Isn’t that sort of ironic, because BlackBerry was used disproportionately by government and corporate clients? Wouldn’t a ban basically cut off the very people who should have been favoured?
seems like the response is always to restrict the means of communication rather than deal with those actually organising violence. BBM back then, social platforms now.
When people are rioting for things that didn't happen, because they think they did, because of messages being sent to them by an enemy, then you stop that enemy.
Although the current riots precisely start because stuff that did not happen: having a stable teacher (or at all) for the courses they’re suppose to study.
France has been blocking a lot of websites, some quite popular, since at least the Nappster wars and has expanded and expanded and expanded. Recent victims are Z-library, Anna's archive, a lot of satellite TV viewing websites, illegal streaming websites, ...
Of course reasons to block websites has expanded dramatically, especially into the political realm. For political examples, websites collecting video evidence police actions during protests "Copwatch Nord Paris I-D-F", a lot of extreme-right websites (some arguably not very extreme, or should I say, every year that passes the bar of what means extreme-right for blocking purposes is lowered), VPNs, oh and "right-to-be-forgotten" stuff (blocking a number of groups who published details on important French and EU political figures, generally failing to achieve their goal. For a high profile example, ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy used internet censorship to hide evidence of fraud, but got convicted anyway. There's also the example of ... I don't like to agree with the extreme right on anything, BUT, it is sadly absolutely true that LFI (a far left political party, or whatever you want to call leftists that, while absolutely not tankies, are not particularly opposed to using violence to achieve their aims. I think that's fair to say about them) is using internet censorship laws for everything from protecting their members against the police to silencing even internal criticism. Of course it is ALSO true RN commits far more problematic violence)
(obviously the reason LFI wants its members protected from the police, and school administrations and ... is the organizing violence thing they do. A lot of people agree at least with the aims of the protests, and it's not like these people commit murder or anything. But they certainly do cause a lot of destruction of property)
Probably, since not many of us in Europe don't have lots of use cases for them, yet.
But things like our (Spain's) "internet shall not be 100% available during La Liga football matches" or our neighbors thinking of blocking DNS to stop political activism, surely will continue to make this number raise, albeit slowly.
Yes, they spy on you to see if you pirate movies, so most users already use a VPN to download their pirated medias. Thanks to Hadopi, the french already know how to bypass censorship and surveillance
I know there’s a subsection of the internet who for some reason believe VPNs are the solution to everything and better than sliced bread, but VPNs are absolutely unnecessary (and frankly overkill) for these types of blocks. All you have to do is change the DNS service on your machine, which is trivial even for non-technical users and unlike a VPN doesn’t disrupt anything about your computer usage.
You can install an app like 1.1.1.1 to use Cloudflare and there are many apps that will do it for generic DNS. Or manually but you will need to create DNS Profile and install it. It is not hard to generate one, but it is usually used for encrypted DNS which you should be using anyway.
> I know how to do that with a computer but not iPhones. Androids are probably easier to set up.
I don’t understand this type of comment which is so prevalent on HN. If you don’t know, why do you assume something else is easier or harder? It takes less time to do this web search than to reply to a comment. Here’s how to change it on both iOS and Android, from the same website:
And yes, you can in theory install the same software used to punch through the Chinese firewall, but if it doesn't appear in the app store or google play, your new VPN is as good as dead.
There are no technical solutions to political and social problems.
And rest assured, the party has a list of people and their dogs, and will use it at a moment of convenience.
Public facing VPNs are quite trivial to detect, even if you don't own your country telecom infra.
That’s not really how it works, considering how many people use them. In the recent past they just shut down all “suspicious” looking traffic when there are protests. This has false positives, which is why it’s not always active. Plus allowing VPNs in normal times acts as sort of a social pressure release.
Social media permits Broadcasting for Free. One to All messaging. For all other media - radio, satellite, tv, phones broadcasting requires licenses. Why?
Cuz Claude Shannon told us if everyone broadcasts on the same frequency noise increases and no one hears anything forcing them into broadcasting at higher and higher power or repeating their messages more and more. Which again increases noise. So Broadcasting has always been licensed and regulated. That solved the Noise problem because people were forced to coordinate use of broadcast spectrum.
Social media platforms act as if Shannon doesn't apply. So they do exactly what Shannon predicted. Everyone is broadcasting. No one can be heard clearly. People scream louder and louder. The loudest get locked into arms races. Repeat their messages more and more. At the end of it all Noise hasnt reduced and who gets attention from one day to the next is unpredicatble. And since Platforms dont want to talk about Shannon we are all stuck in some kind of red queen dynamic. People are expending lot of energy. Results are all temporary and unpredictable.
I'm not sure if it should be done by the governments, but there is a huge freedom vs responsibility imbalance in broadcasting: you can reach millions of people with well crafted misinformation easily with zero responsibility, and social media algorithms actually promote misinformation as a side effect of optimizing for engagement: truth is boring.
I don't think it will get fixed in any way: there is too much money to be made.
Paraphrasing Leni, we will hang ourselves on the rope that we sold to ourselves :)
The word “government” is the group that governs. People like Musk and Zuck govern their fiefdoms with absolute power, or at best the level of power medieval kings had.
The type of power the wield would be beyond imagination for the most ruthless Roman Emperor
Absolutely correct. Parent comment is taking something valid in physical information broadcast context and trying to apply it to something non related. Its like taking theory of how electricity works and trying to explain rockets with it.
That’s an interesting analogy, but it breaks down somewhat when the messages that get through are those chosen by the government (Facebook, Google, etc) rather than people shouting louder.
If only social media platform let individuals sort messages by time, and filter messages based on their friend groups, and weren't forced to view feeds controlled by algorithms they have no control or insight over.
