in france and even camped in sarcozy lawn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_Libyan_financing_in_th...

Sarkozy got rid of an inconvenient witness... (the former french president has been indicted for a series of financial crimes related to Libya since).

asdajksah21232• 4 years ago

That's the propaganda Khan, who was extremely unpopular with both the army and the public, was pushing.

The real reason his PM career was untenable was because (a) he pissed off the Pakistani military by threatening to unilaterally replace the military leader, whose support was the only reason he became PM in the first place, and (b) his party appointed some virtual unknown and definite incompetent (who was a friend of his wife's) as the leader of the Punjab province which has over 50% of the population of Pakistan.

His latter action also angered members of his own party and members of his alliance that saw their own political careers threatened because he took such politically poor actions with half the country's population.

Finally, what would have been astonishing is if Imran Khan (or anyone for that matter), would have completed his term. He would have been the first PM to do so in Pakistan's history.

It really doesn't require a conspiracy theory centered around America to explain something that is the norm in Pakistan.

kache_• 4 years ago

This information is true

MichaelCollins• 4 years ago

Khan, who was extremely unpopular with both the army and the public,

If everybody hates him, then censoring him is pointless. I don't know anything about any of these people or parties but what you're saying doesn't pass my sniff test.

waqasx2• 4 years ago

That is completely untrue. His party has won all elections by landslide since he was removed in this regime change. [https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/22/asia/pakistan-imran-khan-anti...]

_em_• 4 years ago

>> who was extremely unpopular with both the army and the public

Bro, if you want to lie, at least lie at something which can’t be countered by other sources.

Among all the leaders atm, khan is the most popular one. Ever since he was ousted, he has been calling rallies and people are coming out for him. He has pulled biggest crowd in pakistan history. All can be seen on YouTube.

I can’t even read rest of your comment given that I already know that either you are very disconnected from reality or you have some other motive to discredit khan.

renewiltord2• 4 years ago

This is at least partly true. Pakistan is mostly ruled by the military so keeping them happy is important. That's the actual power centre there.

Prime Ministers of Pakistan don't usually manage to serve out their term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Pak...

isr5• 4 years ago

I know this kind of reply may trigger a harsh response from HN mods, but this really needs to be said.

You are lying through your teeth.

The plain facts, in no particular order:

1. Imran Khan's party had much larger support in 2013 elections, and that support was suppressed via election rigging. Its impossible to really say wether he would won an outright majority then (probably not), but who knows

2. In 2018, there was massive rigging to ensure that Imran Khan would NOT win an outright parliamentary majority. This was admitted to, PLAIN AS DAY, by one of the crooks who is currently "defence minister" (what a joke). He openly and plainly admitted that he was losing during the count in his constiuency, he picked up the phone and complained to the army chief, and lo and behold - the remaining count miracoulusly went in his favour.

Multiple other examples like this. THE ONLY REASON that the previous opposition were complaining about rigging is because, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY, they were handicapped in rigging in their own favour,in their own localities.

3. Imran Khan was extremely unpopular with the public?

Complete hogwash. BEFORE HE EVEN MENTIONED THE US INVOLVEMENT, he held a number of political rallies, in the last week of his premiership. One such rally resulted in A MILLION PEOPLE coming to Islamabad.

A MILLION NEW CELL PHONE NUMBERS were registered in the Islamabad area by telco's during that weekend

So there goes your entire narrative that you were trying to falsely push.

abdullahkhalids2• 4 years ago

We will never know the truth. But it has to be said that the opposition parties that brought about the vote of no-confidence had tried to muster the strength to do so a year prior and failed. They had restarted to talk about a No-confidence vote months before the Ukraine/Russia war and had started to slowly form the alliance to do so [1].

[1] Jan 13 https://www.dawn.com/news/1669107 The vote happened early April

paxys• 4 years ago

Third world countries blame "US/CIA interference" for their domestic problems so often I wish we were really that competent in projecting power across the world.

Do people really think western powers care that much about Imran Khan's opinion on Russia-Ukraine to pull off a regime change in one of the largest and most unstable countries (that too with nuclear weapons) in the world? It's a tactic for such politicians and countries to make themselves feel more important on the global stage, nothing more.

