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CHAVEZ! Y U NO GIVE US INTERNETZ?!
NO! Hugo Chavez is going down the line of filtering Venezuela’s internet! The parliament has passed the law on filtering any messages which have incement or hateful material (politically or religious).
This seems like a fabulous idea at first, but it is the opposite. Developing countries like Venezuela need freedom of access to all information on the internet. Chavez states that:
“We aren’t eliminating the internet here, or censoring it.What we’re doing is protecting ourselves against crimes, against cybercrimes,”
Now Chavez, I’m a fan, but WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
Fighting Cybercrime. Chavez Style.
I understand his fear that the general opinion of him on the internet is pretty low, but this is not what the country needs. Look at North Korea and China! Clearly someone needs to get their internet know-how on. I mean, of course he’s going to get slated in Youtube comments or god forbid, Daily Mail comments. And of course, his people will see all the mental stuff that he supposedly done but didn’t. (You know, cause the papers keep lying about him). But really, it will NOT be detrimental to his country’s socialist development if they can access the whole internet, because everyone knows that the key to socialism is free education, freedom of information, and a platform to express yourself. The Internet can easily facilitate that.
Wide access to the Internet will vastly aid primary, secondary and tertiary education for the whole country. Children can play and learn, while adults use it as a tool to their careers. The Internet makes it easier to organise movements and action, while it also acts as a place for people to put out ideas and get a sort of ‘rough copy’ of the reaction they’ll get in real life.
Yes, when it comes to Internet security, you are always at risk, but that is a thing that can only be solved by education folk. Not shutting them away from the rest of the world. Yes, you are almost always being watched by the various governments, but there isn’t any clean cut way around that. Personal vigilance will help though, but no one can learn this if they don’t have any access to this type of material.
So what I’m saying is, that’s a huge FAIL from Chavez. I’m disappointed.
Really good post, I’d not read that story yet. That’s also not the only law passed at the moment that could have negative ramifications for Venezuela’s socialist development. A law passed on foreign financing of political organisations recently banned many types of support that could come from abroad for Venezuela political/civil organisations. In one sense it’s understandable: with U.S. organisations such as the “National Endowment for Democracy” supporting far right opposition groups in Venezuela which went on to launch a coup against the government in 2002 and still try to detabilise the country, preventing the U.S. from supporting such groups is probabaly good for Venezuela democracy. However, it also undermines internationalism: other trade union and socialist groups could be prevented from supporting similar groups in Venezuela if the government determines those Venezuelan groups to be somehow undermining public figures and authority.
This is a significant moment for Venezuela, with a new Assembly elected which has a significant opposition presence about to take its seats, and the raft of laws being passed at the moment by the outgoing Assembly can be understood in that context.
Incidentally, I’m about to book my tickets for a three month trip to Venezuela starting in late February, so I’ll be blogging from there while I’m away to keep SSY’ers updated on Venezuela’s political situation.
Interesting article Lydia. Worth clarifying that the reason for this law is to prevent things which would be illegal on TV and radio (like when all the private media called for Chavez to be overthrown) simply moving to cyberspace as they have done. Recently the CIA funded Noticiero Digital published a story rejoycing in the (made-up) assasination of two government ministers. A newspaper could have been shut down for bollocks like this (in any country).
It’s a fascinating question about press freedom and responsibility and I don’t think there is an easy answer. Does the Daily Mail have a right to incite racial hatred and print drivvle? Does the Record have a right to say its OK to kill Firsat Dag because he was allegedly claiming benefits? If Stormfront was a newspaper all the folks who write for it would be in the slammer but because its a website its OK.
This is not IMHO about filtering but rather about removal of illegal content specifically to quote the actual law “inciting hate, criminal activity, war propaganda, alterations in public order, homicide; or advocating people disobey constitutional authority.” I’m not saying I agree with all of it particularly not the bit about constitutional authority or the ‘public order’ which as we know is a pretty catch all phrase but I think all this handwringing in the West about “press freedoms” is pish. Would Jihad TV get a spot on Freeview calling for not just the overthrow of the government but the entire political and social order?
But then I’m the definition of an unapologetic, flagwaving Chavista…and really its an unnecesary law unlikely to stop all the mad yankee-funded bawbags from trying to overrule the will of the Venezuelan people by throwing money at the media. With or without this law Chavez is winning and they are all losers…without websites
Blocking things on the internet is daft because a) it won’t work, people will always find a way round, and b) when you are blocking really nasty stuff it’s a distraction from actually pursuing the people responsible.
That said, is that’s actually what’s going on here? I admit I haven’t had the time to check it out properly, but the Venezuelan Ministry of Communication and Information has done a Q&A here where they say they’re not going to censor sites, it’s rather about providing sanctions against people who use the internet to make threats etc. As I say, I’d need to read more before I was sure about it. In general though I’m quite wary of trusting the BBC on this stuff, cos they talk a lot of shite. venezuelanalysis.com all the way, always check with them!
It shouldn’t forget that in general the revolution in Venezuela has done a shit load for widening internet access. As they point out in the Q&A, internet usage in Venezuela has increased 900% in the last 2 years, the govt. has handed out tens of thousands of free laptops to school students, and they’ve opened free internet centres in poor communities to guarantee access. On top of that they have committed themselves to using free/open software as part of the revolution.
On the banning of funding from foreign sources, well personally I think it’s more than about time they got the likes of the National Endowment for “Democracy” to fuck out their country.
I demand SHED LOADS of blogging from Venezuela Ewan!
I don’t agree with powers that let the government block websites related to political activism, which this seems to have at least the potential for, but this is by no means limited to Venezuela – remember that fitwatch website that was shut down a few months ago in the UK? Same with the foreign funding thing, the UK has banned foreign funding for political parties. Even when things happen in Venezuela that we don’t agree with we need to be careful about going guns-blazing against it, and take the news in the context of a heavily biased media. Not that we shouldn’t be critical at all – articles like this are good, and it’s important to keep governments to account, especially ones that we are supportive of, but we should be wary of feeding into the anti-revolution propaganda.
Also, what Jack said about blocking not working is totally true – the tories were recently talking about blocking by default all pornography, and requiring people to specifically ask their ISP to have unfiltered internet. Regardless of what you think about the politics of it, for anyone who knows even the basics about the internet it’s obvious it would’t work – there’s just far too much pornography on the internet to even begin to filter. As a rule, governments don’t understand how the internet works.
@Jack
“In general though I’m quite wary of trusting the BBC on this stuff, cos they talk a lot of shite. venezuelanalysis.com all the way, always check with them!”
By all means read both. But venezuelanalysis is itself another source of propaganda – this time very very much in defence of Chavez and the government.
Even the Q&A on this talks about the law sanctioning those who ‘advocate to disobey constitutional authority’. How is this interpreted?
Socialists in this country would do well to also check other independent news sources.
Hey Lee, what sources would you recommend for info on Venezuela?
It is hard to criticise a man that has taken many people out of poverty and helped in public transport and many theaters in normal Venezualian people. The censorship of the media in any form is always apparent to me in Europe, America and anywhere else in the world. Britian is heavily censored with points of few being dismissed or people who don’t agree with the majority being decried as a nut.
This is easily equated to our media now and again our media has a news bulletin which I like to refer to as ‘lets take a look at a shit African country’ Now the British news seems to pick a target and all news corporation go for it. We hear about a random country for about a month solid then it stops then a several months later we may go back to that country or we may go to another. Sudan is in the news every year or so but we hear little of the democratic republic of Congo or anyother country in Africa. Censorship is all around it is a constant freedom and liberty are just a blindfold to the eyes we beleive were free cause we choose not to look at the bars.