As someone who lived the first Internet block due to protests with similar demands. This feels refreshing and prove that regimes response to wide spread protests they don’t like is not that different.
Why not just allow genuinely peaceful protests and take stern police/legal action against all other forms of protest? I don't understand the logic behind cutting access to communications platforms. Seems like an indirect or roundabout way of solving the problem.
Because very often the "peaceful protest" provides cover to rioting/looting/property destruction, and it's a lot easier to say/enforce no assembling on the street at 11pm on a Friday as part of a curfew, than to leave a carveout for assembling on that street for a "peaceful protest".
The way the French response overcomplicates things feels analogous to how founders also overcomplicate things:
> many of the conversations we have with founders begin with the founders saying a sentence that begins with "how do I.." and the partner answering with a sentence that begins with "just".
i.e. Often the most absurdly simple solution is the best one.
That's how it works. Until there's so much rioting the police can't deal with it. What should happen then? Cutting communications seems like a pretty good idea.
Some of the demands are well-intentioned but poorly thought through.
Example: many believe the rich ought to be taxed more; but the problem is the Laffer curve: when they're taxed too much, they work less or leave France. So tax receipts go down (not up). End result: more "fairness" on paper but the people who actually depend on government funding have less of it (e.g. for education).
So the change harms the very people who are protesting for the change.
Taxing rich people, while being a recurring topic, is not part of the current demands. It's firstly high schoolers who want a fair system after the "bac", heat during winter and a roof on their head.
> Example: many believe the rich ought to be taxed more; but the problem is the Laffer curve: when they're taxed too much, they work less or leave France. So tax receipts go down (not up).
Has this literally ever happened, like anywhere? Yeah, the Laffer curve is a very real concern and a by-product of Rolle's theorem, but we don't even know where the supposed inflection point is, much less whether any given tax reform that would cause wealthy people to pay more would go over it.
> So the change harms the very people who are protesting for the change.
Human psychology is weird in that they might even be okay with this as long as the perceived fairness increases. But the only way to find out would be to do an experiment. That might also help us find the inflection point in the Laffer curve.
It happened in Norway and is happening in the UK and California. Unfortunately the effect seems to be real, although IMO it may not be the taxes themselves as much as the increasingly hostile attitude towards wealth, which may cause the wealthy concern about unknown future actions.
Without a global wealth tax (which seems impossible to coordinate) then I don’t see a good solution if the goal is to extract excess wealth from UHNW individuals. This is why a Georgist land value tax scheme is probably better; it levels out real estate speculation, which is a favorite parking lot for excess wealth and which has terrible side effects. Over time this will level out wealth inequality slightly, while forcing unproductive (rent seeking) wealth into the market.
I’m in favor of a single tax (just LVT), which economists say is possible, but if you must then you could also tax stock/bond profits (trading, dividends, coupons) at a higher rate. This may be a bad idea though if it pushes investors over to foreign markets.
It's literally never happened anywhere, and the whole concept is probably just an excuse to keep taxes low.
The Laffer curve exists. It's heavily skewed to the right. Studies find the peak is probably about 80% tax rate, which we don't have to worry about accidentally exceeding.
The Laffer curve also only makes sense in the context of a government's primary purpose being to maximise its own revenues. This is clearly not how we want governments to work. If an increased tax on cigarettes causes less total cigarette tax revenue that would be widely considered a good thing.
French riot police aren’t great at dealing with protests — and they protesters know this, so the protests escalate rapidly then throw in looting and you end up with a massive mess
Edit: instead of having my comments instantly shadowbanned by a coin clip, I've now been told that I'm posting too fast. That means a moderator is actively looking at my account and changing which punishment I'm subject to, but I've never received any feedback explaining why I am to be punished.
The rioters are causing damage they themselves will have to pay for in taxpayer dollars. So their cost of living will go up. The way French people protest is mental. I’m sure the Russians have agents on the ground inciting violence.
The people are concerned about the cost of oil I mean it’s the bombs that hit Iran that caused this not the French government.
Am I missing something? What drives people to burn shops down and assault people the next steps is assault rifles, so they should be happy without social media.
The people who destroy stuff in protests in France are people coming from the bad neighborhoods that don't work legal jobs (mostly dealers) and therefore don't pay taxes. They go there to break for fun and to loot stores for profit.
This provides an incentive for the government to ensure that it creates a society that works for everyone. But this is the one thing that no government anywhere is willing to do - they find it much more convenient to use lethal force against those who complain instead.
I mean most governments at least manage to get through most years without large scale violent protests like these. But France also has a tradition of violent protest...
In the US, the people have the second amendment. The rooftop Koreans, Kyle Rittenhouse, etc. are examples of the counterweight ready to reign in protests gone feral.
> Kyle Rittenhouse, etc. are examples of the counterweight ready to reign in protests gone feral.
I mean yes, but that's exactly down to country "personality" and conventions which I was hinting at. France values the right to protest almost above the right to shrug. However its not like the french police are going to be nice to you because you're protesting, french police are _bastards_.
If you wander around with a gun in france, and you're not hunting, the police _will_ shoot you, and more importantly, in the spirit of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, they'll shoot you even if you're white.
No, Jan 6th wasn’t part of the political process. It was politically motivated, but based on greed and delusion. Why do you think dominion voting got a billion in damages from Fox? Because they fueled the delusion and there was proof.
And yet people went out there with no idea instead of, you know, volunteering and helping with their local election office.
> No, Jan 6th wasn’t part of the political process.
You and I might not _like_ jan the 6th, but it was part of the process, it started out as a rally for their candidate, and then dissolved into a riot.
The consequences for the rioters, and the pardoning of them subsequently signalled where the country was going. (Biden trying very hard to not ever be seen as partisan, at the expense of justice, and Trump asserting that loyalty to him is the only currency that matters.)