Pakistan has always been run by its military. Politicians who get out of line quickly get deposed/exiled/assassinated. There is nothing new or surprising with the latest development.

serial_dev• 4 years ago

It's because US interference is actually pretty common.

Here is Wikipedia on this topic, which is actually one of the more "US intelligence friendly" sources out there: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in... This list is endless and shocking.

Pakistan is a big and important country, so their position is actually important. Furthermore, for any empire, it's vital that it gets other smaller countries in line, even if the small country's position would be irrelevant.

The way I see it is that most countries' leaders will always be both popular and unpopular in a significant portion of the country so it is always possible to frame a revolution/coup/insurgence as either a great thing or a bad thing.

I don't know what happened in this case, and in complicated scenarios like these, there are always many factors and forces at play, but it's certainly not unreasonable to think that foreign powers gave a little push in order to see the outcome they wanted in the region.

gautamdivgi• 4 years ago

How much sway does the US have in Pakistan today? They are aligned economically and militarily with China. It’s an honest question. I know US bashing is popular but didn’t Pakistan align with China to move out of the US sphere of influence?

chihuahua• 4 years ago

I think if the U.S. had any influence in Pakistan, they would have used it before 2021 to stop the incessant support by Pakistan for the Taliban in Afghanistan. And they would have also used it to have Pakistan hand over bin Laden who was being sheltered in Abbotabad, within walking distance of a Pakistani military academy. If the U.S. government got zero cooperation from the Pakistani government in those areas, I doubt they have the influence to get rid of the prime minister over some insignificant matter like whatever Khan did.

addicted3• 4 years ago

The most hilarious thing is that a conspiracy theory that Imran Khan created days before he was ousted with absolutely no evidence at all is supposed to be given any value because he lost a no confidence vote. Like every other predecessor in the history of the country.

The reality is that Imran Khan had been anti-USA for years before that. If the U.S. was so worried about Pakistan they would maybe have done something in the year prior where he was eating against the US for his political support.

That whar he’s been doing for half a decade. It makes literally no sense at all.

cato_the_elder• 4 years ago

This class of disruption can be worked around using VPN services, which are able to circumvent government internet censorship measures.

Well, here's something for people who insist all VPN services are a "scam". VPNs play an important role by circumventing censorship in countries with more network level internet censorship.

yieldcrv• 4 years ago

That's.... not what people criticizing VPNs are referring to.

VPN's privacy claims are a scam. Reselling their own internet connection works, but advertising it that way doesn't.

The customer has no way of having any assurance of a privacy claim, and even past assurances can change at any time, and even if active monitoring or surveillance wasn't being done by the VPN provider, their data center, a third party along the way or the government, the VPN provider would still respond to a court order from the government undermining your privacy. Thats the part people call a scam.

Changing your reported location has nothing to do with that.

skinnymuch3• 4 years ago

Are you in tech? People have specific reasons for VPN issues. What you’re referring to is not something people have an issue with.

mercy_dude6• 4 years ago

Pakistan is a classic case of what moral bankruptcy looks like when you harbour terror just so you can hurt your neighbours. For decades, they allowed terror camps and bases because it would hurt India and in the process military was under supreme control of the state. All along, US supported them because a) they were always suspicious of India being a Russian ally and b) they somehow thought by some crazy logic that Pakistan is going to be their ally in war on terror.

But then the snake they were growing in the backyard with the hope of hurting their neighbours started biting them. First the collapse in Afghanistan and then decade long war on terror followed by economic stagnation coupled with corruption at the military led the mass to basically become completely robbed.

This is the populous that somehow thought India is their arch enemy and their leaders are all on their side because the state religion Islam was used as a tool. Ya I don’t have much sympathy for them.

helixfelix• 4 years ago

Lets not pretend that there is only a single guilty party here. No doubt pakistan tried to control mujahideen to fight their proxy wars. Just like Indian intelligence has funded the Balochistan insurgency inside Pakistan. This of course all started with US asking Pakistan to setup these mujahideen to counter Russia in 1980.

mercy_dude6• 4 years ago

This is a false equivalency. The extent to which Pakistan used its military apparatus to train militias and other terrorist organizations is unparalleled. There is a reason Osama Bin Laden found a safe heaven.

