Think what's going on in Iran is very sad, but from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece, rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media, that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
does feel its back to might is right, and the last 80 years of relative peaceful times is sunsetting.
you may ask what has the above goto do with a tech article on Iran blocking the internet, its basically just how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid) that is, oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood, the above is not to diminish the other sad loss of life which is obviously terrible just feels like even tech articles have become partisan.
"oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood"
I understand what you're trying to say and I agree with that, but this is actually different. This is not an inconvenience as much a state censorship. It's the state literally disallowing people talking to each other. It's Orwellian: "we don't like what you're talking about, so we're going to make you completely unable to"
It's not the 80s or 90s anymore. The internet is rhe global backbone of how people communicate with each other. Shutting down access is a clear action of censorship and oppression.
I didn't miss that and I'm not sure what argument you're making. It sounds like you're trying to say that state censorship is conditional, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt to make your case.
US also censors information and also cancel and ban free speech. Of course US is a lot more subtle as it’s not the government directly controlling media but a group of very influential and wealthy people that usually have the interest of the capitalist class.
As person who was in blackout in Jan 2022 in Kazakhstan, I’ll say it’s very unpleasant situation when you known that some people go into protests. Some security service building was looted of arms. Police nowhere to be seen. No communications and you don’t know if should you do some limited self protection available in form of running or not. So even if government control what they say, it does not control your ability to find out what’s going on via other people. That’s big deal for your physical security and wellbeing
The US does this a bit, but even with that suppression of free speech, even with most mass media outlets being owned by oligarchs that are subservient to the President, the internet is still going. Europe has penalties for Nazi speech, yet the internet is still going there.
There's no comparison to what's going on in these countries to what's going on in Iran. Trying to "what about" with the US censorship of, say, the majority political opinion in a city by cutting off all federal funds that were previously flowing to the city is not very relevant. Yes, it's bad, but here we are talking about it on the Internet!
> from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece, rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media
You don't clearly see America, there are at least two big mouthpieces. While I've never heard anyone praise the Iranian or Venezuelan government, I've heard many protest US intervention.
> how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid)
I agree it sounds like propaganda. But in this case I think it's fair, the situation is almost black and white.
> the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours...not to diminish the other sad loss of life
Maybe they should've emphasized: the loss of life (and general restriction on daily living, offline) is the main problem, no internet for 118 hours is a symptom.
> even tech articles have become partisan
True. But again, this case (criticizing the Iranian regime) is so close to clear-cut black and white, it shouldn't even be partisan.
If you're talking about Chavez, I'd disagree quite strongly. But even Maduro had his western-based supporters, at least in the early years; for example this op-ed in the Guardian:
"Although there are abuses of power and problems with the rule of law in Venezuela – as there are throughout the hemisphere – it is far from the authoritarian state that most consumers of western media are led to believe. Opposition leaders currently aim to topple the democratically elected government – their stated goal – by portraying it as a repressive dictatorship that is cracking down on peaceful protest. This is a standard "regime change" strategy, which often includes violent demonstrations in order to provoke state violence."
> by portraying it as a repressive dictatorship that is cracking down on peaceful protest. This is a standard "regime change" strategy, which often includes violent demonstrations in order to provoke state violence."
Side note: The self contradiction in adjacent sentences is so funny to me! It says a lot about the lack of mental coherency of the author and of the intended audience.
But I'm not 100% sure I follow your point, this is an editorial from way back in 2014, from a UK site not a US site. Though this could be published in the Guardian, I don't think a supporter of Maduro's government would get any TV time.
Search long enough and you will find supporters and detractors of all governments in the US, and openly doing it, because that's what the US's principles are supposed to allow. I remember in SF a political group which is half-mainstream, the DSA, starting a Maoist reading group, which caused a local uproar. That's particularly notable in SF, a city that has a very large Chinese population, with many of the families in SF to flee Mao himself!
The original assertion was that the US had one voice, without any opposition, in its media. While the viewpoints that make it into the mainstream media are somewhat narrow, you can find nearly every viewpoint somewhere on the Internet in the US.
> I think they would machine gun them even with internet, it's more about stopping them from organising.
Yes, but cutting off internet access to the entire country typically makes machine gunning much more efficient (due to organizing being made much more difficult for the people) and much less costly in terms of the global outcry and reputation.
They did just after the protest started, and there is no evidence that's actually happening but it's kind of the point since we are not receiving information from Iran since the government blocked them out from the internet
There are alternative explanations. For example, foreign agents may have been using Starlink, and the security services may have used the shutdown to find the Starlink terminals.
They are attempting to find the Starlink terminals so they can machine gun protesters without accountability or documentation, not because they have a regulatory issue with SpaceX.
Wow, are there actually people on here shilling for the Iranian government? Recent reports have as many as 12,000 Iranian civilians gunned down by their own government during this blackout.
This is the third uprising. They have so far followed the same recipe. People raise up. Internet is turned off. People are arrested and killed by the authorities. They are using the death penalty to teach the Iranians that raising up will get you killed.
While I dislike trumpism, I do hope that the Iranian authorities will get bombed. They deserve to die for how they treat their own people.
I wouldn't know why they are burning things. I suppose they burn the religion of peace symbols of their oppressors.
I imagine that Israel supports a regime change in Iran, but I don't think that they can run this on their own. They probably support whatever goes on with covert agents.
Since little gets out of Iran let's not speculate any more. :)
People don't do politics anymore, they get their priorities the other way around (geopolitics before the politics of their own house, workplace or city), and the little they do is heavily misplaced (online instead of physically demonstrating).
On top of that add the huge boom of data in politics. No politician anymore has programs or language aiming at representing most of the voters, but it only focuses to get 50%+1, which in practice means that most politicians aim for the majority of the swing voters.
Is politics that thing where I vote every 2-4 years and maybe volunteer for the DNC or send some money to a presidential candidate, and spend thousands of hours passively consuming election and news content? That's what I learned growing up but it doesn't seem to be working. :shrug: /s
Yes, the US is not the center of the universe and there’s lots of room for different perspectives, but there is nothing good that can be said about the regime in Iran.
China, for sure there a lot of good that can be said about the Chinese government. Of course China’s human rights abuses have to be recognized, but we should also recognize the good things like economic and technological development. And I’m sympathetic to Taiwanese independence, but China’s own position should also be give a fair shake. Pretty much all governments, including the US, are a mix of good and bad.
But name one redeeming point of the regime in Iran. Why have any sympathy for the regime at all?
Want to be more specific about your argument? I’d consider a government good if it is serves the people of that country. “Iran murders and tortures it citizens by the thousands, and impoverishes them by the millions through widespread corruption, but they sold some drones to Russia, so that’s nice.” Is that your argument?
The problem with other freedom-loving nations, the EU, etc is that they're a bunch of cowards and I feel like America is the only place that can stand up to the regimes like Iran/China. Who else if not US?
Iran controls a string of proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and other places. Are you sure you're not forgetting that piece? When you write that we had 80 years of relatively peaceful times, you're glossing over that fact.
We haven't had a major conflict in 80 years. Little skirmishes all over the place, sure, but we've forgotten that significant wars between major powers used to be both terrible for everyone involved and also common. Our grandparents after WW2 decided to go a different path and created a largely rules- and trade- based international order that has largely kept the peace. We don't realize how good we've had it.
>rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media...at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
I'm not sure if you meant to imply that there was a uniform media response of "look how great we are" vis-a-vis the abduction of Maduro? If you did, I have to disagree. A significant amount of US media time was dedicated to how not-great this was.
The US media is full of propaganda. I am not disputing that. All I am saying is that the response to the Maduro abduction was not a uniform "This is great!"
When thinking about an entire country, "good/bad" doesn't make sense as a category. In Iran, the people are protesting and holy hell are there a ton of people risking their lives for the chance for a better life with less oppression, without hyperinflation, with some sort of voice in their own governance. The ruling class can not be conflated with the populace. The populace can not be conflated with the populace for that matter, there's no "one" thing even under a shared culture. This is also true in the US, you can't conflate the ruling class with the people in the streets ringing bells and blowing horns and risking their lives and freedom against a tyrannical government seeking to arrest millions of people and deport some of them.
Nothing is completely free of politics, much less the existence of the Internet, and it's incredibly important to realize the impact that technology has on the fabric of society.
> oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours,
This is not even remotely close to the meaning or impact of the site that's linked. It's about the dignity of life, the gunning down of thousands of people by their government, and the governments attempts to continue oppression by hiding their actions behind a veil. Your comment viewed in its most positive light is crass, more realistically is heartless and cruel.
My guess: you're commenting on the US from a Russified country, or from China? That's the only perspective on the world that I can imagine generating your statements, and if I'm wrong I'd love to know.
no, actually not, maybe a country that isnt very pro America given you're threatening to invade to take ownership of Greenland. But again in my post, the actual loss of life etc is very sad and shouldn't happen, but my point was more tech was one area where politics were left at the door and maybe I'm old but its sad I guess to see it here too.
> that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
If you think American news is weird, you should try reading Chinese news. English ones like China Daily or globaltimes.cn, I would read it a lot when I was in China since American news sources were blocked.
It has gotten better since 2002, but is still pretty bizarre in how they frame conflicts. Forget CNN-level bias, they have FoxNews-level bias in how they do the news.
> rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media, that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
You are not looking too hard at all. There are lots of dissenting opinions, in fact I'd wager that if you excluded official government mouthpieces, the lion's share of opinion (both private individuals as well as established media) is trending to open criticality of the US government's choices.
> how its written feels alot like propaganda
I almost feel bad for the established old school media companies. One side says they are spewing propaganda, the other side says they're ignoring it altogether. Both cannot be simultaneously true.
> but from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece
Really? As a naturalized American I see diversity in the USA's media. Do you have an example?
From what I see, there are two big voices in the media politically.
> rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media
Again, we need an example. I see the official line from the current party in power, and the counter arguements from the mainstream media as a whole. The current party only has a media output from very few mainstream sources.
Iran's elections 75 years ago were about as democratic as North Korea's. They were just theater. Everyone was involved in rigging, candidates, the monarchy, foreign nations, etc., Mosaddegh included.
And peace and tranquility? Iran was in economic chaos before the PM was dismissed in 1953. They were printing money to pay salaries because the British refused to transport their oil, cutting off their main source of income.
What is your point again? Why are you listing iranian domestic problems when we are talking about foreign policy. There are lots of failing countries all around the world and most of them don't hate America because the CIA didnt coup their popular leader.
Iran wasn't in era of peace and tranquility 75 years ago.
The PM was not popular in 1953 after his promise of prosperity after seizing British oil fields not only failed to materialize, but instead led to the oil industry grinding to a halt; his failed half-hearted land reforms pissed off pretty much everyone; he jailed his political enemies; and was ruling Iran as a dictator.
It's unfortunate that Iran's propaganda around Mossadegh has been so effective at rewriting history, but people just like simplistic stories about good vs. evil.
When you look at it, you do notice how much of what is happening in that region was due to western (particularly British) intervention and colonialism, and continues to this day.
>does feel its back to might is right, and the last 80 years of relative peaceful times is sunsetting.
Depending on your perspective, 'might is right' never changed. The US has forced its policies on other nations through quiet force for a long time. I think the only thing that's changed is that Trump wants to say the quiet part out loud now which makes it way easier to push back on. Combine that with the fact that Trump has 0 political ambitions outside of just being in power and it becomes very easy to just ignore what you hear coming from the top. Often it clearly has no thought put behind it, seems vindictive in nature, and is forgotten the next day, like a child's tantrum. To circle back a little, now that the US in such a passive state due to this, a lot of other countries feel safer to push their influence on the world because they see no repercussions for what others are doing.
Have you been on the Internet as an adult ever? Have you been on X? What about Facebook? America is "one mouthpiece"? This is one of the most puzzling takes I've ever seen.
Americans literally post 10K articles a day about how bad the administration is and all the bad that will result from going to Venezuela ... and multiply that for literally every other thing the govt does. There isn't one thing that happens that doesn't have hundreds of posts online and in papers explaining why America is so evil for doing it.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you sampled the media landscape in Tehran or Beijing? I have sampled both ... FROM those locations. Its night and day.
Even the media landscape in your typical Western Alliance country (Singapore, Japan, South Korea, UK ... etc.) cannot come close to what you see in America.
that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
I mean... I guess it depends on what you consider "the media"? I certainly don't consume any media that reacted with anything but shock and horror. With CBS under attack I suppose that's fragile, but I think it's important to appreciate the freedoms we do still have. When people say "all the media in AUTHORITARIAN_STATE supports the federal government on IMPORTANT_THING", they don't mean "a plurality of popular TV networks" -- they mean all.
oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood
...I think you're coming from a good place, but you're failing to grasp the seriousness of a nation state shutting down telecommunications. Besides the immense power it shows, it also implies a level of desperation and/or severity-of-intent.
It's very, very different than a nation losing access to the internet because of technical issues (or, in your case, because it wasn't invented/popularized yet).
Being able to completely turn off the Internet in your country seems to be a non-negotiable capability to develop for any non-democratic state.
I think a lot of them took a look at how Twitter and Facebook were used for organising during the Arab spring and decided that it was by far the most dangerous non-military threat.
Still wonder how exactly they are interdicting Starlink, I've seen rumors that they are using Russian EW systems but those same systems are not so effective jamming Starlink-guided drones on the frontlines.
>Being able to completely turn off the Internet in your country seems to be a non-negotiable capability to develop for any non-democratic state.
Which technologically advanced democratic countries DON'T have this capability already developed and deployed?
Do you think the 3 letter agencies in the likes of UK, Israel, Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, Sweden, etc don't know how to turn off the internet in their countries? They'd be really incompetent if they don't.
Switzerland even had all its bridges wired with explosives from like the 19th century and all the way through the cold war to blow them up inc ase of an invasion.
Do you think the internet infra is somehow spared this kind of strategic planning?
The USA cannot do it, because there is actually a law against cutting off communications systems dating back to 1944. Of course there have been attempts to make it possible.
This "current administration" thinking is exactly the problem. When your version of the current administration had the power to diminish the power of the administration, did it do that? None of them do.
Somehow there's always a failure of imagining that whatever the current administration is won't always be current.
> X cannot do it, because there is actually a law against Y
Famous last words.
I'm more than shocked that people STILL haven't learned how quickly laws came become meaningless. Which is why history keeps repeating itself.
If fascist government goons break into your house to kill you, do you think waving a piece of paper with the law in their face will stop them? Isn't that the whole point the found fathers made the Second Amendment? Even they knew this 300 years ago. Have people already forgotten?
I was going to say! I actually laughed out loud at the computer screen when reading OP's comment. There is no way "There's a law against it" is going to stop the current administration (with all three branches of government aligned) from doing whatever the heck it wants.
> Isn't that the whole point the found fathers made the Second Amendment?
At the risk of going off on an entirely different direction ... no, I don't think that was the point of the second amendment, not really. It was more about making sure they had something that would function like a standing army (in the absence of the real deal) should a foreign government invade. Defense against tyranny from our own government doesn't really feel like it was something they worried deeply about (at least with regards to the right to bear arms), and the self-defense justification for the second amendment wasn't even a commonly held viewpoint until about the 20th century.
I'm actually not shocked judging by that comment that you don't know how pyramid of authority works in most countries, and in this context, the US.
Most countries (including the US, obviously) follow their laws. Can you please give an example for a first world country that *consistently* ignores it's own laws?
History repeats itself because people ignore history, not because people ignore the law.
Sorry, I expressed my thoughts wrong. What I meant to say was that laws can change overnight based on mob political feels or black swan events (WW2, 9/11, etc.)
So just because something is illegal for the government TODAY, doesn't mean it will stay like that for the next 500 years.
Laws aren't real, they're just made up constructs on worthless pieces of paper, but the only thing that is always consistently real is the enforcement of the will of state through means of violence and they'll put that in writing to give it legitimacy but ultimately the people in charge of the guns can make whatever they want legal or illegal.
You're right, but what do you care what happens in 500 years?