Not all rallies are for the good of the country, or move the country forward. But they are part of the process, legitimate or not.
The civil rights protest were widely seen as illegitimate, and they were brutally put down. It was only through persistence and a wide base of political action from peaceful marches right up to armed resistance, did laws change.
I know nothing about the present situation in France, but in the past, in many other European countries, more often than not what drove people to burn shops down during protests were covert police/government agents, taking advantage of the weaker minded between protestants, in order to enable an intervention in force by the police against the others.
This governmental tactic of using "agents provocateurs" against protests had been invented by the French themselves, a very long time ago, but now it is universally used by all governments.
How so? Anything to destabilize Europe benefits them. Something highly plausible is not a conspiracy theory, it is a sound strategic move for Russia given the circumstance. And it would be very easy to pull off since their people just fold into the crowd.
There’s a difficult balance to strike, and leadership seems incapable of it lately, hence the uprisings of the people without much property they can call their own.
If the entire population of a country is rioting against the government, the government should immediately resign, or worse. What's happening right now in France bears no difference from what happened years ago in Egypt or Libya.
Social/IM platforms are literally where the violent ones organize. Nobody has issues with the peaceful protests, but in the past couple weeks it's become very clear that violent rioters use the excuse of the peaceful organized protest to infiltrate and wreak havoc, using the peaceful demonstrators as essentially meat shields. That needs to stop. And without readily available social/IM platforms, there's no way the violent ones can coordinate in the hundreds/thousands on a couple hours notice.
They normally have to ask for dates, permits, are normally driven by groups that have been around for long, they have websites, they have a list of asks, etc etc.
Compare that with violent ones that see the opportunity coming with 3-4d heads-up (because peaceful protests are normally covered with a little advance - 3-4d - by mainstream press), create an Instagram/TikTok/Whatsapp/Snapchat group, spread it aggressively thanks to zero cost of social/IM, and their only objective is to smash everything in their path (and if they manage, steal some loot to resell).
I have no idea what happens in France now, but in the past of many other countries the main place where the violent protests were really organized was not on any Social/IM platforms, even in the cases where it appeared to be so, but at the police/secret police/government HQs, where covert agents were prepared for triggering and/or leading violent actions during the protests, in order to discredit the peaceful demonstrators and enable direct action of the police against them.
Nowadays whenever you see "violent protests" and "destructions of private property by vandals during protests" you can never be certain whether they are organized by people who are against the government or by the government itself.
There are multiple videos from France showing undercover police instigating and breaking things.
Then, the government is pushing cities to denounce the most popular Left party as the instigator of the riots.
They are preparing to ban them next elections for this. It's pretty clear it's all a political maneuver to ensure it's once again Macron's party versus Marine's far right party, hoping it ensures their win against her
How do you figure that? Why would their members have called to vote for the left parties in the areas where they were losing the last legislative elections if they were preferring Le Pen?
I'm not saying Macron is happy with the "extreme left", but it seems to me he's much more against the "extreme right". And not just him: pretty much every politician and their dog is trying to distance themselves from the Le Pen's party.
You cannot throw out the current neoliberal political regimes based on peaceful protests alone, I thought that by now that would have been obvious for most of us adults in the room who went through Occupy and the peaceful protests of the early 2010s. Tahrir wasn’t peaceful, throwing out Assad wasn’t peaceful, why do people still have the expectation that throwing out a regime that puts an investment banker as its leader is supposed to be peaceful?
Presumably, because the people who want to change things do have in-system ways to do so: joining into a new Party, preaching their views, getting elected, growing, until they convince enough people to give them the power they need to change things.
In practice there may be many roadblocks in that, so this isn't absolute. But if that's the case, it's still on the people who notice the roadblocks to convince most everyone these are real. Without that any protest will lack widespread support and be suppressed regardless.
Empirical history contradicts your claim. In reality people protest when life feels bad and when life feels bad for many many people, there are really big protests. If it gets to this point, the system has already failed, because life already feels bad.
Arguing that the system has escape hatches is just an excuse. The escape hatches have also failed, clearly, since they either haven't been used (which is their fault) or their use did not fix the system.
political movements that pose a threat to the regime's interests are suppressed much more aggressively and in much earlier stages, debanking etc.
there are many NGOs aligned with the current protests, and they receive substantial government funding, because they are in symbiosis. the regime doesn't provide funding for ideologies that actually threaten its interests.
public opinion has now reached a tipping point, any further vandalism/arson/violence will not provide a net benefit to the regime. that's why now they finally try to stop it.
IM cannot be stopped. When a government broadcasts they will censor them, the very next step is for protesters to install something like Bitchat, which does Bluetooth-based, mesh/P2P IM-ing, and is specifically designed to resist even full-on Internet shutdowns.
The best way for governments to deal with protests is to have policies in place that fulfill what We The People want. Everything else is a band-aid atop an ulcer: it hides the problem for a little while, but the problem itself keeps growing regardless.
If there are massive protests, it's clear the reconciliation hasn't reconciled things properly, and a better reconciliation must be done, preferably one that doesn't result in more massive protests from either the same or other huge groups.
In fact, remarkable long-term lack of massive protests would be a very good metric for determining whether ongoing reconciliatory efforts are moving in the right direction. If such protests start happening, correct course sooner rather than later, and measure success by a newfound lack of further massive protests.
> violent rioters use the excuse of the peaceful organized protest to infiltrate and wreak havoc
This is not true, and very much the kind of propaganda spewed by the (far-)right, please do not trust it.
The entire crowd chants very explicit chants against the government and police, gathers around fires in the street, shouts at police when they attack the demonstrators or fire gas canisters and flash-bang grenades. The crowds that get out are not getting smaller, despite mainstream media and government equating the protests with violent looters, so it seems everyone marching feels a need to. There are looters, but they're a tiny, insignificant minority.
