Venezuela: Chavez equates Twitter with terrorism | Hacker News Reader

Venezuela: Chavez equates Twitter with terrorism

boingboing.net

31 pointscwan34 comments

First it was bush as satan now twitter with terrorism? Everyone wants state control of the internet but the people who actually run the internet know it is difficult to have an international network under state control.

The funny thing is that many people were sympathetic with Chavez just because he was critical of George Bush.

> The funny thing is that many people were sympathetic with Chavez just because he was critical of George Bush.

That's not all of it. Many in the US just seem to like South American populists. Che, Castro, the Sandinistas, Shining Path (until well after it was clear that they were murderous thugs) - If you're a South American collectivist, you're popular with US "internationalists" until well after you've proven to be a murderous thug, and sometimes not even then.

Can anyone fill me in a little political leanings/background of semana.com (the source of the story)?

It's a Columbian magazine, but that's about all I know.

In Latin America, the probability that a publication is left-leaning is slim. Except in Cuba, of course.

Are you serious?

In Venezuela, Chavez is nationalizing everything that shows a dissent voice.

In Brazil, it's a widely known fact that the government is using public companies' advertising budget to exert control over media outlets. Newspapers and TV stations that are pro-government "happen" to get the larger piece of the pie.

Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua - all populist, "left-leaning" governments. All of their leaders would like to follow Chavez steps.

The only exceptions would be Chile and Colombia.

Yes, I am.

There are populist and leftist governments in many countries, but the media is quite conservative. So Chavez is raving mad and closes everything he doesn't like is supposed to be proof that the media is lefist?

The Brazilian dictatorship closed TV Excelsior which was owned by a billionaire; does that mean the military were lefists? I don't see your point.

The Brazilian government is systematically criticized by the largest media companies; that is undeniable.

> So Chavez is raving mad and closes everything he doesn't like is supposed to be proof that the media is leftist?

Yes. Any sufficiently smart person would realize that the media outlets that remain on the air after Chavez' frenzy are the ones that are working aligned with the Government interests.

> The Brazilian dictatorship (...) does that mean the military were lefists?

No, it means that they were both authoritarian and anti-democratic, and that neither respect the press as an institution. Instead of letting the press do its job, i.e, report the facts to the general population, the want the press to work in their favor, brainwashing everyone and letting them run the country unquestioned.

> The Brazilian government is systematically criticized by the largest media companies; that is undeniable.

This is rather naive. Of course there will be "criticism". But that is independent of being left- or right-leaning governments.

The important part to think about: is the criticism unwarranted? Is it incorrect? Do the news outlets actually go deep in questions that might show the government errors? Did any part of the media fabricated accusations? Do you think all the corruption scandals were invented by the big media conglomerates?

>Yes. Any sufficiently smart person would realize that the media outlets that remain on the air after Chavez' frenzy are the ones that are working aligned with the Government interests.

This is just false. Much of the Venezuelan media is extremely hostile to Chavez. He has closed some of it down, and bullied the rest, but there are still many media organizations operating that are highly critical of him.

I would say that it is incorrect, yes, or at least incomplete. You never see any numbers when social programs are criticized. The NY Times or The Economist would give numbers, make comparisons and give some historic context.You just don't see that in most of the Brazilian media. Social spending is always portrayed as too expensive and patronizing. Now, if a state government has to come up with a billion dollars to woo in a new enterprise, that's alright and doesn't even require a second thought.

>In Venezuela, Chavez is nationalizing everything that shows a dissent voice.

Although, one has to wonder how (say) CNN would be treated in the US if it openly supported a coup against Obama.

Politics is tricky, and different countries really are different. No one in this fight is clean. In 1992 Chavez led a failed coup against the government and was imprisoned. In the US he'd have been barred from public office, if not tried and executed for treason.

Sure, I'm no fan of Chavez, but I think you have to consider the context of the censorship. It's difficult to imagine any government failing to censor media so openly hostile to it. I am not in favor of censorship even in these cases, but it's a bit naive to lambast Chavez for this, as if the same thing wouldn't happen in the US or other countries under similar circumstances.

(No doubt there are plenty of other things Chavez can legitimately be lambasted for.)

Are you familiar with Fox News, here in the US?

Yes, I live in the US. I haven't seen Fox support any attempted coups against Obama yet.

This sounds a little bit like equivocation to me.

CNN would not be closed.

We've already ran this experiment. It was called the civil war. For years before the start of conflict news agencies all over the country either called for succession, violent revolt, or the use of force to bring the South into submission.

Freedom of the press is a pretty serious thing here. Even when the press says some outrageous things. This freedom is required in order for the democracy to learn from its mistakes.

Chavez is a petty thug, using leftist principles in a thinly-veiled attempt to completely control his country. The people of Venezuela deserve better.

>This sounds a little bit like equivocation to me.

Are you sure you know what that word means?

>We've already ran this experiment. It was called the civil war

I don't think what happened to newspapers during the civil war is a very reliable guide to what would happen now to CNN.

Chavez is not left leaning. He is just a dictator that justifies his actions in the name of the people.

How is he not "left leaning"? Is this a case of no true scotsman?

IMHO many leftist have noble intentions to help the people. However many dictators specially in LA only use the left ideals to manipulate the people and gain power. But you can see in their actions that they don't care about the people at all. That is why you need to differentiate between a person with left ideals and a dictator dressed on left colors.

If you define an ideological position as "something that can't have negative impacts", then I guess the Soviets weren't left-leaning either.

They have a page with their history (http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoHistoria.aspx) that says that they started in 1946 aiming to "create a new independent magazine with no political colours, in order to fill the analysis void left by the newspapers, which are too busy with the day-to-day news".

They were closed in 1961 because they put Fidel Castro on the cover, and reopened in 1983.

I'll stay neutral on this one and let you decide what they are...

An illiterate clown with an oprah-wannabe frustration in charge of distracting the populace, while a band of thieves ransack and pillage the resources of that nation.

The perfect definition of "cleptocracy".

Panis et circenses.

He's the most corrupt dictator in America, followed by the Kirchner clan. Who can forget the Maletinazo?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maletinazo

I'm shocked, a dictator wants control over information?

"You know your startup has made it when..."

Well, I don't think they'll be able to selectively censor twitter, They'll either have to completely ban twitter or live with it.

I have no idea how far they may go in censoring the Internet in Venezuela. It is possible though to selectively censor twitter. The China firewall is capable of doing so. It takes quite a bit of filtering horsepower, but its possible.

May be they cannot censor twitter. But they may be able to identify opposition in twitter and take action against them. He always speaks in the name of the people, but he is clearly against the people.

This is dire. Threat of censorship itself is bad, but the fact that Chavez feels a need for it is even worse.

I agree, it is terrorism.

Terrorism of my senses and my brain cells. It's simply a new addictive format, like TV was when it first became mainstream. I've almost lost my wife to Facebook, and all my friends ask me for my Twitter name, even though I've told them twice that I don't have one.

Tyrants fear free speech.

...and freedom in general.

Where is that South America CIA hit squad when you need it?

I kid.

zero context? typically western

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