The world changes. Maybe in 50 years child pornography will be legal, who knows? It doesn't change based on what those rulers want, because in a true Democratic country, the people rule.
> Can you please give an example for a first world country that consistently ignores it's own laws?
In the US, it's standard to do ten miles an hour over the speed limit past a cop, and there's probably 20 Federally illegal marijuana dispensaries within a few miles of me. Our current President got convicted of 34 felonies, but any possible consequences were automatically voided when he got elected again.
> The USA cannot do it, because there is actually a law against cutting off communications systems dating back to 1944. Of course there have been attempts to make it possible.
The link you provided says:
In 1942, during World War II, Congress created a law to grant President Franklin D. Roosevelt or his successors the power to temporarily shut down any potentially vulnerable technological communications technologies.
The Unplug the Internet Kill Switch Act would reverse the 1942 law and prevent the president from shutting down any communications technology during wartime, including the internet.
The House version was introduced on September 22 as bill number H.R. 8336, by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI2). The Senate version was introduced the same day as bill number S. 4646, by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
The bill did not pass and did not become law. So what are you referring to?
Does it really matter what is illegal if it is pardoned?
Starting insurrection to overthrow election? Pardoned. Killing police officer? Pardoned. Ordering contract killings? Pardoned. Large scale drug smuggling operation to the US? Pardoned.
Brand anyone who follows the law as a criminal and make sure to have them fired, and you can even ignore the constition that says power to regulate trade lies with the senate and enough of civil society might just decide to play along.
Even if your optimism had some basis in reality, about 12 guys with $5 serrated pocket knives bought on aliexpress could knock out 80% of communications in under an hour. Fiber optic strands are alarmingly tiny, and wrapped in day-glo orange plastic tubing making them intentionally easy to find.
For whatever reason it's taboo to talk about how fragile infrastructure is, but if you wanted to shut something like comm links down, that's a problem for whoever installs the new judiciary. Chances are, whoever gets the job of being the new judiciary is likely to rule it as acceptable use of emergency powers.
I highly doubt the Swedish government has a way to turn off our internet. Our government doesn't own our internet infrastructure, it's owned by private companies. The government could impose legislation to force providers to comply with shutting down international peering but I have a hard time seeing it pass.
Well. I can't talk for the current government of Sweden, but if I was the supreme leader of a Swedish Dictatorship, I am pretty confident that I could accomplish that by sending some very persuasive soldiers along with a government officer with some papers ordering those private companies to do whatever the fuck I wanted unless their executives wanted to experience some extra holes in their bodies.
Luckily Sweden is not a dictatorship and doesn't have a supreme leder. Our government can't just hand-wave things. There's the legislative branch which must've had the foresight to make laws that allows the executive branch to order operators to comply.
The parent asked "Which technologically advanced democratic countries DON'T have this capability already developed and deployed?" and there are many, every country on earth isn't run by warmongering corrupt idiots.
In case of war or major cataclysmic event, your government will definitely just hand-wave a lot of things you take for granted in order to keep the country and society from collapsing, including elections, democracy, freedom of speech, internet access, travel, etc since then the nation's survival becomes more important than your individual rights and freedom. See Covid hysteria, Ukraine war, etc.
I think coddled people from rich countries who never saw anything but prosperity since WW2 and no conflicts or events with major loss of life, have no idea just how radical governments can switch in an instant when society is threatened with collapse.
Does Sweden not have the equivalent of the UK's civil contingency act?
Section 2 basically allows the Westminster government to make regulations as they see fit during an emergency, but with a short time scale (like a month or so) before parliament gets a say.
So what? If it's on Swedish ground then it's under Swedish government(military) enforcement in case the shit hits the fan.
>The government could impose legislation to force providers to comply with shutting down international peering but I have a hard time seeing it pass.
Do you think if Russia invades Sweden tomorrow, private businesses can still do whatever they want like in peacetime, or will they have to follow the new waartime rules set by the government and enforced by armed soldiers knocking on their door dragging them to court if they refuse to comply?
> Do you think if Russia invades Sweden tomorrow, private businesses can still do whatever they want like in peacetime
Pretty much
> or will they have to follow the new waartime rules set by the government and enforced by armed soldiers knocking on their door dragging them to court if they refuse to comply?
They'll be dragging them to court. We're a democracy, we don't just send soldiers after our own.
No offense but you're out of touch with reality if you think that's how a country under existential threat acts, still treating citizens with oven mitts and keeping lengthy bureaucratic due processes for everything.
I think this type of idealistic fantasy world mentality is exactly why Europe has been so ill prepared to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The Americans often achieve the same ends with different means; use of mass surveillance to account for the threat of open communication, forcing sales of social media platforms to friends of the regime, domain seizures on pirate sites, Know-Your-Customer (KYC) laws, Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) laws, etc.
The American model is still preferable, but being preferable often gives people the false impression that open communication is a solved problem because they have limited assurances at the political level when what they should be after is more expansive assurances at the technical level.
Yes it would not be hard to take down a few data centers or services (just seize their domain) but that’s not remotely close to completely turning off the Internet. There are millions of servers on the U.S. Internet outside of major data centers.
We also run tons of crucial stuff over commercial links thanks to encryption. Taking Internet trunks offline would disrupt most domestic functions of government, for example.
The "internet" is different things to different people. For the masses: if you take down the datacenters - or more easily coerce the leadership of the magnificent 7 you effectively turn of the internet for most people
If the government has already been disrupted, then who is taking down the Internet?
No, the goal of “take down the Internet” is to degrade the organizing of protestors / agitators / insurgents, while preserving the ability of government to organize against them. It only works if the government has a separate sufficient infrastructure, or completely controls routing on shared infrastructure. Neither of those are true in the U.S.
To pick just one recent newsworthy example, the federal government does not have a way to deny Signal messaging to their opponents, while preserving their own use of it.
My guess is that in Ukraine the Russian EW systems are deployed tens of kilometers back from the line of contact to protect them from artillery strikes and fiber optic drones. These Russian EW systems are likely used to protect command posts and logistics bases but not the line of contact.
But because Iran is not yet an active war zone the Iranians can deploy those systems close to the cities.
Also, Starlink terminals can be located via their RF emissions. So using a Starlink terminal in Iran seems to come with a high risk that security forces can locate and arrest you.
> Also, Starlink terminals can be located via their RF emissions.
Starlink terminals use highly-directional antennas that point at the sky (see. beamforming) and therefore they don't leak much in terms of RF emissions. So unless you can afford to maintain a host of overhead drones on permanent rotation and wide-area coverage, it would be very hard to actually locate anybody. Not that it's impossible, but largely intractable at scale. We use Starlink a lot in Ukraine, and even though the russians have platforms with sophisticated signal processing capabilities (think Xilinx RFSoC) perfectly capable of locating emissions from most communication equipment, they are still unable to locate Starlink terminals. And this is along the frontline, mind you. To cover all of Iran would surely be prohibitive.
In addition to jamming the radio signals directly, Starlink terminals use GPS, so jamming GPS can hurt connectivity. Iran has been jamming GPS in an effort to reduce the effectiveness of foreign military attacks, but maybe they've stepped it up a notch in the past week. People in Ukraine are probably so accustomed to GPS jamming that they've all gone to Advanced -> Debug Data -> "Use Starlink positioning exclusively".
Ukraine has one other advantage: The jamming tends to come from one direction. If you set up a barrier on that side of the antenna, the signal from the satellites is less likely to be drowned out. People in Iran have no idea where the jammers are in related to themselves. If they're in a city, they might be surrounded.
Starlink terminals also require a clear view of the sky and they broadcast on certain frequencies, so it's quite possible for governments to find the terminals and confiscate/destroy them. Still, it's a lot more difficult to shut down than a few fiber optic lines.
> Starlink terminals also require a clear view of the sky and they broadcast on certain frequencies
That's not quite true. You can conceal the terminal using a number of materials that won't significantly interfere with the signal like a thin piece of cloth or a thin plastic bag (like a garbage bag) as long as the cover doesn't get too wet.
> Still wonder how exactly they are interdicting Starlink
a good cyberwarfare attack would be disabling whatever is being used to prevent Starlink from working. Even if it only lasts for 12 hours the flood of images, video, and just general communication from inside Iran to the world would be a blow to the regime.
In Germany we have the Bundesnetzagentur an agency that drives around and measures the power of your WiFi. If its to high you get fined, and they really do manage to triangulate you.
I would guess the Iranian government is capable of at least the same: Triangulating specific radio frequency sources.
> This is a capability that makes sense to have to use when absolutely necessary.
I definitely disagree with this. Currently there is no reason to believe we'll ever have sentient AI, or AGI or whatever term you prefer, much less a runaway one. There is definitely reasons to worry about governments using this power in an era of increasing authoritarianism, I mean we're talking about this because it is literally happening right now to cover up a massacre.
I don't want the power to turn off all communications to exist, because I don't want my political enemies to have it if they win an election.
> shutting down all communications and power are our only defense against a runaway AI system
Wouldn't a centralized ability to shut down all communications and power also be one of the most vulnerable targets to an runaway AI attack though? Seems like a double edged sword if I've ever seen one.
Eh if you're gonna go that far with your logic then a runaway AI system intelligent and malevolent enough to require turning off the whole damn Internet in a place (or more likely globally, defeating the point anyway) will also be intelligent enough to use alternative means of communication.
Frankly, we need to get to a place where it is impossible to do shut down the internet in a country like this. P2P and distributed networks might see a resurgence here
Any RF comms can be jammed, you will need ground to satellite laser communications to accomplish this (or you were close enough to a terrestrial free space optics ground station outside of nation state borders a satellite isn't required).
RF comms can't realistically be jammed across the entirety of a whole country, though, so this is definitely a case of "something is better than nothing", and it absolutely makes sense to establish community-level networking/comms at least.
Plane was the test bed for the military application in my citation, the ground station could be ground or roof mounted and camouflaged. As it would emit no RF, you would have to know where to look for it to find it (unlike say, StarLink ground terminals, which are detectable).
If you emit RF in a contested environment as a civilian, you can be found using multilateration (for this context, I assume if you have military comms equipment, you have access to exotic RF that will make this difficult similar to have quick and saturn). SDR networks on the public internet enable this today, as long as there are enough receivers online in an area and you know what you're looking for, so I don't think it's beyond the grasp of nation state actors.
Eh I don't think there are enough jammers to get everywhere. Otherwise a twinkling sea of laser light house to house repeaters, red stars in the dark is a pretty sounding dystopia.
The west would cut the internet the second shit got real. No question.
Europe is already flirting with it. Look at their draconian internet speech laws. If you think that ISPs would try to stand up to the government you should read about how quickly they bent over after the PATRIOT act.
If they cut off the internet how did this information get out and how can it be verified? There would be video of this kind of thing if it wasn’t just the Americans building support for regime change; I have yet to see any.
Unverified though - people are saying more in the range of 2000.
PS
In Islam they don't do cremation and burial is within a day before next sunset hence the horrible footage of hospitals releasing bodies publicly in the street - it is part of their faith and even the regime respects it.
Around 2,000 people were killed in Iran protests, an Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday, blaming "terrorists" for the deaths of civilians and security personnel.
A senior Iranian health ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said about 3,000 people had been killed across the country but sought to shift the blame to “terrorists” fomenting unrest. The figure included hundreds of security officers, he said.
Another government official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he had seen an internal report that referred to at least 3,000 dead, and added that the toll could climb.
And countless human rights and freedom activists completely absolutely silent. They chose to be silent about Iran, it feels like iranian blood is worth less than other places apparently.
As someone very vocal on Iran, I find these recriminations shallow and generally intended to be punitive about those positions in those others places.
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.
I think it's a fair criticism though because of the general vitriol about Hamas and Gaza.
The same folks are very much in a position on college campuses to protest about numerous injustices going on in the world, from Iran to Somalia to Haiti to Cuba, yet they're silent.
Why is that? It's a fair question.
I don't think there's some moral failure for caring about one issue affecting one group of people more than another, but you really have to wonder why we care so much about Palestine over other issues, even more gruesome injustices.
This isn't to diminish of course the plight of Palestinians or any group for that matter, but it's a very clear outlier in the American, and dare I say entire western psyche.
“it's a fair criticism though because of the general vitriol about Hamas and Gaza.”
Ok, you’ve convinced me. I now firmly support reducing billions in American aid to Iran, curtailing Iranian use of American bombs, and diplomatic cover America gives to Iran in the UN. I am now also calling strongly to remove all these state laws we have that ban government business with companies that don’t support Iran!
Is your argument that if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel which are used on Gaza, Americans and Europeans wouldn't care about what's going on in Palestine as much?
Are you calling for Iran to cease supplying Hamas and other regional organizations with weapons as well?
I don’t know if you are American, but I am. Sure, I don’t support Iran giving Hamas weapons. The issue is that Iran isn’t my government and they certainly don’t give a fuck about my opinion.
The human tragedy in Gaza is enabled directly by MY representatives and funded with MY tax money and given diplomatic cover for atrocities again and again by MY government. Nothing my country is doing enables what is happening in Iran right now.
The situation is less pronounced with Europeans, but not dissimilar. The EU has sanctions on Iran, unless I’m missing something? And frankly yes, if American support for Israel ceased I think Europeans would complain less because Israel would have to stop a lot of their behavior.
If the US wasn't selling weapons, Israel wouldn't be able to do what it does. It wouldn't be happening like this. So that's right, the level of caring would be lower because the genocide would not be possible.
> If the US wasn't selling weapons, Israel wouldn't be able to do what it does.
It's hard to really draw up the counterfactual but I'm not really sure that's the case. But there are many other players here besides just Israel that are helping to ensure that this conflict continues to fester, chiefly Iran.
It's a fair point to say that the counterfactual is hard to draw up.
I will point out the main reason it's hard to come up with, is the fact that American aid, weapons sales, and diplomatic support for Israel has been so constant and unchallenged over the past several decades that we don't have many good examples of what Israel would do without impunity.
Without western support, it is quite possible Israel will simply lose and the conflict will go away, leaving a possibility of building a democratic secular state in Palestine that treats people with equality.
I appreciated your exchange in this subthread about the difference of the U.S.'s involvement versus Iran. However, I want to push back even without drawing that distinction, so I do it here.
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.
> 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.
I don't disagree at all, just to be clear for anyone reading.
> 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 it's punitive for believing in a cause, generally specific causes, rather than about integrity.
Sure, and I think that's fair and I'm not denigrating those who are protesting in favor of action w.r.t Palestine/Gaza, but more so interested in why that particular issue seems so important over others. 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.
> 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 don’t remember all of how society has reacted to various issues but the protests and discourse around Palestine seem to be an outlier in terms of engagement. But that’s just my interpretation.
I think most of those students would answer that they are protesting the US government's complicity in this particular injustice -- which doesn't apply to the other injustices you list. I have a hard time imagining that most people asking this fair question can't think of that obvious answer.
I hadn't really thought about it from that angle. But it's certainly reasonable.
Do you think if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that there wouldn't be protests and a lot of social media posts similar to how other humanitarian disasters are treated today? I guess would it be on the same level?
I wonder if there's a correlation across western countries with respect to protests and a given country's participation in selling weapons to Israel. I recall there were/are a lot of protests going on in Ireland with respect to the conflict but I know Ireland doesn't sell weapons to Israel. But there have been of course other cases in Europe where the country does sell weapons and there are protests. Maybe there's a rhyme and reason here, I'm not sure.
Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.
Because of this, it's entirely rational to NOT protest with equal opportunity for every injustice that occurs around the world. Those American campus students aren't just protesting to make noise, they are hoping that their government leaders - that DEPEND on their votes - will cease enabling atrocities.
The American government hates Iran with bipartisan support and has it sanctioned to hell and back, I have no idea what I'd protest American leaders to do here?
> The American government hates Iran with bipartisan support and has it sanctioned to hell and back, I have no idea what I'd protest American leaders to do here?
Well you could rally in support of more action, or protest outside an Iranian embassy for example to put pressure on them. I was reading that something on a small scale happened in the UK and they took down the Iranian flag from the embassy.
> Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.