The protests are violent because the repression is violent, and because they are marching against real suffering.
Protest - A protest is a public expression, statement, or act of strong objection, disapproval, or dissent against a policy, law, action, or idea.
Peaceful - Peaceful is an adjective meaning free from war, violence, conflict, or disturbance, as well as quiet, calm, and untroubled
Very few protests are truly "peaceful". There will always be a grey area with protests that make them controversial and difficult to manage while "peaceful protest" is usually used as a thought terminating term. Though riots are different and probably are made up of opportunists.
During my 2 decades in the pro-life movement, I attended many events. While we ourselves did not usually call them “protests”, I can assure you that our opponents did. And 100% of the events which I attended were 100% peaceful. They were without violence, without arrests, without property damage, and often without confrontational angry words. We would often meet to pray weekly on the sidewalks.
Now we strove for peace very purposefully and diligently. We were constantly coached and trained by our leadership on how to focus, and not engage any hecklers, and how to ignore provocateurs, because there were many.
But we were always successful at maintaining peaceful and even joyful, uplifting atmospheres. That was very important to us and our cause. If anyone ran into trouble, we were always careful to observe the laws and obey the authorities. That ensured an enduring welcome for us in marches and on the public right-of-ways.
Great for you but that's not how it works in France. They have been revolting on and off for decades/centuries, and the government know how to stifle it.
The police gas and break up most peaceful protests until there is no avenue left but to clash with the police. They regularly attack, maim, and kill people (either protesters or even bystanders, like the woman who was watching from her window and was targeted by a police explosive (confirmed not an accident but intentional police violence))
Agents provocateur instigate violence and looting, but the police never interrupt them like they do the peaceful kids. The images of riots play directly into the media and government hand who play the law and order angle. As evidenced by these news which only see it as rioting and not the government preventing any kind of protest.
They are using the unrest to try and ban the most popular leftist party in France. They are destroying what's left of democracy in the country.
You can always be assured of one thing, if the USA/west control apparatus does something defensive, it is because they’re very familiar with why it needs to be done to counter methods they’ve not only used, but successfully so to overthrow governments and cause chaos in societies.
2) even by french standards, this is getting out of hand
3) peaceful protest is being facilitated, the problem is, not everyone is peaceful and there isn't enough police to arrest everyone.
If you are american you have to remember that france _likes_ to protest, not in a cutesy way where you all line up and make a message out of people. No they blockade roads, factories, shopping centres and generally bring cities to a grinding halt. Spontaneously. Put it this way, the No kings protest had they been run by the french would have been visible from space.
Sometimes workers take company execs hostage (see good year 2014 and air france 2015, where execs had to literally run away)
Or more generally the yellow vest movement had rolling blockades that fucked with everything.
A minority, at least in France, is using those networks to organize (in a pro manner) illegal activities. I got in a rabbit hole browsing those groups and I was, honestly, puzzled at how this could happen in the open.
I’m sure this comment comes from a good place. I just want to say that cops escalate tensions in peaceful protests on the regular, when it fits their or their superiors narrative.
The playbook is always the same here in Germany: create a temporary limitation, like “ban use of umbrellas” or “don’t chant in arabic or irish” (both real things that happened at demos in Berlin). Then one of two things happen: either people comply, and cops create a new limitation. Or someone doesn’t comply and is violently arrested. Some people don’t like being beaten up, so they fight back. Now a peaceful protest turned into “violent police attacking thugs”.
You're too naive, the whole thing was allowed to happen for purely political reasons. 99% of protesters were peaceful, those were heavily attacked by police Non politically motivated casseurs were allowed pillaged, barely any were arrested, these streets were devoid of police forces
The far right gets to blame migrants as usual
The center right (in charge right now) gets to blame the "UlTrA left"
The left gets fucked
Medias exclusively talk about the riots for days, the original demands are completely forgotten, boomers get behind the government for "LaW AnD OrDeR"
Protest is almost always a criticism of the current government. Why would you expect a government to protect their enemies? People who aren't interested in using power don't try to obtain it.
Because then it's trivial for an undercover cop to do violence to a protest, then label it a violent protest and shut it down. Countries do this all the time, it's an extremely effective way to dispel anger against the government, or retarget it to any group you want by saying they're the ones doing the violence.
Seems like he really wants to limit the spread of videos showcasing the behaviour of the protesters, and their backgrounds... This goes hand in hand with his pathetic speech about how it's all fake news and AI.
It seems French society will soon embark on the path to total VPNization. Once the government gets a taste of blocking Internet resources, it won't stop.
They are already trying to make them outlawed...
I don't like criticizing the country but the national motto's first word, there are making it nothing but a joke.
Apparently you are only free to hate now, and that's if you hate the right kind of people...
Bolstered by fascists united worldwide.
A shame.
Belgium introduced dns blocking to block one child porn website, and then the slippery slope gears started turning. Over a thousand websites are blocked countrywide now.
Real rioters will dive into no-DNS internet communication. Most internet protocols were designed with DNS independence in mind (read the email RFC, email addresses can have IP literals instead of DNS names which is of paramount importance, which I use BTW).
Namely, in the end, they will have to switch off telecommunication as a whole... well, if they are not interested in gathering intelligence about the rioters.
And then real rioters will have 'mesh communication devices', and then govs will need EM jammers too.
Sooo... govs should work on good and wide spread EM jammers instead of trying to to block DNS...
These are kids who use messenger/whatsapp etc. No they won't be bothered to even switch messenger. The goal isn't to shut down some criminal network it's to just make word of mouth spread in 10 minutes instead of 1 I reckon.
The second it is blocked, they'll move to other applications/protocols able to work without DNS.