This is the what aboutism that most politicians toy with when they want to fool the public. But like I said this is a populous that are truly detached and delusional. They brought it on themselves.

kumarvvr• 4 years ago

Yeah no. Pakistan has always used terror as a weapon, in various ways, from the moment it was split from India.

Setting up of the mujahideen gave a semi legitimate veneer to its activities and a funnel for money.

skinnymuch3• 4 years ago

This commentary is pretending the US had any legit reasons for supporting the corruption and evilness beyond America’s own immediate power hungry thinking.

throwawaylinux• 4 years ago

military was under supreme control of the state

Many would argue the military should be under supreme control of the state. Do you mean the state was under supreme control of the military (i.e., when Pakistan was under military rule)?

dirtybird04• 4 years ago

You're not wrong about things as they stand.

However, you do conveniently leave out that it was the US toppling the Shah of Iran that resulted in a religious wave taking over the whole region. And it was the US, again, that armed and trained everyone in Afghanistan to the teeth to help them fight the commies. And it was the US, yet once again, that just bailed as soon as USSR collapsed, leaving a massive power vacuum in the Afghanistan, which led to the Taliban takeover.

Pakistani army merely tried to use that power vacuum to their advantage. And it failed miserably, might I add. The army has gotten used to the boatload of USDs for being an war ally, but all the US hatred now is creating fractions within it.

My point is, every country plays this game, and they all play it dirty. Why assign moral bankruptcy to a minor player while completely overlooking the major player that's stirring all the global shitstorms?

JumpCrisscross2• 4 years ago

the US toppling the Shah of Iran that resulted in a religious wave taking over the whole region

If we're looking for a founding mistake, it's probably the British (and French) betraying the Hashemite king [1][2][3], thereby permitting Wahhabism to take hold. That and the absence of a Marshall Plan for the post-WWII de-colonised world.

every country plays this game, and they all play it dirty

The Mujahideen plotted attacks on Soviet military targets in Afghanistan. They're analogous to the Taliban post invasion. To my knowledge, the U.S. wasn't knowingly supporting terrorism in e.g. Moscow the way the ISI has supported militants striking Bombay.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashemites#World_War_I_and_the...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Revolt

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon–Hussein_Correspondence

mercy_dude6• 4 years ago

I don’t think you understand geopolitics in that part of the world. Shia dominated Iran has very little influence on Sunni Pakistan. As far as I can recall, Pakistan always had their entire existence centred around anti-India perspective, the war they fought with India over Kashmir in 65 and then over Bangladesh in 71 predates the shah movement. Soms of their most fanatic military leaders were actually before the 71 war.

Every country plays games but not in a self destructive manner. If Pakistani leadership had any sense and if their people were not always fooled by thinking that their leaders are leading a jihad and protecting Islam, they would have realized focusing your entire foreign and economic policy based on the geopolitical rivalry over a piece of land that has less than 1% of total GDP is not a good cause.

Just wait till they have a balance of payment problem. Their reserves are drying up too all because of these stupid economic policies. Instead of doing trade deals with your closest neighbour and one of the largest economic powers, they actively sabotage any economic influence. These people are really stupid.

jollybean5• 4 years ago

" you do conveniently leave out that it was the US toppling the Shah of Iran that resulted in a religious wave taking over the whole region. A"

The USA supported the Shah, and that's not 'what caused something else'.

Topping Mossadegh was not exactly a democratic move, but the Shah was, and still would be, better than any alternative.

The US supports worse people in Kuwait and Qatar - and at least from a geo/p perspective, it works.

Afghanistan is 100% the 'fault' of Communists. By the 1960's they were a poor backwards country, but not overrun with insanity. This '100's of years of occupation' is rubbish. The British left a long time ago. Young Communists failed in their democratic efforts but were stopped. They tried to overthrow government and failed, and then invited the Soviets in. American intervention during the 1970's was decisive, yes, but very limited. They didn't 'train' zillions of soldiers. It was a few soldiers and a few stinger missiles.

So after mass political chaos, yes, 'thugs' took over, like anywhere else.