Sure, I don't disagree. But let me ask, do you believe that if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that the public would react to this particular conflict in a way that's similar to how it reacts to other conflicts around the world? It's obviously hard to speculate about because it's just the world we live in and counterfactuals around these things are incredibly difficult and inaccurate, but something tells me there's something unique about this conflict and even in countries that don't sell weapons to Israel we do still see rather large scale protests and rallies and such.
>Well you could rally in support of more action, or protest outside an Iranian embassy for example
You're describing methods of protest, but not demands. What specific action do you believe Americans should demanding from their representatives re: Iran, that the US government isn't already doing? We bombed Iran just this past summer, are you saying we should go back for round 2?
>obviously hard to speculate about because it's just the world we live in
The world we live in is the world where the US gives huge financial, material and political support to Israel. Your statement feels akin to saying "Sure there is a gigantic elephant in this room right now, but something tells me there's some unique reason why everyone is complaining about the room being cramped. Especially compared to these other rooms that don’t have a giant elephant inside.”
> You're describing methods of protest, but not demands. What specific action do you believe Americans should demanding from their representatives re: Iran, that the US government isn't already doing? We bombed Iran just this past summer, are you saying we should go back for round 2?
Well this action puts pressure on Iran, and in the case of the UK maybe more pressure for the UK to do something. You're right that the US government is already opposed (rightfully) to the Iranian regime and so additional rallies or protests might not have much effect but it could reinforce the government's stance and to show support. You can rally in favor of something, and protest against something, can you not?
> The world we live in is the world where the US gives huge financial, material and political support to Israel.
Yea but then you have to balance that with Iran giving huge financial, material, and political support to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups who take up arms and fight and kill people and stuff too.
But the point wasn't to suggest that the US doesn't give these things to Israel, which if you want to introduce "the real world" you have to include Iran and friends (Russia too now that I think about it, they've been helping Iran), but to just speculate on whether we would still see the level of protest we do today even if the United States didn't give weapons to Israel. I'm unsure. But it's a hard counterfactual to run, and I'm just mentioning it because the primary argument I see for the reasoning that more people care about this issue is specifically because the US sells/gives weapons to Israel. That's all.
Sure, care to elaborate on what exactly these protestors are protesting, or how protesting works and why that's uniquely different for Palestine versus other equally horrible injustices?
Seems simple to me. The Palestine/Israel protests were demanding change from an ally. It was a call for "you guys are supposed to be good but what you're doing is bad."
I suppose there could be rallies of support for the Iranian people, but it would seem silly for US protesters to demand change from the Iranian government, given that our opinion is probably not regarded highly by them.
This is classic whataboutism. You don't have to criticize every single atrocity in the world in order to criticize one. I often find that people who take your stance don't care about any issues. They're simply weaponizing other problems to avoid engaging with the one they actually oppose.
There is also a key difference between the Palestine issue vs the others you listed. The fact that our country is deeply in bed with the country that is committing these crimes against humanity and actively funding it, along with the strange level of undue influence that country has on our government.
I intentionally didn't do a whataboutism, but just asked why it seems that westerners care about what happens in Gaza, as bad as it is, more than they do other equally horrific injustices.
It's undeniable that our society cares more about Gaza and the future of the Palestinian people, so what makes them unique that's different? Or are you suggesting that Americans, for example, care equally about what's going on in other conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes? If so, why don't we see campus protests for example?
I answered your question, if you read my response fully.
Generally though, I find your line of inquiry fascinating. There are people out there actively protesting a particular issue because they genuinely care about it and the people affected. Meanwhile, you—presumably from the comfort of home—are criticizing them for not addressing other issues, all while doing nothing about ANY of these issues yourself. It reeks of apathy and malintent.
Personally, I do care about Gaza more because my government is complicit in it. So it's my duty, especially in democratic country, to oppose that. I don't know how to influence Iranian government, if anything, I think my government could offer them lifting sanctions in exchange for easing domestic policies.
The difference you see is between a sponsored protest and unsponsored. Basically, bleeding heart liberals have been successfully convinced to align with Hamas without them explicitly realizing it either. This is a good primer on Hamas in the US and their general media strategy:
Kind of interesting to keep in mind when people protest for a ceasefire instead of say, Hamas removed from power and free open elections resumed for Palestinians.
Do you sincerely believe that financial sponsorship is the primary impetus causing Americans to voice dissatisfaction in US support for Israel? That is a fascinating perspective.
>when were you vocal on M23, Haiti, Kashmir, Kurds, Muslims in India...
That is the entire point, Gaza protests have been very vocal (and in many cases very misinformed). Human right abuses in Iran are but another example of this blindness.
It's very obvious what they are trying to accomplish: ethnic cleansing. The idea is to make life so miserable to Palestinians that they will give up their national liberation struggle and venture into the punishing Sinai desert, allowing Israel and Trump to build a riviera and a gas pipeline on the sea.
If they can't get them to leave, the partial genocide will escalate into a full blown mass murder campaign.
Is not that Israel wants a genocide, is that it's pretty obvious that they are ready to commit one in order to get the ethnic cleansing that they want.
This is obvious. In fact, I suspect that they are going to success, and in a few years we will have to hear how that was a terrible mistake, but, of course, never again. Maybe, even you will be saying that.
RobertoG's comment is a good one, but I will add that the definition of genocide is defined in the genocide convention as:
Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as:
... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[9]
I was sloppy in saying "partial genocide" as a colloquialism, because "partial genocide" is the crime of genocide full stop.
Yeah. Let's pile on enough definitional nuance in order to apply it to a situation in which it is clear that the previous, universal understanding doesn't fit in order to stoke outrage.
Besides, that's clearly not Israel's intent or it would have already been accomplished.
Maybe the reason for your "sloppiness" is that you instinctively understand the absurdity?
This is the definition. People thought long and hard about what genocide is, because people are quite creative in finding ways of trying to destroy other people.
Israel is committing genocide because they have tried to destroy part of the population. Their goal is enthic cleansing. If they do not achieve it, they will continue to escalate, especially now that international law is shown to be toothless.
Wtf are you talking about Muslims in India? Indian Muslims are more privileged and have more rights than other groups in India. E.g. Muslim men can have 4 wives, regular men only one, Muslim men can divorce by saying "talaak" 3 times, regular men have to go through courts and all. And yes Kashmir needs to be talked about more, especially the Hindu Exodus from Kashmir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Kashmiri_Hindus due to the threat of violence from Islamic extremists.
If you're an American, what could protesting Iran possibly accomplish? They are already sanctioned out the wazoo and our government already doesn't like the government there.
In fact, I believe if the U.S. wanted to really help the Iranians, they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws.
I don't think sanctions are that helpful in establishing democracy, and even if they were, taking the population hostage in order to instigate an uprising is morally quite dubious.
In any case, U.S. has recently proven to be a dishonest actor, so even if above was correct I would still not want them to do it.
P.S. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. So I have seen an organic regime change, and the Iranian one is IMHO too violent to be the moment.
> they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws...
No authoritarian regime wants to go down the same way Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker did by meeting the opposition halfway.
Most regimes learnt from how China cracked down in Tiananmen and how SK cracked down in Gwangju, especially countries like Iran that are much more structurally similar to Maoist China than the 1980s Eastern Bloc, as much of the Iranian economy is owned by the Bonyads (Islamic charities), State Owned Enterprises, and regime affiliated conglomerates who wouldn't expect to retain economic control if Iran didn't remain an Islamic Republic, and the footsoldiers of the Cultural Revolution (yes, Iran had one too called the Inqilab e Firangi or "Revolution against the West") are the ones in charge.
The current violent crackdown is similar to that which the Iranian regime used during the Green Movement back in 2009-10.
The IRGC has a headcount of around 100k, the Police 300k, the PMF in Iraq (which have now been mobilized across Iran) have 200k, the Liwa Fateymoun (Shia Afghan militia) have around 3k-10k, and Liwa Zainabiyoun (Shia Pakistani/Pakhtun militia) have around 5k-8k personnel.
That's around 600k personnel who are ideologically aligned with the regime, have seen combat in Syria or Yemen, have had experience cracking down on anti-regime protests on multiple occasions, and have the means for a violent crackdown in a country of 90 million people. And that's ignoring personnel that the Houthis or Hezbollah can send despite being battered by Israeli strikes.
On the other hand, the SAVAK during the Iranian Revolution only had 5K personnel in a country of 40 million.
A lot of people will refer to Syria as an example of a counter-revolution, but the Syria's population was significantly better armed during the Assad regime compared to Iranians today. Before the Arab Spring it was common for the then Syrian government to send disaffected Sunni troublemakers across the border to Iraq to take potshots at the Americans and let them solve the problem [0][1][2][3]. This was how Jolani/al-Sharaa and a number of anti-Assad revolutionaries got their start as well.
I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand.
Our sanctions are the reason why their situation is difficult. They are having the intended effect. And the protests plus the calamity are wanted by the west.
Not too long ago (three months ago?), either here or on Lobsters, an iranian programmer was basically pleading for help because he had built some type of A.I. system, but there is zero market for it in Iran, and he is blacklisted from working with / for anyone in the US.
I think this gives further evidence that these huge campaigns and marches/protests/street graffiti are very deliberate manipulation by certain groups and a lot of money.
Read the Wikipedia page for the Internet Research Agency. This was a Russian propaganda outfit that organized half a dozen Black Lives Matter protests, one of them attended by Michael Moore.
Troll farms were found to control half of the largest ethnic and religious Facebook groups before the 2020 election.
The tactic here is to use social media as a weapon to stoke every possible division in society.
> half a dozen Black Lives Matter protests, one of them attended by Michael Moore.
A whole half dozen, you say? And who could forget those iconic Michael Moore protest videos from 2020.
For anyone who wasn't paying attention somehow, these protests happened day after day for weeks in many major cities. And many smaller cities and towns had protests and vigils as well. This statistic is so unimpressive it makes this sound irrelevant.
Organizing protests is one thing, but troll farms to agitate and turn the population on itself is the story here too. It helps explain the daily protests.
The troll farms can't hold a candle to the first-party algorithmic engagement farming/rage baiting being conducted out in the open by Alphabet/Meta/X/etc.
You don't need a conspiracy theory to explain the social dysfunction being created and monetized as part of these firms' core business strategy.
And a government run identity verified social media would solve both those problems. Let the government build the digital town square, not the tech billionaires.
Well, for starters, one person really can’t care about every possible issue, even if they wanted to. So people and groups may get very passionate about one thing that really pulls on the heartstrings, hits close to home, or is more related to their own country’s policies. (For example, those protesting Palestine may protest US’s typically very strong support of Israel.)
What am I going to do when I wake up to the news that yet another country under the control of religious fanatics is abusing their people? Demand the US invades them? Go to the streets every single day for every new issue (of which there are countless)? Demand sanctions against their government (already broadly exists)? Fly there myself? (Not sure if possible, and what help would that do?)
Who is choosing to be silent about Iran? Lack of knowledge, maybe, but deliberate planning? That would be the fault of media and perhaps the wealthy controlling the media, if it’s happening. Not the everyday person. I guarantee you, next to no one wakes up and decides “hm, I will choose to not talk about X atrocity today.”
Human lives have the same value, but does Iran suppress the protesters with the tacit approval or active support of the West? If not who to protest against then? The Ayatollah?
Which orgs are you talking about specifically? Don't sling mud in such a vague way. Here's Amnesty's homepage https://www.amnesty.org/en/. The UN has already issued statements. What do you mean exactly? Random nobodies on social media?
After 10 days they put those banners up. After enormous pressure from people online and political from USA republicans. They were silent mostly. Also BBC, NYTimes, WPost, they only ran articles after 10 days of continuous killings in Iran were happening.
What on earth... Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have reported on the escalation of repression in Iran. BBC, NYTimes, WPost, and well, virtually every major media outlet in the World has been reporting on Iran at least since the major escalations around 5-6 January.
That's just such a bald-faced set of obvious lies that can be debunked with a 5-second google search... I struggle to see what your aim is in all this.
That's funny in a morbidly ironic sort of way. what was their rational for countering the Iranian demonstrations? Free Palestine but subjugate Iran doesn't seem rational.
This reads like a submarine ad for some kind of analytics startup. I'm confused why this post is HN's #1, ahead of numerous other sources expositing the same story; it isn't interestingly different.
Clearly other HN readers consider news of as many as 12,000 people possibly having been killed by their government to be important, and consider the discussion happening about it on this page to be interesting to them.
It is a shame they are indifferent to the degree of AI slop ('Then came the order. Not a shutdown-- something worse. The routers didn't go silent. They screamed. Filtering rules conflicted. Routes flapped. The network began eating itself alive.') as it neither lends credibility to the source nor respects the humanity of the story's subjects. It would be far better were other HN readers more discerning.
That 12,000 number is utter make believe - an X account (you can guess who backs it) make this claim, got boosted and got over 1M views... and then they deleted the post. But the damage is done, of course.
Yeah, and heavily rewritten by AI. Every single sentence screams AI slop smell. I find that short content smells the most - AI tends to overfit its patterns even more strongly then.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that and got yucked by it. I was genuinely looking for a contact email on the webpage to complain to them about it. Such pretty visualization of data to then have LLM garbage explain it.
Events like this show that the Internet is pretty heavily centralized. The original DARPA Internet was supposed to be resilient to stuff like this, but it's clear that the old Internet, and the new Internet, are not the same. We as Internet engineers really need to be better here, and design hardware and software to be ready to handle any errors, even unlikely ones like a state actor breaking things.
It's like installing smoke alarms; no one thinks they need them until they do.
Wasn't the original ARPANET entirely owned and controlled by the US government? I think it might've been resilient against attacks from people who didn't own the network but I would also be surprised to learn the US government couldn't shut it down if it wanted.
There is no tech solution ever possible to "The guys with guns showed up", and people in tech continuing to insist that they must maintain political apathy and solve real problems only as long as you can do it with code is literally part of the problem.
"Tech used to be a place without politics" is especially heinous. The entire time you insisted on eschewing politics, your boss sure as fuck wasn't.
You mean the "counter protests" organized and dictated by IRGC and the regime, you mean? The totally organic, completely believable groups of coordinated military aged men and occasionally their wives showing up for on-message photo ops for Khamenei & crew?
This regime has already completely failed - their currency is completely debased, they've destroyed their water supply, and over the last several decades they've been unable to meet the very reasonable and understandable conditions needed to join the international community and get sanctions lifted, allowing them to engage in trade and lift their economy out of the gutter.
The choices made by this regime are the precise and exact reasons for their current degraded state. The rest of the civilized world set the conditions, and they chose not to engage in civilization. I have absolutely zero sympathy for the supporters of the regime, they're a group who've been in power for less than 50 years, and every year they've been in power they've brought nothing but atrocity and grief to the world.
Do you have a source for these counter protests being organized and dictated by IRGC?
I agree with your other points. This current regime has degraded Iran to very unfortunate levels.
I really hope for a regime change for Iran, I sincerely do. The only reason I'm being quite particular about sources and facts is that I just don't want to see another Iraq and Afghanistan where the regime change causes more deaths, and then it leaves a power vacuum for all sorts of other violence and degradation.
They're state-organized. It's a recurring pattern. After any major protest, the Iranian government organizes rallies to project an image that they have popular support.
>>> Do you have a source for these counter protests being organized and dictated by IRGC?
Basic logic and a pair of eyeballs.
They're about as brazen and blatant as these sorts of things get. No, I don't have recordings of the mullahs instructing IRGC what to do, but the pro regime protests are uniform and exactly what a mullah would want for pro regime propaganda, with none of the nuance or variability you'd expect with spontaneous, grassroots support.
As far as I know, there's no documentary proof, but the evidence implicit to the structure, timing, messaging, location, and demographics are more than sufficient to damn them as regime orchestrated agitprop as opposed to any genuine opposition to the anti-regime movement.
Sorry, but basic logic doesn't entail that counter-protestors are organized by the IRGC. Especially when you know a bunch of Iranians.
I know IRGC is bad, there is no argument there. But to take agency away from Iranians that could genuinely be protesting against regime-change protestors just doesn't feel right to me.