Those applications/protocols already exist to 'work around' authoritative regimes around the world. Only their usage will be re-purpose.
And many are not "kids", and even so, "kids" will also be able to use them since those alternative communication apps are packages to be used by non-tech-savvy people.
You're talking about core groups who think about protesting all day. But 99.9% of these people are not that, they're average people who are fed up of the government stealing all their money and giving it to themselves and billionaires while the country crumbles. (USA could learn something from them)
All DNS servers operating in France are required to cooperate with the censorship regime, this is why Quad9 exited France. Presumably part of this new measure will be ISPs redirecting all port 53 traffic to their own resolvers.
It's part of a bigger push against individual liberties in France.
In a week, we got curfew, military in the streets to control protests, blanket ban on protests in a few cities (but not uniformly applied, illegal far-right protests have been tolerated at night during curfew), an extremely violent police repression (protest control policemen in France have very violent weapons, and those resulted in lost eyes and shredded hands // and that's not counting all of the unjustified beatings in the protest while looting was happening under their eyes elsewhere), the prime minister outright lying on the fatalities, spoke person laughing at the idea of condemning violence from the police, mass arrests, proposals from the party in power to ban social media, to ban the big left party (the second one in terms of voting intentions rn), to tag people in the protests invisibly, to disenfranchise people that will get condemned for anything in those protests… and by the way completely ignoring their responsibilities in anything in this story, blaming a party that never has been in power for all the economic problems in this country.
Also, media reports amplified the part about lootings and completely eclipsed anything else (this is reportedly even worse in foreign media [0]). This resulted 2 days ago in a terrorist attack in a city named Trappes, repeatedly depicted in the media as a city full of people with immigrant background, resulting (for now) in 1 death and 5 injured. The terrorist was unstable mentally and likely under substance, and wanted to "avenge" the shopkeepers that lost their store by shooting on what he thought was the part of the cause. When confronted, media dodged their responsibility in any of it, and some even doubled down saying that people there are probably routinely evading bus fares (right when they were talking about the shooting!).
Anyway, I think this can give you my (probably somewhat biased) picture of the French political atmosphere right now.
goodcake3963 | a day ago
vachina | a day ago
pasc1878 | a day ago
https://www.panamericandispatch.org/p/meta-ignores-brazilian...
petcat | a day ago
goda90 | a day ago
neilcj | 23 hours ago
yangm97 | 21 hours ago
rireads | 9 hours ago
drstewart | a day ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
The far right: expel immigrants
I can't tell any difference between these. They both seem like equally invalid opinions.
drstewart | 15 hours ago
The far right: maybe prioritize citizens over others first
Completely the same opinion, both equally extremist!
Be gone, bot
aziaziazi | a day ago
Want more stability? Shut down medias for a year before any elections to "smooth" the public debate.
boesboes | a day ago
pjc50 | a day ago
ButlerianJihad | a day ago
mosura | a day ago
gptgautam1 | a day ago
shevy-java | a day ago
I am all for eliminating the antisocial media and the billionaires behind them as well, but I fail to see how censorship fixes anything.
wtch98 | a day ago
aziaziazi | a day ago
MajorTakeaway | a day ago
maxwellito | a day ago
Zenul_Abidin | a day ago
Good luck France.
You'd think a 1st world country would know about VPNs but not this one
grodriguez100 | a day ago
archargelod | a day ago
spwa4 | a day ago
Of course reasons to block websites has expanded dramatically, especially into the political realm. For political examples, websites collecting video evidence police actions during protests "Copwatch Nord Paris I-D-F", a lot of extreme-right websites (some arguably not very extreme, or should I say, every year that passes the bar of what means extreme-right for blocking purposes is lowered), VPNs, oh and "right-to-be-forgotten" stuff (blocking a number of groups who published details on important French and EU political figures, generally failing to achieve their goal. For a high profile example, ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy used internet censorship to hide evidence of fraud, but got convicted anyway. There's also the example of ... I don't like to agree with the extreme right on anything, BUT, it is sadly absolutely true that LFI (a far left political party, or whatever you want to call leftists that, while absolutely not tankies, are not particularly opposed to using violence to achieve their aims. I think that's fair to say about them) is using internet censorship laws for everything from protecting their members against the police to silencing even internal criticism. Of course it is ALSO true RN commits far more problematic violence)
(obviously the reason LFI wants its members protected from the police, and school administrations and ... is the organizing violence thing they do. A lot of people agree at least with the aims of the protests, and it's not like these people commit murder or anything. But they certainly do cause a lot of destruction of property)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_France
embedding-shape | a day ago
Probably, since not many of us in Europe don't have lots of use cases for them, yet.
But things like our (Spain's) "internet shall not be 100% available during La Liga football matches" or our neighbors thinking of blocking DNS to stop political activism, surely will continue to make this number raise, albeit slowly.
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
kaonwarb | a day ago
Orygin | 23 hours ago
throw9393793 | a day ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
latexr | a day ago
aziaziazi | a day ago
elashri | a day ago
hinoki | a day ago
latexr | 23 hours ago
I don’t understand this type of comment which is so prevalent on HN. If you don’t know, why do you assume something else is easier or harder? It takes less time to do this web search than to reply to a comment. Here’s how to change it on both iOS and Android, from the same website:
https://www.howtogeek.com/261701/how-to-change-the-dns-serve...
https://www.howtogeek.com/787039/how-to-change-your-dns-serv...
Doesn’t seem meaningfully different to me.
rlpb | 23 hours ago
jeroenhd | a day ago
And yes, you can in theory install the same software used to punch through the Chinese firewall, but if it doesn't appear in the app store or google play, your new VPN is as good as dead.