As we can see from US 2003 intervention, which didn't result in an ongoing functioning state, what power on earth is going to change that equation? Afghanistan was a bit more like the other 'stans' around it until the Global Communist Insurrections of the 20th century.

The same thing in Chile. A fairy radical communist took over, was popular at the start, introduced some arguably needed reforms but then went way, way overboard. With only 30% of the vote he tried to overule parliament and the judiciary, crashed the economy and was well on his way to being a dictator. Western forces intervened and supported the 'other side' aka Pinochet, who was 'bad'. But on the whole probably not as bad as the alternative. Given the choice between Allende (Stalin-ish) and Pinochet (Putin-ish) the later was probably preferable, and 50 years later it's working out really well.

Arguably the same can even be said about the Shah vs. Mossadegh.

US supported not exactly the nicest people in both S. Korea and in S. Vietnam. We know how S. Korea worked out, and we know how S. Vietnam worked out: thousands executed, 100's of thousands in concentration camps many of whom died. Ruthless (albeit peaceful) authoritarianism to this day.

And with Egypt. US props up the secular Army, which keeps mostly 'hands off' with politics but is the ultimate power there, and that means Egypt is at least 'coherent' and not fully at war with Israel etc..

This assessment of a 'single country stirring the shitstorms' is glib. The world would be a complete shitstorm - or - have been taken over by absolutely ruthless players, were not for US/West, now include S. Korea and Japan in there. It's not all 'hunky dory' obviously, but in 50 years, Saudi Women will have many more rights and it won't come at the cost of total regional war between Israel/Egypt, Saudi/Iran etc. etc..

bfuller3• 4 years ago

I advise you to sit down and have a serious conversation with some Pakistani people. I don't entirely disagree with you but there are some glaringly ignorant statements that seem to stem from a lack of experience with the actual cultural experience in Pakistan.

neosat• 4 years ago

would you care to point out at least one "glaringly ignorant statement" backed by a fact that shows it is glaringly ignorant?

curious_cat_163• 4 years ago

This is not the first time that the powers that be in Pakistan are trying to pull this gimmick. The last time they tried (and failed) resulted in a massive BGP blackhole:

https://www.wired.com/2008/02/pakistans-accid/

(edited)

malshe• 4 years ago

This WSJ article (no paywall) explains the current developments there. I had no idea things are so bad. The inflation is at 42%! https://www.wsj.com/articles/ousted-pakistan-prime-minister-...

throwaways85989• 4 years ago

They are also out of foreign currency like Sri Lanka. Which accelerates chinas problems, as pakistan is one of its debtors and will likely default on those credits.

somedude895• 4 years ago

I'm sure China will see this as an opportunity as Pakistan hands over some of its BRI infrastructure: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambantota_International_Por...

efitz2• 4 years ago

I think the thing that makes me most sad about the internet is how susceptible it is to control and censorship.

Back in the early 90s we were all about PGP and anonymous remailers and we’ve let the forces of government and big business slowly nullify every mitigation we’ve tried.

As technologists we haven’t used our positions on technical standards boards, etc., to force protocols that would preserve freedom by not providing the capabilities needed for control.

So now I guess we’re just supplicants on the internet we created.

spacemark• 4 years ago

I think you overestimate how much control we technologists actually have. Takes far more than a few seats on some standards boards.

ajsnigrutin• 4 years ago

In the 90s, you had a few people on the internet, who knew all that stuff, but because the internet was "hard", they (we?) represented the majority of internet users.

Now, they/we are all still here, knowing all the ways of private communications, protocols, etc. + all the new, better ways to communicate privately and securely.

The only difference now is, that a few billions of "normal people" joined us online, and they don't know and don't care about all that, so the propaganda just moved from TV to facebook and youtube.

jasonfarnon• 4 years ago

I think the real difference is those same 90's Internet users actually have a lot of power right now, and it's become too hard to cede that. It's easy to argue that power should be distributed when you don't think you have much of a stake in it, a little harder when you command a huge chunk of the national economy and culture. I doubt it's because of the Internet's barrier to entry back then. Are you supposing the ability to set up a SLIP/PPP script is associated with some kind of sensitivity to power imbalances?

