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If anything this reinforces the author's point about the dangers of lack of transparency of "digital jail". How do we know that statement is true? It's hard to

by caylus 5y ago

If anything this reinforces the author's point about the dangers of lack of transparency of "digital jail". How do we know that statement is true? It's hard to hide who has been jailed (though "disappearances" come close), whereas we have no choice but to take the word of the entity which we have granted unchecked power that it has not abused that power. There's also plenty of wiggle room in their statement - they said they froze the accounts of "influencers" and people they "suspect" committed illegal acts. If it turns out they did in fact freeze someone who just donated, they didn't technically lie if they can fit them into one of those vague groups.

nathanaldensr 5y ago
It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from governments all across the political spectrum and world that people still trot out the "look, read this official information. This is proof!" excuse. How many more examples do we need before the opposite is assumed?
- ghostpepper 5y ago
  I feel like if this actually happened to any one of the protestors, that person would be all over social media publicizing this. So far, to my knowledge, that has not happened.
  - cced 5y ago
    Unless of course they were banned for spreading false or misleading information.
- josephg 5y ago
  Eh. With 7.8 billion people on this planet, there is so much going on that you can find examples to support any narrative. Want examples to show governments tend toward corruption? Easy. Want examples showing governments working well? Sure! Examples showing citizens exercising power? Yep. Examples showing citizens being crushed under the heel of their government? We have that too! Black people being killed by police? Sure! White people being killed by police? That happens too! How about police getting attacked by civilians? Google has you covered. > How many more examples do we need If you go looking for examples to support your narrative, you'll always find them. We need data and analysis. And no, the plural of anecdote isn't data.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    Don't forget: The plural of anecdote is data http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data/ http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-i...
- beardedetim 5y ago
  Where else should we go to but the official information? I agree it's not great and as faulty as humans so where can I find information about these things that is great and not faulty?
- adriand 5y ago
  > It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from governments all across the political spectrum and world that people still trot out the "look, read this official information. This is proof!" excuse. Shouldn't we be talking about what actually happened, though, instead of buying into a false narrative that is being intentionally pushed by people with an agenda? I agree that freezing the bank account of a student in Halifax because they made a small donation to the convoy protest would be an abuse of power. But since that's not what happened, despite the fact that various people with a beef with Canada/Trudeau/liberals/etc. are claiming it did, what exactly are we debating here? We know that, after a period of weeks and after economic losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the government has gone after the principal people organizing and financing the blockades and occupations. They have used force and arrested some of them. They have frozen the accounts of others. We can argue about whether or not those actions constitute "egregious human rights violations", because then we're arguing about actual facts and actual decisions, not strawmen.
  - throwaway_fbfh 5y ago
    We are arguing that government is lying as it has done over and over and 1000 * over and that it did freeze accounts of random donors. Maybe they call them influencers lol because they have a IM account and 100 followers
    - ladallada 5y ago
      It's hard to argue without proofs. We can argue so many things when we go the route of conspiracy. The Canadian government isn't known to have lied over and over a thousand times over as far as I know. Yes the government has had scandals, here's a list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_in_Canada https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_i... So I won't say they can't, but I also like OP think arguing in these hypothetical is a waste of energy. We could argue that the process needs to be transparent, make the list public for example. In fact, maybe it is, might be one of these: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/sanctions/listed_persons-personnes_inscrites.aspx https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re... I also feel logically, I don't see a motivate, small donors would only be cause for political complications. Logically it would make sense for them to restrict it to the people actually blocking roads with their trucks and to big donors financing large sums of money.
tshaddox 5y ago
> If anything this reinforces the author's point about the dangers of lack of transparency of "digital jail". How do we know that statement is true? If a crucial part of your argument is the epistemological claim that we obviously can't trust anyone who presents evidence or arguments that we don't like because they could be lying, then there's clearly no way of having a reasoned discussion.
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  The claim isn’t that broad. The democratic model of society has never trusted executive government to dispense justice unilaterally. Having due process and an open system of courts is a mandatory feature of the democratic society, and when a government decides to suspend those safeguards, that governments own commentary about how little harm it’s decisions are causing do not have any credibility.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    Not a single charter right has been overridden. Every act undertaken under the EA is on the official record (available to the opposition parties). Parliament can revoke or partially revoke any component of the EA at any juncture. Then it has a followup discussion/analysis phase built in. Let's be clear -- there is no silencing component to this act. If someone has unfairly seen their accounts frozen, do a tell-all sad tale to every media outlet you can find. Rant on twitter. Share those Facebook pages. There are plenty of outlets that would love it. There are political parties who would make this their battle cry, using it to seal their own ascension. But there isn't a single case. Not one. No sad tales. Now accounts have been frozen -- we know that for sure -- but the people whose accounts have been frozen have been organizers and direct participants. People who knew what was coming and had literally weeks of warning to stop or face consequences. There isn't a lot of sympathy there. But the poor waitress in some small town who gave $20...boy, that story will give this country a new government. Yet...where is it?
    - jesusofnazarath 5y ago
chrissnell 5y ago
This is indeed a problem. We have major news outlets who function as propaganda mouthpieces of regimes. They're happy to carry the water for the regime and declare "nothing to see here!" and these days, they often do it with a "fact check". For the unsophisticated reader, this is very effective.
makeitdouble 5y ago
I have a hard time following this discussion because people are throwing around pretty dramatic statements without pause. > It's hard to hide who has been jailed None of the “influencers” we talk about are jailed. Nor does having your money frozen mean “jail”. It sure can be really bad and not without consequences, but even fully IRL we wouldn’t describe someone having all his possessions taken as jailed. Then govs have been freezing account under many pretenses for decades, except we now have a chance to get the affected people to come forward and explain they’re getting shafted. That wouldn’t happen a few decades ago, there was no way the local news would touch a story about some random peeps getting frozen under a terrorist charge for instance. Do you really think it’s worse now for activists than decades ago ?