There are no technical solutions to political and social problems.
hdgvhicv | a day ago
rembal | 23 hours ago
iamnothere | 23 hours ago
jeroenhd | 20 hours ago
Trivial bypasses only fuel further government abuse. Your VPN is about as strong as your kneecaps in an authoritarian regime.
yangm97 | 22 hours ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
mosura | a day ago
Parfait.
sjdh76 | a day ago
Cuz Claude Shannon told us if everyone broadcasts on the same frequency noise increases and no one hears anything forcing them into broadcasting at higher and higher power or repeating their messages more and more. Which again increases noise. So Broadcasting has always been licensed and regulated. That solved the Noise problem because people were forced to coordinate use of broadcast spectrum.
Social media platforms act as if Shannon doesn't apply. So they do exactly what Shannon predicted. Everyone is broadcasting. No one can be heard clearly. People scream louder and louder. The loudest get locked into arms races. Repeat their messages more and more. At the end of it all Noise hasnt reduced and who gets attention from one day to the next is unpredicatble. And since Platforms dont want to talk about Shannon we are all stuck in some kind of red queen dynamic. People are expending lot of energy. Results are all temporary and unpredictable.
kaonwarb | a day ago
sjdh76 | a day ago
rembal | 23 hours ago
hdgvhicv | 21 hours ago
The type of power the wield would be beyond imagination for the most ruthless Roman Emperor
bricss | a day ago
rubberstamp | 3 hours ago
cowlevel | 3 minutes ago
hdgvhicv | a day ago
aeonik | 22 hours ago
elashri | a day ago
But please don’t call it European spring.
jareklupinski | a day ago
usrnm | a day ago
ChromeUltron | a day ago
stymaar | 21 hours ago
MadrasThorn | a day ago
rootsudo | 23 hours ago
port11 | 19 hours ago
baubino | 10 hours ago
wdr1 | 9 hours ago
I believe the first Internet block due to protests was in the Maldives in 2004.
nomilk | a day ago
alex43578 | a day ago
NorthernGulch | a day ago
nomilk | a day ago
> many of the conversations we have with founders begin with the founders saying a sentence that begins with "how do I.." and the partner answering with a sentence that begins with "just".
i.e. Often the most absurdly simple solution is the best one.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii1jcLg-eIQ&t=654s
masfuerte | a day ago
throaway3534621 | a day ago
nomilk | a day ago
Example: many believe the rich ought to be taxed more; but the problem is the Laffer curve: when they're taxed too much, they work less or leave France. So tax receipts go down (not up). End result: more "fairness" on paper but the people who actually depend on government funding have less of it (e.g. for education).
So the change harms the very people who are protesting for the change.
pil0u | a day ago
zht | a day ago
orwin | a day ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
sham1 | 23 hours ago
Has this literally ever happened, like anywhere? Yeah, the Laffer curve is a very real concern and a by-product of Rolle's theorem, but we don't even know where the supposed inflection point is, much less whether any given tax reform that would cause wealthy people to pay more would go over it.
> So the change harms the very people who are protesting for the change.
Human psychology is weird in that they might even be okay with this as long as the perceived fairness increases. But the only way to find out would be to do an experiment. That might also help us find the inflection point in the Laffer curve.
iamnothere | 22 hours ago
Without a global wealth tax (which seems impossible to coordinate) then I don’t see a good solution if the goal is to extract excess wealth from UHNW individuals. This is why a Georgist land value tax scheme is probably better; it levels out real estate speculation, which is a favorite parking lot for excess wealth and which has terrible side effects. Over time this will level out wealth inequality slightly, while forcing unproductive (rent seeking) wealth into the market.
I’m in favor of a single tax (just LVT), which economists say is possible, but if you must then you could also tax stock/bond profits (trading, dividends, coupons) at a higher rate. This may be a bad idea though if it pushes investors over to foreign markets.
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
The Laffer curve exists. It's heavily skewed to the right. Studies find the peak is probably about 80% tax rate, which we don't have to worry about accidentally exceeding.
The Laffer curve also only makes sense in the context of a government's primary purpose being to maximise its own revenues. This is clearly not how we want governments to work. If an increased tax on cigarettes causes less total cigarette tax revenue that would be widely considered a good thing.
hdgvhicv | a day ago
Vaushite | 23 hours ago
Edit: instead of having my comments instantly shadowbanned by a coin clip, I've now been told that I'm posting too fast. That means a moderator is actively looking at my account and changing which punishment I'm subject to, but I've never received any feedback explaining why I am to be punished.
esseph | 22 hours ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
esseph | 17 hours ago
whatthejesus | a day ago
The people are concerned about the cost of oil I mean it’s the bombs that hit Iran that caused this not the French government.
Am I missing something? What drives people to burn shops down and assault people the next steps is assault rifles, so they should be happy without social media.
alibarber | a day ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
iLoveOncall | a day ago
Orygin | 23 hours ago
iLoveOncall | 21 hours ago
Orygin | 19 hours ago
iLoveOncall | 19 hours ago
alkonaut | a day ago
Simple:it's "If society doesn't work for me, then it's better that it works for no one"
Vaushite | 23 hours ago
alkonaut | 17 hours ago
Vaushite | 8 hours ago
KaiserPro | a day ago
I mean yes, but then france is on the 5th republic now, so unlike the USA where they just sit and take it, they riot until something happens.
RickJWagner | 23 hours ago
233mhz | 23 hours ago
Don't boast too much about the US lmao
RickJWagner | 21 hours ago
Epstein died in 2019. Biden was in office from 2021 to 2025, no files were released.
Trump took office in January of 2025, since then some ( but not all? ) files have been released.
Why fault Trump but not Biden? Didn’t Trump actually do better?
cowlevel | 21 hours ago
233mhz | 3 hours ago
What about the blatant nepotism in the administration? Kushner &co?