I'm not saying there aren't people supportive of the status quo. What I'm calling out is the notion that organized mass protests that perfectly align with regime tactics from the past several decades could possibly be legitimate, as opposed to being astroturfed, for which there is plenty of evidence.
The Basij and local militia, ostensibly under the control of the regime, and in coordination with the IRGC, will issue orders to militia/military members and sometimes direct them to bring families with them. Some go willingly, but all go with an implicit gun to their families heads.
The IRGC and Basij and forced astroturfing is a frequently used and well understood tactic that the regime has kept in its toolbox. It's not a crazy conspiracy or unfounded, it's just business as usual. Just like I know they're using 7.62 NATO standard ammunition to gun people down, even though I haven't seen even a single picture of spent shell casings or bullets pulled from bodies. It's just how they do things.
It's not taking agency away if you can't tell the difference between someone being forced, pressured, going along to survive, or genuinely invested and supportive of the regime.
What would give them real agency is not living under the thumb of a dystopian authoritarian theocratic dictatorship. Pretending that there's any legitimacy to supporting the regime is also a little crazy. As long as 81 million people think its ok to live that way, you should let them oppress and murder and enslave and exploit the other 9 million? That's right up there with saying the parades for Kim Jong Un in North Korea show us some real support for that regime, or that people who express support of Un could possibly have any legitimacy.
At any rate, I hope any genuine supporters of the regime that are simply ignorant of the abuses and atrocity are simply disappointed and free to grumble about it in the near future, and see their lives radically improved and uplifted by whatever comes next. There's a huge amount of potential funding and international support - not just the US - that could make a free Iran drastically different than Libya or Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan.
They've got a cultural core and the diaspora and families who'd love nothing more than to return and rebuild, from all over the world. Even if they don't go the route of restoring the Shah, I think the Shah and that apparatus is willing to support and legitimize whatever comes next.
I honestly thought I'd live my entire life with Iran being a rogue state and perennially agitating and sponsoring terror, that it'd just be the way things are, until AGI, Aliens, or Armageddon.
No, I have principles. I wish to see people live the best possible lives for themselves, out from under tyranny and oppression, without the threat of death and violence and mayhem from those who have power over them, to the greatest degree of liberty and human rights that they can accommodate reasonably.
Because of my principles, I do not pretend cultural or moral relativism has legitimacy, and that somehow religious or cultural rationalizations of murder and oppression and mayhem can't be assessed as such because I'm halfway across the other side of the planet living a good life of riches nearly unimaginable to previous generations, arguing with people on the internet that I want things to be this good, or better, for everyone, especially the ones currently under the thumbs of tyrants.
I don't want the US to invade and try to build some sort of mythical liberal Iran, I want to see them rise up and get all the support they need to get their best and brightest to rebuild something awe inspiring and new for themselves.
The odds aren't great, but they're not as bad as recent American and Western driven nation building exercises. The Iranian people will have to walk a tightrope, and I'm cheering for them.
Of all the dictatorships you might want to be an apologist for, I can't think of a shittier and less inspiring one than this one, other than North Korea.
It will inevitably involve foreign intervention, which tends to work out badly. But I don't accept the alternative, that keeping a suppressive and violent regime is the best case. And I'd rather have the least amount of intervention possible, I don't even intrinsically care about breaking the regime; I want to directly support the protestors as much as possible.
Sure. I'm just acknowledging that even opposing it, parts of foreign countries' governments will interfere when they see blood, and it may not be possible to significantly help the protestors without them.
Because the interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya didn't really help the citizens. Instead it created more instability, and created power vacuums for other sorts of violence and degeneracy to occur.
I'm not saying I know what's the best way for Iranians to get what they want. But recent history shows us that foreign interference doesn't work, especially because those countries that are intervening aren't merely doing it from the goodness of their own hearts.
Yes, unfortunately what I want may be unrealistic, and more likely I can't do anything substantial. But for a situation as dire as Iran, I believe it's moral to try something...
The difference is one set of protestors support US/Israel intervention for regime change.
The other group of protestors are protesting against this. There is a segment within this group that are ardently pro-Regime. The other segment (which I think is the majority of the group, and Iran, but I have no evidence and so this is purely anecdotal based on my various discussions with Iranians) is that they do want regime change, but not from any outside influence - they would ideally like an organic democratic process that Iranian citizens control.
The death toll and the pictures and videos that are coming out that these people don’t even dare taking their usual positions and try to just mitigate it. It’s that bad.
Usually these deflections mean that the IRGC has indeed killed 3 year olds. Thanks for confirming it.
Tomorrow when Islamic Republic falls, people will get their hands on the list of every one the registrar has funded and sent overseas. A day of judgment will come for all the innocents.
You’re pulling a fast one there. Pictures and videos are getting out showing what security forces are/were doing. You are claiming it’s all propaganda and we should not believe our eyes and also forget our past experiences with this and all theocratic regimes.
According to Iranian state TV there’s been a protest in support of the government.
The fact that you are so certain of it, shows that during the total blackout you have some information from inside that normal people don’t? How do you have this information? It’s getting very interesting.
So if this happens, what are your remedies if any? I guess a VPN wouldn’t help since there are no routes? Something like Starlink would work or would there be a problem with ground stations not having internet?
I had this same question recently. There's mesh networks like meshcore. But you would be limited to just sending text messages to other users. I would imagine the government would be able to easily identify and destroy such a network as well.
There are a lot of Iranian-Americans in Silicon valley, and the broader tech. These people have family and relatives in Iran and not being able to contact has been extremely hard on them. If you have an Iranian colleague, please understand that they may not be able to perform and work as their usual. Hopefully this collective nightmare will end.
Illinois has 12 m people and a GDP over $1 trillion. I doubt most foreigners could place it on a map. There is no significant difference that it is part of a federation and Iran is not. People oversell these kind of Instagram sound-bites. It's really not a big deal.
I'd suspect most Americans have a relationship with far-off suffering the same as me: it's sad and I think we should contribute to alleviating it, but if I encounter sufficient sanctimony about it I'd rather go live my life.
The parent comment is provocative and impolite, so you are right to refute it.
On the other hand, I’d like to point out that few countries have foreign policies as obsessed with Illinois as the US government is with Iran.
The average person probably also has no political opinion on Illinois or their governments policy with respect to Illinois, something which I would assume to be different with respect to Iran in the US.
Now, compare the cultural history of Illinois and Iran/Persia.
And yes, being a part of federation does make a lot of difference.
How many China provinces can you name? (Not even asking you to point them on the map).
I hate it Americans/Western advocating democracy, human rights for Iran (Which I believe is their right if the demand so). But let me remind you, Pakistan is facing this since 2022, when an elected PM was removed by an American regime change operation on behalf of US by Pakistan Army.
Since 2022, Pakistanis been protesting, largest political party was banned from elections, largest political party was dismantled by Pakistan Army, journalists were abducted, banned, and killed, the most famous leader was shoot, eventually locked up.
In February 2024 Pakistan Army stolen election, when Pakistan army shut down internet, and keep x.com banned for 1.5 years, thousands of common Pakistanis was abducted, tortured, their homes broken into, killed during protests. Literally no one spoke. EU champion of human rights and democracy did not release Pakistan election 2024 report for 1.5 year. US is silent because Pakistan army general's serve their motives, so they do not have any problem with internet shut down, human right violations, democracy.
Stop this hypocrisy. Democracy and human rights become a thing when their interests are not served, or some dictators serve them then EU/US do not care.
See also the protests in Serbia [1] led by university students, that have been also mostly ignored by both the EU and the USA. The EU commented "they will not accept or support a violent change of power in Serbia", and the USA claimed they do not support "those who undermine the rule of law or who forcefully take over government buildings."
The reaction of muslims when comparing between the events of Palestine and Iran is chilling to watch. No matter the education, economic status or how they appear externally muslims unity is so strong internally when it comes to religion. Since the revolution in Iran is anti relgion they are turning a blind eye. How come no one even acknowledges. Its impossible not to wonder what will become of any country once muslims become majority. Do all the negative voting, but please think and reply what solution you got.
War Duration Population Deaths
Iraq war 2003-2017-present 25 million (2005) 500 - 1 million
Syrian war 2012-2025-present 21 million (2012) 500 - 600,000
Libyan war 2011-2021-present 6.5 million (2010) 50 - 100k
This is looking like its going to be another Syria/Libya-style foreign-intervention if Israel gets its way (which seems to be the case). Which means multiple proxy factions backed by various regional and global powers in a grand chessboard. The opposition already seems to be disjointed. To add to the mess, The Israelis seem to be backing the son of the late Shah to install as a tinpot dictator and Europe/Washington and the western media are going along with it dutifully. The Kurdish rioters and sleeper cells already seem to be firing their weapons and may at some point decide to make a break for it. Which risks destabilising Iraq and Syria (again) and likely draw involvement from those countries. Which will likely in turn , draw in the Turks and Gulf monarchs. By which point there is a good chance of this devolving into a conflict divided along ethnic and sectarian lines with a possible resurgence of ISIS and Al Qaeeda. The Israelis and their western-backers seem quite content with all this. The Israelis will likely seek to maximize and prolong the chaos in keeping with the Yinon plan to break apart Iran (along with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Somalia) so they can establish themselves as a regional hegemon.
"90 million" is a good number to keep in mind because going by the numbers and history, such a war would at minimum last 10 years and cost a million lives and trigger another even larger refugee crisis. As is now custom, it looks like the common people of the region will bear the brunt of the impact with Europe suffering the secondary fallout while America foots the bill and Israel reaps the rewards. I say all this because i see lot of people cheering this on and it is important for them to know what exactly they are cheering for. We saw all this happen over and over in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, in Palestine, in Yemen, in Somalia, in Sudan. Are we going to pretends it going to turn out different this time? That this time it really is about freedom and democracy and humanitarianism?
Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Yemen. It's kind of wild how the middle east has been at some kind of war with each other for more than half a century, possibly longer.
Meanwhile Europe aggressively killed each other during WWI and WWII and then went into a peaceful union with a free trading bloc.
Will there ever be a Middle-east union unification like EU in our lifetime?
> It's kind of wild how the middle east has been at some kind of war with each other for more than half a century, possibly longer.
> Will there ever be a Middle-east union unification like EU in our lifetime?
A reminder that Britain and France carved up the Ottoman empire and created mini states along ethnic and tribal lines, and then also planted Israel in the middle of it all, specifically in order to PREVENT a reunification of the Middle East (and eastern North Africa). Before that, there was the Ottoman Empire.
Why would external dominant forces WANT a united middle east, with a state that would control such vast resources and so many geographic choke points? Might does not want competition. Might wants vassals. Similarly, Western Might wants a collapse and fragmentation of Iran since it does not align with them geopolitically.
Think what's going on in Iran is very sad, but from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece, rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media, that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
does feel its back to might is right, and the last 80 years of relative peaceful times is sunsetting.
you may ask what has the above goto do with a tech article on Iran blocking the internet, its basically just how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid) that is, oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood, the above is not to diminish the other sad loss of life which is obviously terrible just feels like even tech articles have become partisan.
"oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours, personally didn't have it for much of my childhood"
I understand what you're trying to say and I agree with that, but this is actually different. This is not an inconvenience as much a state censorship. It's the state literally disallowing people talking to each other. It's Orwellian: "we don't like what you're talking about, so we're going to make you completely unable to"
It's not the 80s or 90s anymore. The internet is rhe global backbone of how people communicate with each other. Shutting down access is a clear action of censorship and oppression.
> This is not an inconvenience as much a state censorship
To wit: notice how few pictures we're seeing from there (a few were trickling in before the crackdown).
"This is not an inconvenience as much a state censorship. ... Shutting down access is a clear action of censorship and oppression."
You may have missed it but right now the US is encouraging insurrectionists in Iran to capture government buildings and promises all kinds of support.
I didn't miss that and I'm not sure what argument you're making. It sounds like you're trying to say that state censorship is conditional, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt to make your case.
My argument is that right now a superpower is set on overthrowing the government and internet shutdown is perfectly justified.
> right now a superpower is set on overthrowing the government [of Iran]
Okay, sure.
> and internet shutdown is perfectly justified
This doesn't seem to obviously follow. Can you explain the justification?
US also censors information and also cancel and ban free speech. Of course US is a lot more subtle as it’s not the government directly controlling media but a group of very influential and wealthy people that usually have the interest of the capitalist class.
As person who was in blackout in Jan 2022 in Kazakhstan, I’ll say it’s very unpleasant situation when you known that some people go into protests. Some security service building was looted of arms. Police nowhere to be seen. No communications and you don’t know if should you do some limited self protection available in form of running or not. So even if government control what they say, it does not control your ability to find out what’s going on via other people. That’s big deal for your physical security and wellbeing
The US does this a bit, but even with that suppression of free speech, even with most mass media outlets being owned by oligarchs that are subservient to the President, the internet is still going. Europe has penalties for Nazi speech, yet the internet is still going there.
There's no comparison to what's going on in these countries to what's going on in Iran. Trying to "what about" with the US censorship of, say, the majority political opinion in a city by cutting off all federal funds that were previously flowing to the city is not very relevant. Yes, it's bad, but here we are talking about it on the Internet!
> from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece, rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media
You don't clearly see America, there are at least two big mouthpieces. While I've never heard anyone praise the Iranian or Venezuelan government, I've heard many protest US intervention.
> how its written feels alot like propaganda (not saying the content is invalid)
I agree it sounds like propaganda. But in this case I think it's fair, the situation is almost black and white.
> the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours...not to diminish the other sad loss of life
Maybe they should've emphasized: the loss of life (and general restriction on daily living, offline) is the main problem, no internet for 118 hours is a symptom.
> even tech articles have become partisan
True. But again, this case (criticizing the Iranian regime) is so close to clear-cut black and white, it shouldn't even be partisan.
If you're talking about Chavez, I'd disagree quite strongly. But even Maduro had his western-based supporters, at least in the early years; for example this op-ed in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/04/venezu...> by portraying it as a repressive dictatorship that is cracking down on peaceful protest. This is a standard "regime change" strategy, which often includes violent demonstrations in order to provoke state violence."
Side note: The self contradiction in adjacent sentences is so funny to me! It says a lot about the lack of mental coherency of the author and of the intended audience.
But I'm not 100% sure I follow your point, this is an editorial from way back in 2014, from a UK site not a US site. Though this could be published in the Guardian, I don't think a supporter of Maduro's government would get any TV time.
Search long enough and you will find supporters and detractors of all governments in the US, and openly doing it, because that's what the US's principles are supposed to allow. I remember in SF a political group which is half-mainstream, the DSA, starting a Maoist reading group, which caused a local uproar. That's particularly notable in SF, a city that has a very large Chinese population, with many of the families in SF to flee Mao himself!
The original assertion was that the US had one voice, without any opposition, in its media. While the viewpoints that make it into the mainstream media are somewhat narrow, you can find nearly every viewpoint somewhere on the Internet in the US.
They cut the internet so they could machine gun people, not stop them from ordering DoorDash.
Not sure they do tbh, I think they would machine gun them even with internet, it's more about stopping them from organising.
> I think they would machine gun them even with internet, it's more about stopping them from organising.
Yes, but cutting off internet access to the entire country typically makes machine gunning much more efficient (due to organizing being made much more difficult for the people) and much less costly in terms of the global outcry and reputation.
Where is your evidence of that?
They did just after the protest started, and there is no evidence that's actually happening but it's kind of the point since we are not receiving information from Iran since the government blocked them out from the internet
There are alternative explanations. For example, foreign agents may have been using Starlink, and the security services may have used the shutdown to find the Starlink terminals.
They are attempting to find the Starlink terminals so they can machine gun protesters without accountability or documentation, not because they have a regulatory issue with SpaceX.
Wow, are there actually people on here shilling for the Iranian government? Recent reports have as many as 12,000 Iranian civilians gunned down by their own government during this blackout.
Where is their evidence that the internet was cut to prevent evidence from disseminating?