by caylus 5y ago

nathanaldensr 5y ago

It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from governments all across the political spectrum and world that people still trot out the "look, read this official information. This is proof!" excuse. How many more examples do we need before the opposite is assumed?

ghostpepper 5y ago
I feel like if this actually happened to any one of the protestors, that person would be all over social media publicizing this. So far, to my knowledge, that has not happened.
- cced 5y ago
  Unless of course they were banned for spreading false or misleading information.
josephg 5y ago
Eh. With 7.8 billion people on this planet, there is so much going on that you can find examples to support any narrative. Want examples to show governments tend toward corruption? Easy. Want examples showing governments working well? Sure! Examples showing citizens exercising power? Yep. Examples showing citizens being crushed under the heel of their government? We have that too! Black people being killed by police? Sure! White people being killed by police? That happens too! How about police getting attacked by civilians? Google has you covered. > How many more examples do we need If you go looking for examples to support your narrative, you'll always find them. We need data and analysis. And no, the plural of anecdote isn't data.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  Don't forget: The plural of anecdote is data http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data/ http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-i...
beardedetim 5y ago
Where else should we go to but the official information? I agree it's not great and as faulty as humans so where can I find information about these things that is great and not faulty?
adriand 5y ago
> It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from governments all across the political spectrum and world that people still trot out the "look, read this official information. This is proof!" excuse. Shouldn't we be talking about what actually happened, though, instead of buying into a false narrative that is being intentionally pushed by people with an agenda? I agree that freezing the bank account of a student in Halifax because they made a small donation to the convoy protest would be an abuse of power. But since that's not what happened, despite the fact that various people with a beef with Canada/Trudeau/liberals/etc. are claiming it did, what exactly are we debating here? We know that, after a period of weeks and after economic losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the government has gone after the principal people organizing and financing the blockades and occupations. They have used force and arrested some of them. They have frozen the accounts of others. We can argue about whether or not those actions constitute "egregious human rights violations", because then we're arguing about actual facts and actual decisions, not strawmen.
- throwaway_fbfh 5y ago
  We are arguing that government is lying as it has done over and over and 1000 * over and that it did freeze accounts of random donors. Maybe they call them influencers lol because they have a IM account and 100 followers
  - ladallada 5y ago
    It's hard to argue without proofs. We can argue so many things when we go the route of conspiracy. The Canadian government isn't known to have lied over and over a thousand times over as far as I know. Yes the government has had scandals, here's a list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_in_Canada https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_i... So I won't say they can't, but I also like OP think arguing in these hypothetical is a waste of energy. We could argue that the process needs to be transparent, make the list public for example. In fact, maybe it is, might be one of these: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/sanctions/listed_persons-personnes_inscrites.aspx https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re... I also feel logically, I don't see a motivate, small donors would only be cause for political complications. Logically it would make sense for them to restrict it to the people actually blocking roads with their trucks and to big donors financing large sums of money.

tshaddox 5y ago

> If anything this reinforces the author's point about the dangers of lack of transparency of "digital jail". How do we know that statement is true? If a crucial part of your argument is the epistemological claim that we obviously can't trust anyone who presents evidence or arguments that we don't like because they could be lying, then there's clearly no way of having a reasoned discussion.

AmericanChopper 5y ago
The claim isn’t that broad. The democratic model of society has never trusted executive government to dispense justice unilaterally. Having due process and an open system of courts is a mandatory feature of the democratic society, and when a government decides to suspend those safeguards, that governments own commentary about how little harm it’s decisions are causing do not have any credibility.
- defaultname 5y ago
  Not a single charter right has been overridden. Every act undertaken under the EA is on the official record (available to the opposition parties). Parliament can revoke or partially revoke any component of the EA at any juncture. Then it has a followup discussion/analysis phase built in. Let's be clear -- there is no silencing component to this act. If someone has unfairly seen their accounts frozen, do a tell-all sad tale to every media outlet you can find. Rant on twitter. Share those Facebook pages. There are plenty of outlets that would love it. There are political parties who would make this their battle cry, using it to seal their own ascension. But there isn't a single case. Not one. No sad tales. Now accounts have been frozen -- we know that for sure -- but the people whose accounts have been frozen have been organizers and direct participants. People who knew what was coming and had literally weeks of warning to stop or face consequences. There isn't a lot of sympathy there. But the poor waitress in some small town who gave $20...boy, that story will give this country a new government. Yet...where is it?
  - jesusofnazarath 5y ago

chrissnell 5y ago

This is indeed a problem. We have major news outlets who function as propaganda mouthpieces of regimes. They're happy to carry the water for the regime and declare "nothing to see here!" and these days, they often do it with a "fact check". For the unsophisticated reader, this is very effective.

makeitdouble 5y ago

I have a hard time following this discussion because people are throwing around pretty dramatic statements without pause. > It's hard to hide who has been jailed None of the “influencers” we talk about are jailed. Nor does having your money frozen mean “jail”. It sure can be really bad and not without consequences, but even fully IRL we wouldn’t describe someone having all his possessions taken as jailed. Then govs have been freezing account under many pretenses for decades, except we now have a chance to get the affected people to come forward and explain they’re getting shafted. That wouldn’t happen a few decades ago, there was no way the local news would touch a story about some random peeps getting frozen under a terrorist charge for instance. Do you really think it’s worse now for activists than decades ago ?