Daily reminder that Trump shilled goya fucking beans from the oval office lmao
Vaushite | 23 hours ago
KaiserPro | 23 hours ago
I mean yes, but that's exactly down to country "personality" and conventions which I was hinting at. France values the right to protest almost above the right to shrug. However its not like the french police are going to be nice to you because you're protesting, french police are _bastards_.
If you wander around with a gun in france, and you're not hunting, the police _will_ shoot you, and more importantly, in the spirit of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, they'll shoot you even if you're white.
whatthejesus | 20 hours ago
KaiserPro | 17 hours ago
This _is_ the part of the political process.
For example in the USA jan6th was part of the democratic process there. Not a good part, but its still part of it.
whatthejesus | 16 hours ago
And yet people went out there with no idea instead of, you know, volunteering and helping with their local election office.
KaiserPro | 3 hours ago
You and I might not _like_ jan the 6th, but it was part of the process, it started out as a rally for their candidate, and then dissolved into a riot.
The consequences for the rioters, and the pardoning of them subsequently signalled where the country was going. (Biden trying very hard to not ever be seen as partisan, at the expense of justice, and Trump asserting that loyalty to him is the only currency that matters.)
Not all rallies are for the good of the country, or move the country forward. But they are part of the process, legitimate or not.
The civil rights protest were widely seen as illegitimate, and they were brutally put down. It was only through persistence and a wide base of political action from peaceful marches right up to armed resistance, did laws change.
adrian_b | 23 hours ago
This governmental tactic of using "agents provocateurs" against protests had been invented by the French themselves, a very long time ago, but now it is universally used by all governments.
233mhz | 23 hours ago
Pensions cost 400+ billions a year, it's not the couple of millions of euros of damage that will change anything.
How much damage happened during the 1789 revolution? What about he US civil war?
If that's how you read the situation you're a complete tool
quietsegfault | 21 hours ago
Garshtrot | 21 hours ago
the "russian bot" thing made sense. this is just conspiritardation.
whatthejesus | 20 hours ago
iAMkenough | 20 hours ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
iAMkenough | 10 hours ago
There’s a difficult balance to strike, and leadership seems incapable of it lately, hence the uprisings of the people without much property they can call their own.
233mhz | 23 hours ago
Hundreds of videos of riot police beating kids and women, kids lost eyes, hands, feet, etc.
Zero video of the police intervening during the looting, not a single police officer in any of the looted streets
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
plqbfbv | a day ago
pil0u | a day ago
plqbfbv | a day ago
Compare that with violent ones that see the opportunity coming with 3-4d heads-up (because peaceful protests are normally covered with a little advance - 3-4d - by mainstream press), create an Instagram/TikTok/Whatsapp/Snapchat group, spread it aggressively thanks to zero cost of social/IM, and their only objective is to smash everything in their path (and if they manage, steal some loot to resell).
seasox | a day ago
Also many "violent" protesters are organized, and even more so have to be to stay as safe as possible.
sapphicsnail | 17 hours ago
adrian_b | a day ago
Nowadays whenever you see "violent protests" and "destructions of private property by vandals during protests" you can never be certain whether they are organized by people who are against the government or by the government itself.
Orygin | 23 hours ago
Then, the government is pushing cities to denounce the most popular Left party as the instigator of the riots.
They are preparing to ban them next elections for this. It's pretty clear it's all a political maneuver to ensure it's once again Macron's party versus Marine's far right party, hoping it ensures their win against her
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
vladvasiliu | 16 minutes ago
I'm not saying Macron is happy with the "extreme left", but it seems to me he's much more against the "extreme right". And not just him: pretty much every politician and their dog is trying to distance themselves from the Le Pen's party.
subsistence234 | 20 hours ago
paganel | 23 hours ago
alexgieg | 21 hours ago
In practice there may be many roadblocks in that, so this isn't absolute. But if that's the case, it's still on the people who notice the roadblocks to convince most everyone these are real. Without that any protest will lack widespread support and be suppressed regardless.
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
Arguing that the system has escape hatches is just an excuse. The escape hatches have also failed, clearly, since they either haven't been used (which is their fault) or their use did not fix the system.
alexgieg | 17 hours ago
subsistence234 | 20 hours ago
there are many NGOs aligned with the current protests, and they receive substantial government funding, because they are in symbiosis. the regime doesn't provide funding for ideologies that actually threaten its interests.
public opinion has now reached a tipping point, any further vandalism/arson/violence will not provide a net benefit to the regime. that's why now they finally try to stop it.
alexgieg | 21 hours ago
The best way for governments to deal with protests is to have policies in place that fulfill what We The People want. Everything else is a band-aid atop an ulcer: it hides the problem for a little while, but the problem itself keeps growing regardless.
ethbr1 | 21 hours ago
We The People's desires are mutually exclusive.
We want lots of benefits, low taxes; high government spending/services, a stable currency; economic growth, low inflation; security, freedom; etc.
Representative democratic government is the reconciliation between those wants.
So no, the answer isn't as simple as giving the people what they want.
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
MrDrMcCoy | 18 hours ago
alexgieg | 17 hours ago
In fact, remarkable long-term lack of massive protests would be a very good metric for determining whether ongoing reconciliatory efforts are moving in the right direction. If such protests start happening, correct course sooner rather than later, and measure success by a newfound lack of further massive protests.
constantius | 16 hours ago
This is not true, and very much the kind of propaganda spewed by the (far-)right, please do not trust it.
The entire crowd chants very explicit chants against the government and police, gathers around fires in the street, shouts at police when they attack the demonstrators or fire gas canisters and flash-bang grenades. The crowds that get out are not getting smaller, despite mainstream media and government equating the protests with violent looters, so it seems everyone marching feels a need to. There are looters, but they're a tiny, insignificant minority.
