On one hand, fuck Musk. On the other hand, internet from space that can’t be blocked by governments is a net positive in my book.
Don’t forget that Musk is also the one who intentionally blocked paid service from Ukraine during a critical moment in the early days of Russia’s current genocide, because Musk sucks up to Putin. Dude needs to answer for his actions.
How about internet that can be blocked at the whims of a billionaire? At least government is supposed to answer to the people.
Dictatorships don’t answer to the people. It’s absolutely a problem that billionaires are controlling the flow of information, but it’s much worse for a dictator to do it.
Oh honey, do you really ignore that a huge chunk of dictatorships do it for the money and most are already billionaires? Why exactly do you think Musk supports the orange cheeto?
Not blockable by any government would be a positive in my book if it didn’t imply bloclable by a single billionaire with huge mood swing. Don’t forget how musk switched off starlink in Crimea at Putin’s request when the Russian realized starlink guided missile were heading towards their ships (Source
How is a billionaire manchild in charge any better, at least a government is accountable to the people.
In theory, but how many governments can actually be held accountable? The power imbalance is often too great for the people to hold anyone accountable. In many countries, the system is rigged.
Controlled by governments or controlled by corpos and the super rich? I say there’s hardly an improvement.
Yeah, cables or radio waves, it’s the same thing in the end.
What we need (IMO) is another layer on top if the classic internet with encryption and hookers.
No, but through the existence of both options, you can get more plurality than by using one individual option.
Oh? What about internet controlled by a billionaire who makes sure his toxic website featuring his version of “free speech” is always available to protect his profits and spread his bullshit while undermining the policies of a sovereign state?
So much better than the evil government.
Let everyone incarcerated go and see how that works out for you. Not saying everyone deserves to be in there, but go on. Give it a try.
You also forget that billionaires are wealth, and so is any dictator. They both seek to protect that wealth, so it doesn’t matter in the end. A billionaire buys his politicians and you get the same result. You start threatening their money and power and they’ll come after you, whether you want equal rights or sometimes just clean water.
That’s better than a dictator who only wants to protect his own power. At least a billionaire can be bought.
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What the heck do you think a dictator is? A billionaire running a country.
A billionaire can’t be bought, they got billions. It’s the dictator that can be bought.
Is Musk doing anything to help people living in dictatorships access information? Or is this just happening in Brazil?
Can’t calculate the net yet, since we don’t know the gross. He has the capability to cause massive damage with the power he wields. It’s already clear that he’s incapable of providing an unbiased platform. It needs to belong to the people or it can never be trusted
It needs to belong to the people or it can never be trusted
Damn commies!
The ability to recognize sarcasm doesn’t seem to be particularly developed on Lemmy.
And if fucking hate the /s.
That’s an arbitrary metric. What about internet across oceans, or across forests? Blocking content is a question of why and what. Shouldn’t we be able to block child exploitation websites? That is to say, of course we can, and it’s very easy. The only question is whether you want that kind of censorship to be up to your service provider or your government.
Governments tend to block things like facts about genocides they have committed and opposing political opinions. I would hope things like child exploitation could be managed at the host level.
Do you have any idea how eagerly AT&T and Comcast would block half the internet if they had the tiniest profit motive to do so? I wonder how long left wing websites would remain online if it weren’t illegal for multinational corporations to block them.
He is in a unique position, theoretically he can make everything go through the country his servers are in assuming they pay over their own satellite internet, illegal… mmm almost certainly but so is keeping Ex Twitter on in Brazil so he probably doesn’t care about that, and it’s essentially exactly what a VPN does sooo, oh yeah they could also just use a VPN I guess.
Bruh, VPN for what? If Brazil bans payments to Starlink, essentially sanctioning it, how is end user going to circumvent that?
I mean they can jump through hoops to convert currencies etc but most people would just give up and move on.