This is the third uprising. They have so far followed the same recipe. People raise up. Internet is turned off. People are arrested and killed by the authorities. They are using the death penalty to teach the Iranians that raising up will get you killed.
While I dislike trumpism, I do hope that the Iranian authorities will get bombed. They deserve to die for how they treat their own people.
That's not what I'm seeing.
Why would "the people" be burning hundreds of mosques, ancient libraries, police stations, buses and civilian homes?
How have over 100 police been killed so quickly by "organic" protests?
And why is Israeli media reporting that they have agents on the ground instigating violence?
I wouldn't know why they are burning things. I suppose they burn the religion of peace symbols of their oppressors.
I imagine that Israel supports a regime change in Iran, but I don't think that they can run this on their own. They probably support whatever goes on with covert agents.
Since little gets out of Iran let's not speculate any more. :)
The bit were the death toll was 70 after a week of protests, then the internet was cut and in 3 days it’s closer to 2,000.
People don't do politics anymore, they get their priorities the other way around (geopolitics before the politics of their own house, workplace or city), and the little they do is heavily misplaced (online instead of physically demonstrating).
On top of that add the huge boom of data in politics. No politician anymore has programs or language aiming at representing most of the voters, but it only focuses to get 50%+1, which in practice means that most politicians aim for the majority of the swing voters.
Is politics that thing where I vote every 2-4 years and maybe volunteer for the DNC or send some money to a presidential candidate, and spend thousands of hours passively consuming election and news content? That's what I learned growing up but it doesn't seem to be working. :shrug: /s
Yes, the US is not the center of the universe and there’s lots of room for different perspectives, but there is nothing good that can be said about the regime in Iran.
China, for sure there a lot of good that can be said about the Chinese government. Of course China’s human rights abuses have to be recognized, but we should also recognize the good things like economic and technological development. And I’m sympathetic to Taiwanese independence, but China’s own position should also be give a fair shake. Pretty much all governments, including the US, are a mix of good and bad.
But name one redeeming point of the regime in Iran. Why have any sympathy for the regime at all?
>But name one redeeming point of the regime in Iran. Why have any sympathy for the regime at all?
They helped Russia, for one thing.
Want to be more specific about your argument? I’d consider a government good if it is serves the people of that country. “Iran murders and tortures it citizens by the thousands, and impoverishes them by the millions through widespread corruption, but they sold some drones to Russia, so that’s nice.” Is that your argument?
The request was for a redeeming quality, not a damning one.
> Think what's going on in Iran is very sad, but
> the above is not to diminish the other sad loss of life
That's a lot of caveats.
The problem with other freedom-loving nations, the EU, etc is that they're a bunch of cowards and I feel like America is the only place that can stand up to the regimes like Iran/China. Who else if not US?
Iran controls a string of proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and other places. Are you sure you're not forgetting that piece? When you write that we had 80 years of relatively peaceful times, you're glossing over that fact.
We haven't had a major conflict in 80 years. Little skirmishes all over the place, sure, but we've forgotten that significant wars between major powers used to be both terrible for everyone involved and also common. Our grandparents after WW2 decided to go a different path and created a largely rules- and trade- based international order that has largely kept the peace. We don't realize how good we've had it.
Sixty million people died in WW2. Sixty million.
>rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media...at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
I'm not sure if you meant to imply that there was a uniform media response of "look how great we are" vis-a-vis the abduction of Maduro? If you did, I have to disagree. A significant amount of US media time was dedicated to how not-great this was.
The US media is full of propaganda. I am not disputing that. All I am saying is that the response to the Maduro abduction was not a uniform "This is great!"
When thinking about an entire country, "good/bad" doesn't make sense as a category. In Iran, the people are protesting and holy hell are there a ton of people risking their lives for the chance for a better life with less oppression, without hyperinflation, with some sort of voice in their own governance. The ruling class can not be conflated with the populace. The populace can not be conflated with the populace for that matter, there's no "one" thing even under a shared culture. This is also true in the US, you can't conflate the ruling class with the people in the streets ringing bells and blowing horns and risking their lives and freedom against a tyrannical government seeking to arrest millions of people and deport some of them.
Nothing is completely free of politics, much less the existence of the Internet, and it's incredibly important to realize the impact that technology has on the fabric of society.
> oh the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours,
This is not even remotely close to the meaning or impact of the site that's linked. It's about the dignity of life, the gunning down of thousands of people by their government, and the governments attempts to continue oppression by hiding their actions behind a veil. Your comment viewed in its most positive light is crass, more realistically is heartless and cruel.
My guess: you're commenting on the US from a Russified country, or from China? That's the only perspective on the world that I can imagine generating your statements, and if I'm wrong I'd love to know.
no, actually not, maybe a country that isnt very pro America given you're threatening to invade to take ownership of Greenland. But again in my post, the actual loss of life etc is very sad and shouldn't happen, but my point was more tech was one area where politics were left at the door and maybe I'm old but its sad I guess to see it here too.
> that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
If you think American news is weird, you should try reading Chinese news. English ones like China Daily or globaltimes.cn, I would read it a lot when I was in China since American news sources were blocked.
It has gotten better since 2002, but is still pretty bizarre in how they frame conflicts. Forget CNN-level bias, they have FoxNews-level bias in how they do the news.
> rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media, that is its always Iran/China bad and at the same time they Kidnap a foreign leader and its all wow look how great we are.
You are not looking too hard at all. There are lots of dissenting opinions, in fact I'd wager that if you excluded official government mouthpieces, the lion's share of opinion (both private individuals as well as established media) is trending to open criticality of the US government's choices.
> how its written feels alot like propaganda
I almost feel bad for the established old school media companies. One side says they are spewing propaganda, the other side says they're ignoring it altogether. Both cannot be simultaneously true.
> but from an outsider America has become one mouthpiece
Really? As a naturalized American I see diversity in the USA's media. Do you have an example?
From what I see, there are two big voices in the media politically.
> rarely do I see dissenting voices in the media
Again, we need an example. I see the official line from the current party in power, and the counter arguements from the mainstream media as a whole. The current party only has a media output from very few mainstream sources.
See manufacturing consent.
"China bad"?
Do you have any idea how much Chinese economic leverage has caused Hollywood to censor against CCCP criticism?
As for Iran, we have a literal embargo, so it's not quite the same.
lol we are here because 75 years ago in the era of peace and tranquility, CIA deposed the democratically elected secular leader of iran
Iran's elections 75 years ago were about as democratic as North Korea's. They were just theater. Everyone was involved in rigging, candidates, the monarchy, foreign nations, etc., Mosaddegh included.
And peace and tranquility? Iran was in economic chaos before the PM was dismissed in 1953. They were printing money to pay salaries because the British refused to transport their oil, cutting off their main source of income.
What is your point again? Why are you listing iranian domestic problems when we are talking about foreign policy. There are lots of failing countries all around the world and most of them don't hate America because the CIA didnt coup their popular leader.
The PM wasn't democratically elected.
Iran wasn't in era of peace and tranquility 75 years ago.
The PM was not popular in 1953 after his promise of prosperity after seizing British oil fields not only failed to materialize, but instead led to the oil industry grinding to a halt; his failed half-hearted land reforms pissed off pretty much everyone; he jailed his political enemies; and was ruling Iran as a dictator.
It's unfortunate that Iran's propaganda around Mossadegh has been so effective at rewriting history, but people just like simplistic stories about good vs. evil.
When you look at it, you do notice how much of what is happening in that region was due to western (particularly British) intervention and colonialism, and continues to this day.
>does feel its back to might is right, and the last 80 years of relative peaceful times is sunsetting.
Depending on your perspective, 'might is right' never changed. The US has forced its policies on other nations through quiet force for a long time. I think the only thing that's changed is that Trump wants to say the quiet part out loud now which makes it way easier to push back on. Combine that with the fact that Trump has 0 political ambitions outside of just being in power and it becomes very easy to just ignore what you hear coming from the top. Often it clearly has no thought put behind it, seems vindictive in nature, and is forgotten the next day, like a child's tantrum. To circle back a little, now that the US in such a passive state due to this, a lot of other countries feel safer to push their influence on the world because they see no repercussions for what others are doing.
Why is the top comment always this sort of concern troll derailing the topic? It seems intentional at this point to divert discussion.
Have you been on the Internet as an adult ever? Have you been on X? What about Facebook? America is "one mouthpiece"? This is one of the most puzzling takes I've ever seen.
Americans literally post 10K articles a day about how bad the administration is and all the bad that will result from going to Venezuela ... and multiply that for literally every other thing the govt does. There isn't one thing that happens that doesn't have hundreds of posts online and in papers explaining why America is so evil for doing it.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you sampled the media landscape in Tehran or Beijing? I have sampled both ... FROM those locations. Its night and day.
Even the media landscape in your typical Western Alliance country (Singapore, Japan, South Korea, UK ... etc.) cannot come close to what you see in America.
It's very, very different than a nation losing access to the internet because of technical issues (or, in your case, because it wasn't invented/popularized yet).
> the indignity of not having internet for 118 hours
...during mass violence against the population.
Being able to completely turn off the Internet in your country seems to be a non-negotiable capability to develop for any non-democratic state.
I think a lot of them took a look at how Twitter and Facebook were used for organising during the Arab spring and decided that it was by far the most dangerous non-military threat.
Still wonder how exactly they are interdicting Starlink, I've seen rumors that they are using Russian EW systems but those same systems are not so effective jamming Starlink-guided drones on the frontlines.
>Being able to completely turn off the Internet in your country seems to be a non-negotiable capability to develop for any non-democratic state.
Which technologically advanced democratic countries DON'T have this capability already developed and deployed?
Do you think the 3 letter agencies in the likes of UK, Israel, Australia, Canada, Germany, Finland, Sweden, etc don't know how to turn off the internet in their countries? They'd be really incompetent if they don't.
Switzerland even had all its bridges wired with explosives from like the 19th century and all the way through the cold war to blow them up inc ase of an invasion.
Do you think the internet infra is somehow spared this kind of strategic planning?
The USA cannot do it, because there is actually a law against cutting off communications systems dating back to 1944. Of course there have been attempts to make it possible.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/hr8336/summary
Given everything going on in this country, I don't think a silly law from 1944 is going to deter the current administration from trying.
This "current administration" thinking is exactly the problem. When your version of the current administration had the power to diminish the power of the administration, did it do that? None of them do.
Somehow there's always a failure of imagining that whatever the current administration is won't always be current.
Well, that's the fun part of democracy. You don't get to bet on the status quo remaining the same.
> X cannot do it, because there is actually a law against Y
Famous last words.
I'm more than shocked that people STILL haven't learned how quickly laws came become meaningless. Which is why history keeps repeating itself.
If fascist government goons break into your house to kill you, do you think waving a piece of paper with the law in their face will stop them? Isn't that the whole point the found fathers made the Second Amendment? Even they knew this 300 years ago. Have people already forgotten?
I was going to say! I actually laughed out loud at the computer screen when reading OP's comment. There is no way "There's a law against it" is going to stop the current administration (with all three branches of government aligned) from doing whatever the heck it wants.
> Isn't that the whole point the found fathers made the Second Amendment?
At the risk of going off on an entirely different direction ... no, I don't think that was the point of the second amendment, not really. It was more about making sure they had something that would function like a standing army (in the absence of the real deal) should a foreign government invade. Defense against tyranny from our own government doesn't really feel like it was something they worried deeply about (at least with regards to the right to bear arms), and the self-defense justification for the second amendment wasn't even a commonly held viewpoint until about the 20th century.
I'm actually not shocked judging by that comment that you don't know how pyramid of authority works in most countries, and in this context, the US.
Most countries (including the US, obviously) follow their laws. Can you please give an example for a first world country that *consistently* ignores it's own laws?
History repeats itself because people ignore history, not because people ignore the law.
Sorry, I expressed my thoughts wrong. What I meant to say was that laws can change overnight based on mob political feels or black swan events (WW2, 9/11, etc.)
So just because something is illegal for the government TODAY, doesn't mean it will stay like that for the next 500 years.
Laws aren't real, they're just made up constructs on worthless pieces of paper, but the only thing that is always consistently real is the enforcement of the will of state through means of violence and they'll put that in writing to give it legitimacy but ultimately the people in charge of the guns can make whatever they want legal or illegal.
You're right, but what do you care what happens in 500 years?
The world changes. Maybe in 50 years child pornography will be legal, who knows? It doesn't change based on what those rulers want, because in a true Democratic country, the people rule.
> Can you please give an example for a first world country that consistently ignores it's own laws?
In the US, it's standard to do ten miles an hour over the speed limit past a cop, and there's probably 20 Federally illegal marijuana dispensaries within a few miles of me. Our current President got convicted of 34 felonies, but any possible consequences were automatically voided when he got elected again.
There isn't enough men power obviously for every marijuana dispensary, and also for speed violations.
This was very intentional policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cole_Memorandum
The US also are by law not allowed to start a war without the approval of Congress, right? But they did anyway in Venezuela.
> The USA cannot do it, because there is actually a law against cutting off communications systems dating back to 1944. Of course there have been attempts to make it possible.
The link you provided says:
In 1942, during World War II, Congress created a law to grant President Franklin D. Roosevelt or his successors the power to temporarily shut down any potentially vulnerable technological communications technologies.
The Unplug the Internet Kill Switch Act would reverse the 1942 law and prevent the president from shutting down any communications technology during wartime, including the internet.
The House version was introduced on September 22 as bill number H.R. 8336, by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI2). The Senate version was introduced the same day as bill number S. 4646, by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
The bill did not pass and did not become law. So what are you referring to?
Does it really matter what is illegal if it is pardoned?
Starting insurrection to overthrow election? Pardoned. Killing police officer? Pardoned. Ordering contract killings? Pardoned. Large scale drug smuggling operation to the US? Pardoned.
Brand anyone who follows the law as a criminal and make sure to have them fired, and you can even ignore the constition that says power to regulate trade lies with the senate and enough of civil society might just decide to play along.
Even if your optimism had some basis in reality, about 12 guys with $5 serrated pocket knives bought on aliexpress could knock out 80% of communications in under an hour. Fiber optic strands are alarmingly tiny, and wrapped in day-glo orange plastic tubing making them intentionally easy to find.
For whatever reason it's taboo to talk about how fragile infrastructure is, but if you wanted to shut something like comm links down, that's a problem for whoever installs the new judiciary. Chances are, whoever gets the job of being the new judiciary is likely to rule it as acceptable use of emergency powers.
Laws are just words, not real barriers as this and previous administrations proved.
In fact, it's likely that you can turn off the internet, and then, after some time, a judge will rule on the topic.
Laws in the era of lawlessness. Laws never really stopped all crimes anyways.
I don't think it's technically feasible to blackout the US but if it came to that no law would stand in the way of the attempt.
I'm sure there is at least one security-claiming act that can be used to override that sentence
>cannot do it, because there is actually a law
Oh sweet summer child.
> The USA cannot do it, because there is actually a law
Good one, buddy. That's a good one.
I highly doubt the Swedish government has a way to turn off our internet. Our government doesn't own our internet infrastructure, it's owned by private companies. The government could impose legislation to force providers to comply with shutting down international peering but I have a hard time seeing it pass.
Well. I can't talk for the current government of Sweden, but if I was the supreme leader of a Swedish Dictatorship, I am pretty confident that I could accomplish that by sending some very persuasive soldiers along with a government officer with some papers ordering those private companies to do whatever the fuck I wanted unless their executives wanted to experience some extra holes in their bodies.
Luckily Sweden is not a dictatorship and doesn't have a supreme leder. Our government can't just hand-wave things. There's the legislative branch which must've had the foresight to make laws that allows the executive branch to order operators to comply.
The parent asked "Which technologically advanced democratic countries DON'T have this capability already developed and deployed?" and there are many, every country on earth isn't run by warmongering corrupt idiots.
>Our government can't just hand-wave things.
Famous last words.
In case of war or major cataclysmic event, your government will definitely just hand-wave a lot of things you take for granted in order to keep the country and society from collapsing, including elections, democracy, freedom of speech, internet access, travel, etc since then the nation's survival becomes more important than your individual rights and freedom. See Covid hysteria, Ukraine war, etc.