The protests are violent because the repression is violent, and because they are marching against real suffering.
navane | 13 hours ago
throwaway384034 | a day ago
Peaceful - Peaceful is an adjective meaning free from war, violence, conflict, or disturbance, as well as quiet, calm, and untroubled
Very few protests are truly "peaceful". There will always be a grey area with protests that make them controversial and difficult to manage while "peaceful protest" is usually used as a thought terminating term. Though riots are different and probably are made up of opportunists.
ButlerianJihad | a day ago
Now we strove for peace very purposefully and diligently. We were constantly coached and trained by our leadership on how to focus, and not engage any hecklers, and how to ignore provocateurs, because there were many.
But we were always successful at maintaining peaceful and even joyful, uplifting atmospheres. That was very important to us and our cause. If anyone ran into trouble, we were always careful to observe the laws and obey the authorities. That ensured an enduring welcome for us in marches and on the public right-of-ways.
Orygin | 23 hours ago
The police gas and break up most peaceful protests until there is no avenue left but to clash with the police. They regularly attack, maim, and kill people (either protesters or even bystanders, like the woman who was watching from her window and was targeted by a police explosive (confirmed not an accident but intentional police violence))
Agents provocateur instigate violence and looting, but the police never interrupt them like they do the peaceful kids. The images of riots play directly into the media and government hand who play the law and order angle. As evidenced by these news which only see it as rioting and not the government preventing any kind of protest.
They are using the unrest to try and ban the most popular leftist party in France. They are destroying what's left of democracy in the country.
tyrabound | a day ago
You can always be assured of one thing, if the USA/west control apparatus does something defensive, it is because they’re very familiar with why it needs to be done to counter methods they’ve not only used, but successfully so to overthrow governments and cause chaos in societies.
KaiserPro | a day ago
1) its france, Rioting is a national sport
2) even by french standards, this is getting out of hand
3) peaceful protest is being facilitated, the problem is, not everyone is peaceful and there isn't enough police to arrest everyone.
If you are american you have to remember that france _likes_ to protest, not in a cutesy way where you all line up and make a message out of people. No they blockade roads, factories, shopping centres and generally bring cities to a grinding halt. Spontaneously. Put it this way, the No kings protest had they been run by the french would have been visible from space.
Sometimes workers take company execs hostage (see good year 2014 and air france 2015, where execs had to literally run away)
Or more generally the yellow vest movement had rolling blockades that fucked with everything.
Bengalilol | 23 hours ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
x3ro | 23 hours ago
The playbook is always the same here in Germany: create a temporary limitation, like “ban use of umbrellas” or “don’t chant in arabic or irish” (both real things that happened at demos in Berlin). Then one of two things happen: either people comply, and cops create a new limitation. Or someone doesn’t comply and is violently arrested. Some people don’t like being beaten up, so they fight back. Now a peaceful protest turned into “violent police attacking thugs”.
233mhz | 23 hours ago
The far right gets to blame migrants as usual
The center right (in charge right now) gets to blame the "UlTrA left"
The left gets fucked
Medias exclusively talk about the riots for days, the original demands are completely forgotten, boomers get behind the government for "LaW AnD OrDeR"
bjacobel | 20 hours ago
What happens if agents of the state initiate the violence?
t-3 | 3 hours ago
cowlevel | 2 minutes ago
lesspassiveobse | a day ago
hdgvhicv | a day ago
The looting is mainly the immigrants.
gregor123915 | a day ago
aatd86 | a day ago
gptgautam1 | a day ago
Joeri | 23 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_Be...
233mhz | 23 hours ago
Don't worry we'll embark on the protofascism path before and it'll bring its own share of problems
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
sylware | a day ago
Namely, in the end, they will have to switch off telecommunication as a whole... well, if they are not interested in gathering intelligence about the rioters.
And then real rioters will have 'mesh communication devices', and then govs will need EM jammers too.
Sooo... govs should work on good and wide spread EM jammers instead of trying to to block DNS...
alkonaut | 23 hours ago
sylware | 2 hours ago
Those applications/protocols already exist to 'work around' authoritative regimes around the world. Only their usage will be re-purpose.
And many are not "kids", and even so, "kids" will also be able to use them since those alternative communication apps are packages to be used by non-tech-savvy people.
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
sylware | 2 hours ago
This one is on you pal.
Sopel | a day ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
brador | a day ago
ada-h00k | 22 hours ago
cowlevel | 20 hours ago
dadoum | 20 hours ago
In a week, we got curfew, military in the streets to control protests, blanket ban on protests in a few cities (but not uniformly applied, illegal far-right protests have been tolerated at night during curfew), an extremely violent police repression (protest control policemen in France have very violent weapons, and those resulted in lost eyes and shredded hands // and that's not counting all of the unjustified beatings in the protest while looting was happening under their eyes elsewhere), the prime minister outright lying on the fatalities, spoke person laughing at the idea of condemning violence from the police, mass arrests, proposals from the party in power to ban social media, to ban the big left party (the second one in terms of voting intentions rn), to tag people in the protests invisibly, to disenfranchise people that will get condemned for anything in those protests… and by the way completely ignoring their responsibilities in anything in this story, blaming a party that never has been in power for all the economic problems in this country.
Next years are going to be fun :)
dadoum | 20 hours ago
Anyway, I think this can give you my (probably somewhat biased) picture of the French political atmosphere right now.
[0]: https://alliance4europe.eu/report/eu-unrest-report-%c2%b7-ho...
CreepyHunterX | 16 hours ago
However, DoT uses a separate port (853) that can easily be blocked entirely, whereas filtering DoH requires relying on SNI or lists of IP addresses.
gloosx | 4 hours ago
It is like blocking something with a gate which you can open by reaching a latch on the other side with your hand
Only the freaking politician can attempt to block something via DNS ;)