ComplexSystems• 4 years ago

"...we’ve let the forces of government and big business slowly nullify every mitigation we’ve tried"

Who is "we?" The Pakistani government is unilaterally doing this. Surely you don't mean the Pakistani people?

DiggyJohnson2• 4 years ago

I think they definite it “we as technologists”. So technologists then and now. I don’t see you you would end up with your interpretation, whether you agree with GP or not.

neilv• 4 years ago

Even in the early '90s, there was already suspicion of remailers. (Not only among cypherpunks-types; for example, I vaguely recall some relatively mainstream outlet, maybe Michael O'Brien in SunExpert magazine, saying to be skeptical of new anon services.)

hackernewds• 4 years ago

If anything due to monopolies like YouTube, it's EASIER to restrict access. we have to begin decentralizing compute power

_carbyau_• 4 years ago

There are smartphones in so many hands around the world and you want to decentralise compute power?

Need to USE that power already there.

InCityDreams• 4 years ago

How is youtube a monopoly?

tialaramex2• 4 years ago

I think the thing that makes me most sad about the internet is how susceptible it is to control and censorship.

To prevent their citizens from listening to one man giving a speech, Pakistan needed to organise blocking all access from ordinary customers to the entire Youtube platform.

That's the smallest thing which works. And your reaction is you are sad because of "how susceptible it is to control and censorship" ?

What if Khan instead wrote a letter to a newspaper? Government can just tear up the letter, and tell the newspaper not to publish it - no need to shut every newsagent and corner store in the whole country. Or if he wrote a book? Government just orders the book pulped, there's no need to shut libraries and close every bookstore.

The minimum effective action was to completely cut off their country from this invaluable resource, loads of Pakistanis who had no intention of viewing the speech are now aware because their favourite clip of a guy getting kicked in the nuts was blocked, or the pop video they liked, or a defence of their preferred way to make a common snack. "Hey, why doesn't Youtube work?" "Oh the government are censoring Khan".

nwiswell• 4 years ago

Just because Pakistan is ham-handedly Streisanding Khan doesn't mean other countries (like China) don't have this down to a science.

sitkack• 4 years ago

Should have simulcast that speech over webtorrent.

tarakat• 4 years ago

Meanwhile if Youtube/Google decide to downrank something into oblivion, nobody will know, and proving it is near-impossible.

A foreign corporation has more control over speech in Pakistan than Pakistan itself.

BrainVirus• 4 years ago

I love how this perfectly reasonable observation gets replies that deny it and simultaneously contradict one another. Somehow no one cares. Different replies are claiming that there is no problem, that the problem could be solved only if more users were technical, and that the problem cannot be solved by technologists at all. So, which one is it?

Barrin92• 4 years ago

As technologists we haven’t used our positions on technical standards boards, etc., to force protocols that would preserve freedom

there's no such thing because it's in the very nature of protocols to enable legibility and automation which always benefits centralization. (see James Scott, Seeing like a State). The internet, book-printing, even 'crypto', whatever you pick that sounds superficially decentralizing is in actuality re-centralizing because it enables more powerful administration and as such higher forms of organization.

bergenty• 4 years ago

I’m going to get pushback but the far right has really made it easy for the common person to look away. All that hate has made it easy to get the general public to not care when privacy is being taken away. They always ruin everything.

fomine3• 4 years ago

I wonder what if ESNI was invented at around 2010, perhaps before Xi regime.

hulitu• 4 years ago

I think the thing that makes me most sad about the internet is how susceptible it is to control and censorship.
So now I guess we’re just supplicants on the internet we created.

Internet was created by DARPA (the military).

It is now used as a weapon to spread disinformation.

renewiltord2• 4 years ago

Militarizing this country and supporting it as much as the US did definitely already paid negative returns. The geopoliticists in Washington are not particularly competent. It certainly looks like their actions in this region are net negative.

If they were a company, it would have folded from bad decision making.

keepquestioning• 4 years ago

How likely is Pakistan to fail?

They have nukes.

ShivShankaran5• 4 years ago

YouTube disrupted in Pakistan as former PM Khan streams speech

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