I think coddled people from rich countries who never saw anything but prosperity since WW2 and no conflicts or events with major loss of life, have no idea just how radical governments can switch in an instant when society is threatened with collapse.
Guys with guns can be pretty convincing
Does Sweden not have the equivalent of the UK's civil contingency act?
Section 2 basically allows the Westminster government to make regulations as they see fit during an emergency, but with a short time scale (like a month or so) before parliament gets a say.
The providers have to oblige any government order.
> Our government doesn't own our internet infrastructure,
Does ANY country from the list above own their internet infrastructure?
>it's owned by private companies.
So what? If it's on Swedish ground then it's under Swedish government(military) enforcement in case the shit hits the fan.
>The government could impose legislation to force providers to comply with shutting down international peering but I have a hard time seeing it pass.
Do you think if Russia invades Sweden tomorrow, private businesses can still do whatever they want like in peacetime, or will they have to follow the new waartime rules set by the government and enforced by armed soldiers knocking on their door dragging them to court if they refuse to comply?
> Do you think if Russia invades Sweden tomorrow, private businesses can still do whatever they want like in peacetime
Pretty much
> or will they have to follow the new waartime rules set by the government and enforced by armed soldiers knocking on their door dragging them to court if they refuse to comply?
They'll be dragging them to court. We're a democracy, we don't just send soldiers after our own.
No offense but you're out of touch with reality if you think that's how a country under existential threat acts, still treating citizens with oven mitts and keeping lengthy bureaucratic due processes for everything.
I think this type of idealistic fantasy world mentality is exactly why Europe has been so ill prepared to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
> I highly doubt the Swedish government has a way to turn off our internet
You guys do. Säpo and Telia were a customers of mine when I was still an IC.
The Americans often achieve the same ends with different means; use of mass surveillance to account for the threat of open communication, forcing sales of social media platforms to friends of the regime, domain seizures on pirate sites, Know-Your-Customer (KYC) laws, Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) laws, etc.
The American model is still preferable, but being preferable often gives people the false impression that open communication is a solved problem because they have limited assurances at the political level when what they should be after is more expansive assurances at the technical level.
Could you describe technically how it would be accomplished in the U.S.?
FBI agents show up at a few dozen major datacenters with bolt cutters?
Half the internet goes down by accident when AWS or Cloudflare have a big issue every few years.
Yes it would not be hard to take down a few data centers or services (just seize their domain) but that’s not remotely close to completely turning off the Internet. There are millions of servers on the U.S. Internet outside of major data centers.
We also run tons of crucial stuff over commercial links thanks to encryption. Taking Internet trunks offline would disrupt most domestic functions of government, for example.
The "internet" is different things to different people. For the masses: if you take down the datacenters - or more easily coerce the leadership of the magnificent 7 you effectively turn of the internet for most people
> There are millions of servers on the U.S. Internet outside of major data centers.
And they largely rely on a surprisingly centralized infrastructure to function.
> Taking Internet trunks offline would disrupt most domestic functions of government, for example.
Sure, but in the sort of scenario you're considering "take the Internet down", that has already occurred.
If the government has already been disrupted, then who is taking down the Internet?
No, the goal of “take down the Internet” is to degrade the organizing of protestors / agitators / insurgents, while preserving the ability of government to organize against them. It only works if the government has a separate sufficient infrastructure, or completely controls routing on shared infrastructure. Neither of those are true in the U.S.
To pick just one recent newsworthy example, the federal government does not have a way to deny Signal messaging to their opponents, while preserving their own use of it.
My guess is that in Ukraine the Russian EW systems are deployed tens of kilometers back from the line of contact to protect them from artillery strikes and fiber optic drones. These Russian EW systems are likely used to protect command posts and logistics bases but not the line of contact.
But because Iran is not yet an active war zone the Iranians can deploy those systems close to the cities.
Also, Starlink terminals can be located via their RF emissions. So using a Starlink terminal in Iran seems to come with a high risk that security forces can locate and arrest you.
> Also, Starlink terminals can be located via their RF emissions.
Starlink terminals use highly-directional antennas that point at the sky (see. beamforming) and therefore they don't leak much in terms of RF emissions. So unless you can afford to maintain a host of overhead drones on permanent rotation and wide-area coverage, it would be very hard to actually locate anybody. Not that it's impossible, but largely intractable at scale. We use Starlink a lot in Ukraine, and even though the russians have platforms with sophisticated signal processing capabilities (think Xilinx RFSoC) perfectly capable of locating emissions from most communication equipment, they are still unable to locate Starlink terminals. And this is along the frontline, mind you. To cover all of Iran would surely be prohibitive.
In addition to jamming the radio signals directly, Starlink terminals use GPS, so jamming GPS can hurt connectivity. Iran has been jamming GPS in an effort to reduce the effectiveness of foreign military attacks, but maybe they've stepped it up a notch in the past week. People in Ukraine are probably so accustomed to GPS jamming that they've all gone to Advanced -> Debug Data -> "Use Starlink positioning exclusively".
Ukraine has one other advantage: The jamming tends to come from one direction. If you set up a barrier on that side of the antenna, the signal from the satellites is less likely to be drowned out. People in Iran have no idea where the jammers are in related to themselves. If they're in a city, they might be surrounded.
Starlink terminals also require a clear view of the sky and they broadcast on certain frequencies, so it's quite possible for governments to find the terminals and confiscate/destroy them. Still, it's a lot more difficult to shut down than a few fiber optic lines.
> Starlink terminals also require a clear view of the sky and they broadcast on certain frequencies
That's not quite true. You can conceal the terminal using a number of materials that won't significantly interfere with the signal like a thin piece of cloth or a thin plastic bag (like a garbage bag) as long as the cover doesn't get too wet.
https://edunham.net/2022/03/11/starlink_dressup.html
> Still wonder how exactly they are interdicting Starlink…
It's an active transmitter actively shouting "I'm here!" to the right gear.
IIRC, the Ukrainians found it's best to have a nice long wire between you and the terminal for this reason.
To be fair though, the web can heavily and easily be flooded by foreign actors like the US in case of Iran.
It's naive to think that our countries don't play the influence and propaganda war online.
> Still wonder how exactly they are interdicting Starlink
a good cyberwarfare attack would be disabling whatever is being used to prevent Starlink from working. Even if it only lasts for 12 hours the flood of images, video, and just general communication from inside Iran to the world would be a blow to the regime.
In Germany we have the Bundesnetzagentur an agency that drives around and measures the power of your WiFi. If its to high you get fined, and they really do manage to triangulate you.
I would guess the Iranian government is capable of at least the same: Triangulating specific radio frequency sources.
To be fair, shutting down all communications and power are our only defense against a runaway AI system.
This is a capability that makes sense to have to use when absolutely necessary.
I think the differentiator is always when governments choose to employ these things.
> This is a capability that makes sense to have to use when absolutely necessary.
I definitely disagree with this. Currently there is no reason to believe we'll ever have sentient AI, or AGI or whatever term you prefer, much less a runaway one. There is definitely reasons to worry about governments using this power in an era of increasing authoritarianism, I mean we're talking about this because it is literally happening right now to cover up a massacre.
I don't want the power to turn off all communications to exist, because I don't want my political enemies to have it if they win an election.
> shutting down all communications and power are our only defense against a runaway AI system
Wouldn't a centralized ability to shut down all communications and power also be one of the most vulnerable targets to an runaway AI attack though? Seems like a double edged sword if I've ever seen one.
Eh if you're gonna go that far with your logic then a runaway AI system intelligent and malevolent enough to require turning off the whole damn Internet in a place (or more likely globally, defeating the point anyway) will also be intelligent enough to use alternative means of communication.
RF is rife in our brave new world.
Frankly, we need to get to a place where it is impossible to do shut down the internet in a country like this. P2P and distributed networks might see a resurgence here
Any RF comms can be jammed, you will need ground to satellite laser communications to accomplish this (or you were close enough to a terrestrial free space optics ground station outside of nation state borders a satellite isn't required).
https://spacenews.com/aircraft-links-with-satellite-using-la...
https://event.dlr.de/en/hm2025/tesat-scot80/
https://www.tesat.de/products
RF comms can't realistically be jammed across the entirety of a whole country, though, so this is definitely a case of "something is better than nothing", and it absolutely makes sense to establish community-level networking/comms at least.
Planes can be shot down
Plane was the test bed for the military application in my citation, the ground station could be ground or roof mounted and camouflaged. As it would emit no RF, you would have to know where to look for it to find it (unlike say, StarLink ground terminals, which are detectable).
If you emit RF in a contested environment as a civilian, you can be found using multilateration (for this context, I assume if you have military comms equipment, you have access to exotic RF that will make this difficult similar to have quick and saturn). SDR networks on the public internet enable this today, as long as there are enough receivers online in an area and you know what you're looking for, so I don't think it's beyond the grasp of nation state actors.
TDOA Transmitter Localization with RTL-SDRs - https://panoradio-sdr.de/tdoa-transmitter-localization-with-... - July 17th, 2017
Eh I don't think there are enough jammers to get everywhere. Otherwise a twinkling sea of laser light house to house repeaters, red stars in the dark is a pretty sounding dystopia.
The west would cut the internet the second shit got real. No question.
Europe is already flirting with it. Look at their draconian internet speech laws. If you think that ISPs would try to stand up to the government you should read about how quickly they bent over after the PATRIOT act.
They cut the internet and gunned down 12,000 protesters. Absolute tragedy. I've been semi-depressed this week just thinking about it.
This is exceeding the scale of the Tiananmen Square Massacre as far as death toll is concerned*
*According to a leaked diplomatic cable: https://www.axios.com/2018/01/05/declassified-cable-estimate...
Like how they always show Mao even with that KD ratio
If they cut off the internet how did this information get out and how can it be verified? There would be video of this kind of thing if it wasn’t just the Americans building support for regime change; I have yet to see any.
there are videos out of piles of bodies in hospital morgues, other videos of live firing at crowds as well as testimonials
according to iranian government sources talking with nytimes there are 3000 dead
> other videos of live firing at crowds as well as testimonials
I haven’t seen any of these and I have been looking.
> morgues
I did find this one: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2026/jan/12/bodies-l...
It doesn’t appear to be anywhere near thousands, but covered bodies have been put out onto the street, so something is going on there.
> It doesn’t appear to be anywhere near thousands, but covered bodies have been put out onto the street, so something is going on there.
highly graphic:
https://xcancel.com/Osint613/status/2011155652769694033#m https://xcancel.com/Osint613/status/2011136906919362932#m https://xcancel.com/MokhtarGhazzawi/status/20110620873011409... https://xcancel.com/Osint613/status/2011042718768828742#m https://xcancel.com/Vahid/status/2011062943043969235#m https://xcancel.com/Vahid/status/2010367357865136363#m
Phones aren't blocked I guess, only internet is, but I agree with the sentiment that you should never believe any number you see.
Phones are blocked as well.
This is a total communication blackout.
Unverified though - people are saying more in the range of 2000.
PS
In Islam they don't do cremation and burial is within a day before next sunset hence the horrible footage of hospitals releasing bodies publicly in the street - it is part of their faith and even the regime respects it.
Iranian officials are saying 2000, so that's the lower bound.
Hrana says. It is US based.
It's interesting how nobody was skeptical of casualty estimates in a different recent conflict but suddenly we need verification.
And countless human rights and freedom activists completely absolutely silent. They chose to be silent about Iran, it feels like iranian blood is worth less than other places apparently.
As someone very vocal on Iran, I find these recriminations shallow and generally intended to be punitive about those positions in those others places.
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.
I think it's a fair criticism though because of the general vitriol about Hamas and Gaza.
The same folks are very much in a position on college campuses to protest about numerous injustices going on in the world, from Iran to Somalia to Haiti to Cuba, yet they're silent.
Why is that? It's a fair question.
I don't think there's some moral failure for caring about one issue affecting one group of people more than another, but you really have to wonder why we care so much about Palestine over other issues, even more gruesome injustices.
This isn't to diminish of course the plight of Palestinians or any group for that matter, but it's a very clear outlier in the American, and dare I say entire western psyche.
“it's a fair criticism though because of the general vitriol about Hamas and Gaza.”
Ok, you’ve convinced me. I now firmly support reducing billions in American aid to Iran, curtailing Iranian use of American bombs, and diplomatic cover America gives to Iran in the UN. I am now also calling strongly to remove all these state laws we have that ban government business with companies that don’t support Iran!
Is your argument that if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel which are used on Gaza, Americans and Europeans wouldn't care about what's going on in Palestine as much?
Are you calling for Iran to cease supplying Hamas and other regional organizations with weapons as well?
I don’t know if you are American, but I am. Sure, I don’t support Iran giving Hamas weapons. The issue is that Iran isn’t my government and they certainly don’t give a fuck about my opinion.
The human tragedy in Gaza is enabled directly by MY representatives and funded with MY tax money and given diplomatic cover for atrocities again and again by MY government. Nothing my country is doing enables what is happening in Iran right now.
The situation is less pronounced with Europeans, but not dissimilar. The EU has sanctions on Iran, unless I’m missing something? And frankly yes, if American support for Israel ceased I think Europeans would complain less because Israel would have to stop a lot of their behavior.
If the US wasn't selling weapons, Israel wouldn't be able to do what it does. It wouldn't be happening like this. So that's right, the level of caring would be lower because the genocide would not be possible.
> If the US wasn't selling weapons, Israel wouldn't be able to do what it does.
It's hard to really draw up the counterfactual but I'm not really sure that's the case. But there are many other players here besides just Israel that are helping to ensure that this conflict continues to fester, chiefly Iran.
It's a fair point to say that the counterfactual is hard to draw up.
I will point out the main reason it's hard to come up with, is the fact that American aid, weapons sales, and diplomatic support for Israel has been so constant and unchallenged over the past several decades that we don't have many good examples of what Israel would do without impunity.
Without western support, it is quite possible Israel will simply lose and the conflict will go away, leaving a possibility of building a democratic secular state in Palestine that treats people with equality.
Lose what conflict to who? Do Palestinians want a secular state? That would be an outlier in the region I believe, would it not?
I appreciated your exchange in this subthread about the difference of the U.S.'s involvement versus Iran. However, I want to push back even without drawing that distinction, so I do it here.
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.
> 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.
I don't disagree at all, just to be clear for anyone reading.
> 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 it's punitive for believing in a cause, generally specific causes, rather than about integrity.
Sure, and I think that's fair and I'm not denigrating those who are protesting in favor of action w.r.t Palestine/Gaza, but more so interested in why that particular issue seems so important over others. 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.
I appreciate your engagement!
> 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 don’t remember all of how society has reacted to various issues but the protests and discourse around Palestine seem to be an outlier in terms of engagement. But that’s just my interpretation.
> Why is that? It's a fair question.
I think most of those students would answer that they are protesting the US government's complicity in this particular injustice -- which doesn't apply to the other injustices you list. I have a hard time imagining that most people asking this fair question can't think of that obvious answer.
I hadn't really thought about it from that angle. But it's certainly reasonable.
Do you think if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that there wouldn't be protests and a lot of social media posts similar to how other humanitarian disasters are treated today? I guess would it be on the same level?
I wonder if there's a correlation across western countries with respect to protests and a given country's participation in selling weapons to Israel. I recall there were/are a lot of protests going on in Ireland with respect to the conflict but I know Ireland doesn't sell weapons to Israel. But there have been of course other cases in Europe where the country does sell weapons and there are protests. Maybe there's a rhyme and reason here, I'm not sure.
I appreciate your understanding here.
Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.
Because of this, it's entirely rational to NOT protest with equal opportunity for every injustice that occurs around the world. Those American campus students aren't just protesting to make noise, they are hoping that their government leaders - that DEPEND on their votes - will cease enabling atrocities.
The American government hates Iran with bipartisan support and has it sanctioned to hell and back, I have no idea what I'd protest American leaders to do here?
> The American government hates Iran with bipartisan support and has it sanctioned to hell and back, I have no idea what I'd protest American leaders to do here?
Well you could rally in support of more action, or protest outside an Iranian embassy for example to put pressure on them. I was reading that something on a small scale happened in the UK and they took down the Iranian flag from the embassy.
> Another way to put it: the point of protesting generally isn't solely to express being upset with an injustice. It's to get some actor/stakeholder - usually one's government - to DO something about the injustice.
Sure, I don't disagree. But let me ask, do you believe that if the US wasn't selling weapons to Israel that the public would react to this particular conflict in a way that's similar to how it reacts to other conflicts around the world? It's obviously hard to speculate about because it's just the world we live in and counterfactuals around these things are incredibly difficult and inaccurate, but something tells me there's something unique about this conflict and even in countries that don't sell weapons to Israel we do still see rather large scale protests and rallies and such.
What do you think?
>Well you could rally in support of more action, or protest outside an Iranian embassy for example
You're describing methods of protest, but not demands. What specific action do you believe Americans should demanding from their representatives re: Iran, that the US government isn't already doing? We bombed Iran just this past summer, are you saying we should go back for round 2?
>obviously hard to speculate about because it's just the world we live in
The world we live in is the world where the US gives huge financial, material and political support to Israel. Your statement feels akin to saying "Sure there is a gigantic elephant in this room right now, but something tells me there's some unique reason why everyone is complaining about the room being cramped. Especially compared to these other rooms that don’t have a giant elephant inside.”
> You're describing methods of protest, but not demands. What specific action do you believe Americans should demanding from their representatives re: Iran, that the US government isn't already doing? We bombed Iran just this past summer, are you saying we should go back for round 2?
Well this action puts pressure on Iran, and in the case of the UK maybe more pressure for the UK to do something. You're right that the US government is already opposed (rightfully) to the Iranian regime and so additional rallies or protests might not have much effect but it could reinforce the government's stance and to show support. You can rally in favor of something, and protest against something, can you not?
> The world we live in is the world where the US gives huge financial, material and political support to Israel.
Yea but then you have to balance that with Iran giving huge financial, material, and political support to Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups who take up arms and fight and kill people and stuff too.
But the point wasn't to suggest that the US doesn't give these things to Israel, which if you want to introduce "the real world" you have to include Iran and friends (Russia too now that I think about it, they've been helping Iran), but to just speculate on whether we would still see the level of protest we do today even if the United States didn't give weapons to Israel. I'm unsure. But it's a hard counterfactual to run, and I'm just mentioning it because the primary argument I see for the reasoning that more people care about this issue is specifically because the US sells/gives weapons to Israel. That's all.
I don’t think that is a fair question if one has at any time tried to look into what exactly these protestors are protesting or how protest works.
Sure, care to elaborate on what exactly these protestors are protesting, or how protesting works and why that's uniquely different for Palestine versus other equally horrible injustices?
Could it be as simple as the people supporting Palestine are better at social media?
> Why is that? It's a fair question.
Seems simple to me. The Palestine/Israel protests were demanding change from an ally. It was a call for "you guys are supposed to be good but what you're doing is bad."
I suppose there could be rallies of support for the Iranian people, but it would seem silly for US protesters to demand change from the Iranian government, given that our opinion is probably not regarded highly by them.
This is classic whataboutism. You don't have to criticize every single atrocity in the world in order to criticize one. I often find that people who take your stance don't care about any issues. They're simply weaponizing other problems to avoid engaging with the one they actually oppose.
There is also a key difference between the Palestine issue vs the others you listed. The fact that our country is deeply in bed with the country that is committing these crimes against humanity and actively funding it, along with the strange level of undue influence that country has on our government.
I intentionally didn't do a whataboutism, but just asked why it seems that westerners care about what happens in Gaza, as bad as it is, more than they do other equally horrific injustices.
It's undeniable that our society cares more about Gaza and the future of the Palestinian people, so what makes them unique that's different? Or are you suggesting that Americans, for example, care equally about what's going on in other conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes? If so, why don't we see campus protests for example?
I answered your question, if you read my response fully.
Generally though, I find your line of inquiry fascinating. There are people out there actively protesting a particular issue because they genuinely care about it and the people affected. Meanwhile, you—presumably from the comfort of home—are criticizing them for not addressing other issues, all while doing nothing about ANY of these issues yourself. It reeks of apathy and malintent.
We all know the unique datum here is that Israel is Jewish, and to most people, that’s simply unacceptable.
Personally, I do care about Gaza more because my government is complicit in it. So it's my duty, especially in democratic country, to oppose that. I don't know how to influence Iranian government, if anything, I think my government could offer them lifting sanctions in exchange for easing domestic policies.
The difference you see is between a sponsored protest and unsponsored. Basically, bleeding heart liberals have been successfully convinced to align with Hamas without them explicitly realizing it either. This is a good primer on Hamas in the US and their general media strategy:
https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/202...
Kind of interesting to keep in mind when people protest for a ceasefire instead of say, Hamas removed from power and free open elections resumed for Palestinians.
Do you sincerely believe that financial sponsorship is the primary impetus causing Americans to voice dissatisfaction in US support for Israel? That is a fascinating perspective.
The rohingya in Myanmar just 10 years ago.
Myanmar was literally burning people in open pits, happened across 800 villages, most people don't even know that happened.
>when were you vocal on M23, Haiti, Kashmir, Kurds, Muslims in India...
That is the entire point, Gaza protests have been very vocal (and in many cases very misinformed). Human right abuses in Iran are but another example of this blindness.
Misinformed, sure. As it's not obvious what Israel is trying to do in Gaza.
You ask for equal reaction, here it goes: I want for Israel the same sanctions that are applied to Iran and Russia. Fair, right?
It's very obvious what they are trying to accomplish: ethnic cleansing. The idea is to make life so miserable to Palestinians that they will give up their national liberation struggle and venture into the punishing Sinai desert, allowing Israel and Trump to build a riviera and a gas pipeline on the sea.
If they can't get them to leave, the partial genocide will escalate into a full blown mass murder campaign.
Surely the oxymoronic "partial genocide" should reveal how ridiculous it is to invoke this bit of propaganda.
Is not that Israel wants a genocide, is that it's pretty obvious that they are ready to commit one in order to get the ethnic cleansing that they want.
This is obvious. In fact, I suspect that they are going to success, and in a few years we will have to hear how that was a terrible mistake, but, of course, never again. Maybe, even you will be saying that.
RobertoG's comment is a good one, but I will add that the definition of genocide is defined in the genocide convention as:
Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as:
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[9]I was sloppy in saying "partial genocide" as a colloquialism, because "partial genocide" is the crime of genocide full stop.
Yeah. Let's pile on enough definitional nuance in order to apply it to a situation in which it is clear that the previous, universal understanding doesn't fit in order to stoke outrage.
Besides, that's clearly not Israel's intent or it would have already been accomplished.
Maybe the reason for your "sloppiness" is that you instinctively understand the absurdity?
This is the definition. People thought long and hard about what genocide is, because people are quite creative in finding ways of trying to destroy other people.
Israel is committing genocide because they have tried to destroy part of the population. Their goal is enthic cleansing. If they do not achieve it, they will continue to escalate, especially now that international law is shown to be toothless.
Putting it in italics doesn't make it any more true. In fact, your whole reply is bullshit.
Nope, you flip the aggressor and the victim.
But thank you for showing your biases so openly.
Wtf are you talking about Muslims in India? Indian Muslims are more privileged and have more rights than other groups in India. E.g. Muslim men can have 4 wives, regular men only one, Muslim men can divorce by saying "talaak" 3 times, regular men have to go through courts and all. And yes Kashmir needs to be talked about more, especially the Hindu Exodus from Kashmir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Kashmiri_Hindus due to the threat of violence from Islamic extremists.
If you're an American, what could protesting Iran possibly accomplish? They are already sanctioned out the wazoo and our government already doesn't like the government there.
> our government already doesn't like the government there.
Well yeah but we could drop even more bombs than we would have
In fact, I believe if the U.S. wanted to really help the Iranians, they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws.
I don't think sanctions are that helpful in establishing democracy, and even if they were, taking the population hostage in order to instigate an uprising is morally quite dubious.
In any case, U.S. has recently proven to be a dishonest actor, so even if above was correct I would still not want them to do it.
P.S. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. So I have seen an organic regime change, and the Iranian one is IMHO too violent to be the moment.
> they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws...
No authoritarian regime wants to go down the same way Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker did by meeting the opposition halfway.
Most regimes learnt from how China cracked down in Tiananmen and how SK cracked down in Gwangju, especially countries like Iran that are much more structurally similar to Maoist China than the 1980s Eastern Bloc, as much of the Iranian economy is owned by the Bonyads (Islamic charities), State Owned Enterprises, and regime affiliated conglomerates who wouldn't expect to retain economic control if Iran didn't remain an Islamic Republic, and the footsoldiers of the Cultural Revolution (yes, Iran had one too called the Inqilab e Firangi or "Revolution against the West") are the ones in charge.
The current violent crackdown is similar to that which the Iranian regime used during the Green Movement back in 2009-10.
The IRGC has a headcount of around 100k, the Police 300k, the PMF in Iraq (which have now been mobilized across Iran) have 200k, the Liwa Fateymoun (Shia Afghan militia) have around 3k-10k, and Liwa Zainabiyoun (Shia Pakistani/Pakhtun militia) have around 5k-8k personnel.
That's around 600k personnel who are ideologically aligned with the regime, have seen combat in Syria or Yemen, have had experience cracking down on anti-regime protests on multiple occasions, and have the means for a violent crackdown in a country of 90 million people. And that's ignoring personnel that the Houthis or Hezbollah can send despite being battered by Israeli strikes.
On the other hand, the SAVAK during the Iranian Revolution only had 5K personnel in a country of 40 million.
A lot of people will refer to Syria as an example of a counter-revolution, but the Syria's population was significantly better armed during the Assad regime compared to Iranians today. Before the Arab Spring it was common for the then Syrian government to send disaffected Sunni troublemakers across the border to Iraq to take potshots at the Americans and let them solve the problem [0][1][2][3]. This was how Jolani/al-Sharaa and a number of anti-Assad revolutionaries got their start as well.
I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand.
[0] - https://jamestown.org/a-mujahideen-bleed-through-from-iraq-a...
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07iht-syria....
[2] - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirectio...
[3] - https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2008/10/30/...
Our sanctions are the reason why their situation is difficult. They are having the intended effect. And the protests plus the calamity are wanted by the west.
Not too long ago (three months ago?), either here or on Lobsters, an iranian programmer was basically pleading for help because he had built some type of A.I. system, but there is zero market for it in Iran, and he is blacklisted from working with / for anyone in the US.
what are you referring to? Amnesty International, to take one example, has a huge banner supporting Iran's protestors on their homepage rn
https://www.amnesty.org/en/
I think this gives further evidence that these huge campaigns and marches/protests/street graffiti are very deliberate manipulation by certain groups and a lot of money.
Read the Wikipedia page for the Internet Research Agency. This was a Russian propaganda outfit that organized half a dozen Black Lives Matter protests, one of them attended by Michael Moore.
Troll farms were found to control half of the largest ethnic and religious Facebook groups before the 2020 election.
The tactic here is to use social media as a weapon to stoke every possible division in society.
The solution is to take the weapon away.
> half a dozen Black Lives Matter protests, one of them attended by Michael Moore.
A whole half dozen, you say? And who could forget those iconic Michael Moore protest videos from 2020.
For anyone who wasn't paying attention somehow, these protests happened day after day for weeks in many major cities. And many smaller cities and towns had protests and vigils as well. This statistic is so unimpressive it makes this sound irrelevant.
To be clear what level of foreign government organizing protests and riots aimed at creating divisions in the US do you consider acceptable?
Organizing protests is one thing, but troll farms to agitate and turn the population on itself is the story here too. It helps explain the daily protests.
The troll farms can't hold a candle to the first-party algorithmic engagement farming/rage baiting being conducted out in the open by Alphabet/Meta/X/etc.
You don't need a conspiracy theory to explain the social dysfunction being created and monetized as part of these firms' core business strategy.
And a government run identity verified social media would solve both those problems. Let the government build the digital town square, not the tech billionaires.
So the current protests in Iran are driven by foreign intelligence services?
that wasn't my point at all
What’s your point?
They were discussing US protests.
That's what the Iranian regime claims.
PIGs on both sides.
Private Interest Groups.
Don't be antisemitic.
On the other hand, there are a lot of people that is suddenly very worried about Iran but had nothing to say about other places.
Some, even support the terrible things that are going on, today and for a very long time, in those other places.
Well, for starters, one person really can’t care about every possible issue, even if they wanted to. So people and groups may get very passionate about one thing that really pulls on the heartstrings, hits close to home, or is more related to their own country’s policies. (For example, those protesting Palestine may protest US’s typically very strong support of Israel.)
What am I going to do when I wake up to the news that yet another country under the control of religious fanatics is abusing their people? Demand the US invades them? Go to the streets every single day for every new issue (of which there are countless)? Demand sanctions against their government (already broadly exists)? Fly there myself? (Not sure if possible, and what help would that do?)
Who is choosing to be silent about Iran? Lack of knowledge, maybe, but deliberate planning? That would be the fault of media and perhaps the wealthy controlling the media, if it’s happening. Not the everyday person. I guarantee you, next to no one wakes up and decides “hm, I will choose to not talk about X atrocity today.”
You’re angry at the wrong people.
Human lives have the same value, but does Iran suppress the protesters with the tacit approval or active support of the West? If not who to protest against then? The Ayatollah?
Well same thing as gaza, idk why the west mostly supports Israel. Is it because they're more "like us" than gazans?
I mean...how about we just not kill each other. Kept the drawn lines, make "settlers" illegal and be done with it.
But nah we all tribal monkeys, our species is poisoned by evolution. So we'll never stop taking from each other, killing each other.
Such as?
Are you speaking out, protesting, or otherwise taking the actions that you are accusing others of abstaining from?
It seems as if the the word genocide has no use if it’s your own people your mass killing.
What's happening in Iran is a politicide.
Which orgs are you talking about specifically? Don't sling mud in such a vague way. Here's Amnesty's homepage https://www.amnesty.org/en/. The UN has already issued statements. What do you mean exactly? Random nobodies on social media?
After 10 days they put those banners up. After enormous pressure from people online and political from USA republicans. They were silent mostly. Also BBC, NYTimes, WPost, they only ran articles after 10 days of continuous killings in Iran were happening.
That's just not true though https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqj2llkjv8vo
What on earth... Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have reported on the escalation of repression in Iran. BBC, NYTimes, WPost, and well, virtually every major media outlet in the World has been reporting on Iran at least since the major escalations around 5-6 January.
That's just such a bald-faced set of obvious lies that can be debunked with a 5-second google search... I struggle to see what your aim is in all this.
Worse. We had an Iranian demonstration in Seattle, and "Free Palestine" protestors came there with megaphones to disrupt it.
That's funny in a morbidly ironic sort of way. what was their rational for countering the Iranian demonstrations? Free Palestine but subjugate Iran doesn't seem rational.
It becomes completely clear when you remember that HAMAS is a subsidiary of the current Iranian government.
Because that's not what they are - they are communists trying to mix the right ingredients for their next rage cycle.
We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
This reads like a submarine ad for some kind of analytics startup. I'm confused why this post is HN's #1, ahead of numerous other sources expositing the same story; it isn't interestingly different.
Clearly other HN readers consider news of as many as 12,000 people possibly having been killed by their government to be important, and consider the discussion happening about it on this page to be interesting to them.
The criticism was not the news itself but this particular source compared to other available sources of the same news.
It is a shame they are indifferent to the degree of AI slop ('Then came the order. Not a shutdown-- something worse. The routers didn't go silent. They screamed. Filtering rules conflicted. Routes flapped. The network began eating itself alive.') as it neither lends credibility to the source nor respects the humanity of the story's subjects. It would be far better were other HN readers more discerning.
That 12,000 number is utter make believe - an X account (you can guess who backs it) make this claim, got boosted and got over 1M views... and then they deleted the post. But the damage is done, of course.
The 12,000 number comes from Iran International's Editorial Board, not some random twitter user:
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601130145
Even sources in the Iranian security forces say 2000, which is nothing to scoff at.
Posted by a single-purpose account no less.
It has pretty graphics.
Yeah, and heavily rewritten by AI. Every single sentence screams AI slop smell. I find that short content smells the most - AI tends to overfit its patterns even more strongly then.
“Not a shutdown—something worse. The routers didn't go silent. They screamed.”
“This wasn't a cascade—it was coordinated demolition.”
puking noises
I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that and got yucked by it. I was genuinely looking for a contact email on the webpage to complain to them about it. Such pretty visualization of data to then have LLM garbage explain it.
Events like this show that the Internet is pretty heavily centralized. The original DARPA Internet was supposed to be resilient to stuff like this, but it's clear that the old Internet, and the new Internet, are not the same. We as Internet engineers really need to be better here, and design hardware and software to be ready to handle any errors, even unlikely ones like a state actor breaking things.
It's like installing smoke alarms; no one thinks they need them until they do.
Wasn't the original ARPANET entirely owned and controlled by the US government? I think it might've been resilient against attacks from people who didn't own the network but I would also be surprised to learn the US government couldn't shut it down if it wanted.
There is no tech solution ever possible to "The guys with guns showed up", and people in tech continuing to insist that they must maintain political apathy and solve real problems only as long as you can do it with code is literally part of the problem.
"Tech used to be a place without politics" is especially heinous. The entire time you insisted on eschewing politics, your boss sure as fuck wasn't.
Is there anything I, a layman, can do to support the Iranian protestors?
America and Israel have more than enough money. you can sit this one out, lol.
Which ones? The ones protesting for a regime change in support of US/Israel intervention?
Or the ones that are counter-protesting that know foreign intervention will be a net negative for their country?
You mean the "counter protests" organized and dictated by IRGC and the regime, you mean? The totally organic, completely believable groups of coordinated military aged men and occasionally their wives showing up for on-message photo ops for Khamenei & crew?
This regime has already completely failed - their currency is completely debased, they've destroyed their water supply, and over the last several decades they've been unable to meet the very reasonable and understandable conditions needed to join the international community and get sanctions lifted, allowing them to engage in trade and lift their economy out of the gutter.
The choices made by this regime are the precise and exact reasons for their current degraded state. The rest of the civilized world set the conditions, and they chose not to engage in civilization. I have absolutely zero sympathy for the supporters of the regime, they're a group who've been in power for less than 50 years, and every year they've been in power they've brought nothing but atrocity and grief to the world.
Do you have a source for these counter protests being organized and dictated by IRGC?
I agree with your other points. This current regime has degraded Iran to very unfortunate levels.
I really hope for a regime change for Iran, I sincerely do. The only reason I'm being quite particular about sources and facts is that I just don't want to see another Iraq and Afghanistan where the regime change causes more deaths, and then it leaves a power vacuum for all sorts of other violence and degradation.
They're state-organized. It's a recurring pattern. After any major protest, the Iranian government organizes rallies to project an image that they have popular support.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601128783
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyev0kpk77o
>>> Do you have a source for these counter protests being organized and dictated by IRGC?
Basic logic and a pair of eyeballs.
They're about as brazen and blatant as these sorts of things get. No, I don't have recordings of the mullahs instructing IRGC what to do, but the pro regime protests are uniform and exactly what a mullah would want for pro regime propaganda, with none of the nuance or variability you'd expect with spontaneous, grassroots support.
As far as I know, there's no documentary proof, but the evidence implicit to the structure, timing, messaging, location, and demographics are more than sufficient to damn them as regime orchestrated agitprop as opposed to any genuine opposition to the anti-regime movement.
Sorry, but basic logic doesn't entail that counter-protestors are organized by the IRGC. Especially when you know a bunch of Iranians.
I know IRGC is bad, there is no argument there. But to take agency away from Iranians that could genuinely be protesting against regime-change protestors just doesn't feel right to me.
I'm not saying there aren't people supportive of the status quo. What I'm calling out is the notion that organized mass protests that perfectly align with regime tactics from the past several decades could possibly be legitimate, as opposed to being astroturfed, for which there is plenty of evidence.
The Basij and local militia, ostensibly under the control of the regime, and in coordination with the IRGC, will issue orders to militia/military members and sometimes direct them to bring families with them. Some go willingly, but all go with an implicit gun to their families heads.
https://x.com/impk247/status/2011046265594003705 https://x.com/Skeptic222/status/2010698808456360131
There are a large number of reports and reporting from new media, social media, and so on, but there's no current smoking gun.
https://jamestown.org/the-role-of-the-revolutionary-guards-a...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basij
https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-updat...
The IRGC and Basij and forced astroturfing is a frequently used and well understood tactic that the regime has kept in its toolbox. It's not a crazy conspiracy or unfounded, it's just business as usual. Just like I know they're using 7.62 NATO standard ammunition to gun people down, even though I haven't seen even a single picture of spent shell casings or bullets pulled from bodies. It's just how they do things.
It's not taking agency away if you can't tell the difference between someone being forced, pressured, going along to survive, or genuinely invested and supportive of the regime.
What would give them real agency is not living under the thumb of a dystopian authoritarian theocratic dictatorship. Pretending that there's any legitimacy to supporting the regime is also a little crazy. As long as 81 million people think its ok to live that way, you should let them oppress and murder and enslave and exploit the other 9 million? That's right up there with saying the parades for Kim Jong Un in North Korea show us some real support for that regime, or that people who express support of Un could possibly have any legitimacy.
At any rate, I hope any genuine supporters of the regime that are simply ignorant of the abuses and atrocity are simply disappointed and free to grumble about it in the near future, and see their lives radically improved and uplifted by whatever comes next. There's a huge amount of potential funding and international support - not just the US - that could make a free Iran drastically different than Libya or Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan.
They've got a cultural core and the diaspora and families who'd love nothing more than to return and rebuild, from all over the world. Even if they don't go the route of restoring the Shah, I think the Shah and that apparatus is willing to support and legitimize whatever comes next.
I honestly thought I'd live my entire life with Iran being a rogue state and perennially agitating and sponsoring terror, that it'd just be the way things are, until AGI, Aliens, or Armageddon.
You world view is very one-sided, it borders with total naiveness.
No, I have principles. I wish to see people live the best possible lives for themselves, out from under tyranny and oppression, without the threat of death and violence and mayhem from those who have power over them, to the greatest degree of liberty and human rights that they can accommodate reasonably.
Because of my principles, I do not pretend cultural or moral relativism has legitimacy, and that somehow religious or cultural rationalizations of murder and oppression and mayhem can't be assessed as such because I'm halfway across the other side of the planet living a good life of riches nearly unimaginable to previous generations, arguing with people on the internet that I want things to be this good, or better, for everyone, especially the ones currently under the thumbs of tyrants.
I don't want the US to invade and try to build some sort of mythical liberal Iran, I want to see them rise up and get all the support they need to get their best and brightest to rebuild something awe inspiring and new for themselves.
The odds aren't great, but they're not as bad as recent American and Western driven nation building exercises. The Iranian people will have to walk a tightrope, and I'm cheering for them.
Of all the dictatorships you might want to be an apologist for, I can't think of a shittier and less inspiring one than this one, other than North Korea.
Very presumptuous of you.
OP asked what a layman could do to help the protestors, and I asked which protestors he wants to support.
I despise the Iranian government lol. Stop attributing intent where there isn't.
The ones protesting for a regime change.
It will inevitably involve foreign intervention, which tends to work out badly. But I don't accept the alternative, that keeping a suppressive and violent regime is the best case. And I'd rather have the least amount of intervention possible, I don't even intrinsically care about breaking the regime; I want to directly support the protestors as much as possible.
There is another alternative, which a lot of my Irani friends prefer. Which is a regime change without foreign interference.
A puppet installed by US/Israel is a puppet that will only benefit those countries.
Sure. I'm just acknowledging that even opposing it, parts of foreign countries' governments will interfere when they see blood, and it may not be possible to significantly help the protestors without them.
Depends what you mean by 'help'
Because the interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya didn't really help the citizens. Instead it created more instability, and created power vacuums for other sorts of violence and degeneracy to occur.
I'm not saying I know what's the best way for Iranians to get what they want. But recent history shows us that foreign interference doesn't work, especially because those countries that are intervening aren't merely doing it from the goodness of their own hearts.
Yes, unfortunately what I want may be unrealistic, and more likely I can't do anything substantial. But for a situation as dire as Iran, I believe it's moral to try something...
> The ones protesting for a regime change in support of US/Israel intervention?
So the anti-government protestors all protest for both? Like it's implied?
The difference is one set of protestors support US/Israel intervention for regime change.
The other group of protestors are protesting against this. There is a segment within this group that are ardently pro-Regime. The other segment (which I think is the majority of the group, and Iran, but I have no evidence and so this is purely anecdotal based on my various discussions with Iranians) is that they do want regime change, but not from any outside influence - they would ideally like an organic democratic process that Iranian citizens control.
The death toll and the pictures and videos that are coming out that these people don’t even dare taking their usual positions and try to just mitigate it. It’s that bad.
Agree. Little 3 year old Melina was killed by armed anti-government protestors while on her way to a pharmacy with her dad.
It's sad people don't see these dead bodies and take positions, because popular media don't publish this news.
Source: trust me bro.
Usually these deflections mean that the IRGC has indeed killed 3 year olds. Thanks for confirming it.
Tomorrow when Islamic Republic falls, people will get their hands on the list of every one the registrar has funded and sent overseas. A day of judgment will come for all the innocents.
Once again translating and posting Iranian state TV propaganda. At least give it a personal touch.
Do you want to expound on why it's propaganda and argue why, or are you denying the fact there are two groups of protestors currently in Iran?
Please make your point clear without accusing me of supporting state-sponsored violence.
You’re pulling a fast one there. Pictures and videos are getting out showing what security forces are/were doing. You are claiming it’s all propaganda and we should not believe our eyes and also forget our past experiences with this and all theocratic regimes.
Buddy the burden of proof is on you.
Are you denying that there are two groups of protestors currently in Iran?
According to Iranian state TV there’s been a protest in support of the government.
The fact that you are so certain of it, shows that during the total blackout you have some information from inside that normal people don’t? How do you have this information? It’s getting very interesting.
Thank you for acknowledging there are counter-protests in Iran.
Lol the state sponsored protests don’t really buy you the legitimacy you think they do.
I hope to live long enough to see a free Iran -- or at least something better than the current, rotten regime.
Same feelings for Saudi Arabia, I hope.
So if this happens, what are your remedies if any? I guess a VPN wouldn’t help since there are no routes? Something like Starlink would work or would there be a problem with ground stations not having internet?
I had this same question recently. There's mesh networks like meshcore. But you would be limited to just sending text messages to other users. I would imagine the government would be able to easily identify and destroy such a network as well.
Satellites don't work because iran gov. is broadcasting gibberish causing satellite connections to drop.
“Then came the order. Not a shutdown—something worse. The routers didn't go silent. They screamed.”
This is AI slop
The Year of Living Dangerously. The Serpent and the Rainbow.
There are a lot of Iranian-Americans in Silicon valley, and the broader tech. These people have family and relatives in Iran and not being able to contact has been extremely hard on them. If you have an Iranian colleague, please understand that they may not be able to perform and work as their usual. Hopefully this collective nightmare will end.
Seems it got hugged to death.
https://archive.is/SNMH5
Related:
What we know about Iran's Internet shutdown https://blog.cloudflare.com/iran-protests-internet-shutdown/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602066)
Among a number of other posts previously getting into it
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46591974
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46542683
Once again we are shown that western Islamic human rights activists and their supporters don't care if it's a Muslim on Muslim violence.
12k oppressed people murdered in 5 days and it's radio silence.
Holding my fingers they get their freedom.
Can you make examples?
I do find it odd that ~80% of Americans can't point out Iran on a map.
Illinois has 12 m people and a GDP over $1 trillion. I doubt most foreigners could place it on a map. There is no significant difference that it is part of a federation and Iran is not. People oversell these kind of Instagram sound-bites. It's really not a big deal.
I'd suspect most Americans have a relationship with far-off suffering the same as me: it's sad and I think we should contribute to alleviating it, but if I encounter sufficient sanctimony about it I'd rather go live my life.
The parent comment is provocative and impolite, so you are right to refute it.
On the other hand, I’d like to point out that few countries have foreign policies as obsessed with Illinois as the US government is with Iran.
The average person probably also has no political opinion on Illinois or their governments policy with respect to Illinois, something which I would assume to be different with respect to Iran in the US.
The problem is: that could be the relation that most Americans have with Iran, but, unfortunately, it's not the relation that USA has with Iran.
Now, compare the cultural history of Illinois and Iran/Persia.
And yes, being a part of federation does make a lot of difference. How many China provinces can you name? (Not even asking you to point them on the map).
No offense but you can't compare a us state to one of the most important and ancient countries on the planet.
I hate it Americans/Western advocating democracy, human rights for Iran (Which I believe is their right if the demand so). But let me remind you, Pakistan is facing this since 2022, when an elected PM was removed by an American regime change operation on behalf of US by Pakistan Army.
Since 2022, Pakistanis been protesting, largest political party was banned from elections, largest political party was dismantled by Pakistan Army, journalists were abducted, banned, and killed, the most famous leader was shoot, eventually locked up.
In February 2024 Pakistan Army stolen election, when Pakistan army shut down internet, and keep x.com banned for 1.5 years, thousands of common Pakistanis was abducted, tortured, their homes broken into, killed during protests. Literally no one spoke. EU champion of human rights and democracy did not release Pakistan election 2024 report for 1.5 year. US is silent because Pakistan army general's serve their motives, so they do not have any problem with internet shut down, human right violations, democracy.
Stop this hypocrisy. Democracy and human rights become a thing when their interests are not served, or some dictators serve them then EU/US do not care.
I am not complaining but I am telling what it is.
See also the protests in Serbia [1] led by university students, that have been also mostly ignored by both the EU and the USA. The EU commented "they will not accept or support a violent change of power in Serbia", and the USA claimed they do not support "those who undermine the rule of law or who forcefully take over government buildings."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024%E2%80%93present_Serbian_a...
The reaction of muslims when comparing between the events of Palestine and Iran is chilling to watch. No matter the education, economic status or how they appear externally muslims unity is so strong internally when it comes to religion. Since the revolution in Iran is anti relgion they are turning a blind eye. How come no one even acknowledges. Its impossible not to wonder what will become of any country once muslims become majority. Do all the negative voting, but please think and reply what solution you got.
"90 million" is a good number to keep in mind because going by the numbers and history, such a war would at minimum last 10 years and cost a million lives and trigger another even larger refugee crisis. As is now custom, it looks like the common people of the region will bear the brunt of the impact with Europe suffering the secondary fallout while America foots the bill and Israel reaps the rewards. I say all this because i see lot of people cheering this on and it is important for them to know what exactly they are cheering for. We saw all this happen over and over in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, in Palestine, in Yemen, in Somalia, in Sudan. Are we going to pretends it going to turn out different this time? That this time it really is about freedom and democracy and humanitarianism?
Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Yemen. It's kind of wild how the middle east has been at some kind of war with each other for more than half a century, possibly longer.
Meanwhile Europe aggressively killed each other during WWI and WWII and then went into a peaceful union with a free trading bloc.
Will there ever be a Middle-east union unification like EU in our lifetime?
> It's kind of wild how the middle east has been at some kind of war with each other for more than half a century, possibly longer.
> Will there ever be a Middle-east union unification like EU in our lifetime?
A reminder that Britain and France carved up the Ottoman empire and created mini states along ethnic and tribal lines, and then also planted Israel in the middle of it all, specifically in order to PREVENT a reunification of the Middle East (and eastern North Africa). Before that, there was the Ottoman Empire.
Why would external dominant forces WANT a united middle east, with a state that would control such vast resources and so many geographic choke points? Might does not want competition. Might wants vassals. Similarly, Western Might wants a collapse and fragmentation of Iran since it does not align with them geopolitically.