It reads like: citizens have been protesting the government using social media, government desperate to curb dissent bans social media, dissent is now on the streets..
Or maybe it's as straightforward as the media has been reporting.
The reporting seems pretty meagre; even strictly with these events, how are so many dying from batons and rubber bullets? Sure these can kill, but fourteen people?
And also because they're in the trap of a government provided cushy lifestyle which the government can terminate at will without violence (de-banking, de-pensioning, de-uneployment, de-social housing, etc) if they're caught protesting. People in underdeveloped countries don't have anything more to loose anyway but their chains.
Can you give specific examples?
I frequently find the US outlook to be exactly the reverse, where people pretend like "the government" is some conspiratorial shadow organisation undermining all the citizens at every step (which seems quite silly to me because it basically consists only of people that you directly or indirectly voted for).
My view is that if you have incompetent, selfish administrators in a western democracy, then just don't vote for them next time; if they keep getting elected, then maybe your countries actual problem are the idiot voters instead (or possibly not-actually-independent mass media, the importance of which can not be overstated).
Most rich western/northern European countries.
>which seems quite silly to me because it basically consists only of people that you directly or indirectly voted for
It's not silly when you consider that the candidates you can vote for, are all managed oppositions, each owned and supported by various mega-money interest groups. Why else did Bernie Sanders never got nominated as a presidential candidate even though many people supported him? Because he's not bought and paid for by the lobbyist groups. In every country it's like that.
But, the reason I call it short-sighted is exactly what you said: Removing those earlier pressure-release valves doesn’t solve the underlying issue at all and just increases the risk of a more volatile outcome.
This is what I'll never understand about neolib governments sliding towards authoritarianism: why push back so hard? Evacuate the parliamentary buildings, don't meet the protestors with police, and let them have the run of the place. Record every face on CCTV, and then spend the next couple months vanishing them. The USSR understood this and it's that kind of forward-thinking that lets the likes of Putin maintain authority all the way from his career as a KGB agent through to now.
These governments responding to protests with tear gas and batons fail not only at effective authoritarianism, but also at being good liberal democracies where people can safely protest - which is possible, Taiwan has had two record sized protests in my life and at neither of them did the police advance with batons and beat the shit out of people.
But I think "managed opposition is the best you can get as voter" is incorrect; Trump is in my view neither managed nor "pro-establishment" in any way, and if everything was actually under "capitalist" control, then people like Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez or Tim Walz would never be allowed even close to a position of power.
Anti-establishment populists in Europe have seen comparable success (e.g. Italy where they are in power, or Germany where it just looks like a matter of time).
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-media-...
Trump has a similar playbook.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-ap-white-house-press-pool-b...
Then there's also the normal US style limits (fighting words are banned, speech which harms big companies is banned, "obscenity" is restricted or banned, death threats to the president are banned (the UK also bans threats to people who aren't the president)
lazily pasting one of my comments from yesterday
"So after sacking the wildly (and deservingly) popular Chairman of the National Electricity Authority, after allowing ministers to set arbitrary and uncapped salaries for themselves and their workers, after obstructing and undermining the wildly (and deservingly) popular mayor of the Capital, and after doing like 15 of these really major, objectively anti-nation things, and getting called out for it in Social Media by the commoners, the 73 year old Prime Minister (in many ways a Trump-like figure; immune to shame or criticism) moves to ban social media in the country. "
Bruh.
> Italy where they are in power
Melloni only pretended to be anti establishment to win elections, but isn't. She campaigned on deporting illegals, and then gave them residency and right to work lol. Tell me a bigger rug pull. Trump is the same, he campaigned on a lot of things(Epstein list anyone?), but not actually executed on them or only did it only as a show (DOGE).
Gatherings, yes. Effective protest, I’m less convinced.
Effective protests “have clear strategic goals, use protest to broaden coalitions, seek to enlist more powerful individuals in their cause, and connect expressions of discontent to broader political and electoral mobilization” [1].
Social media helps enlist the elite. But it absolutely trashes clarity of goals and coalition broadening, often degrading into no true Scotsman contests. If a protest is well planned, social media can help it organize. But if a movement is developing, social media will as often keep it in a leaderless, undisciplined and thus ineffective state.
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-power-of-protest-in-t...
We protest here too by the way, this weekend about 100k in Brussels.
That you make these claims is just plain up ridiculous.
This literally didn't happen. This sort of conspiracy-theorizing nonsense is akin to Trump's about the 2020 election and has lead to a bunch of low-info voters making bad decisions.
For example in Canada they de-banked the truckers, in Germany they de-pensioned a retiree who was planning to bring back the Kaiser.
So yeah, it happens, you're just ignorant from your bubble.
The standard assumption in business is that you follow local laws and customs as they are a proxy for the moral system of the local people.
Are you operating a business or promoting western ideas?
An attitude that has become common in the UK is to say the government needs powers control the "gammon" (i.e. the hoi polloi) from themselves, and to protect their children from their terrible parents, etc.
I'm not sure what you mean by "justice".
I don't see why you would ever want some mercurial populist in power if you are rich and established; risks to wealth/investments wastly outweight any potential gains from billionaire-friendly tax policy (and you could lobby for such tax policy elsewhere, as well).
> Article 19
> Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
Yes. That's as reasonable as the people there protesting their own government.
Corporations closing down there and moving away is completely reasonable. People protesting is completely reasonable.
The government forcing the corporations out is as reasonable as the people there say it is... so not at all.
Secondly, I don't believe a word you say about Germany. Source please.
Don't generalize what happened once in Canada to the whole "Western world" and all kinds of de-.... And as far as I remember, those truckers were protesting. So they certainly didn't comply to your description of being indoctrinated to trust their government.
Firstly, laws are not a great proxy for local people's moral systems in dictatorships. I am not sure they are even that reliable proxy in democracies.
Secondly, while some exact expressions are of western origin, the general concept of freedom is pretty universal. Secondly, ideas of western origin might well be widely supported by people anywhere. Ideas spread.
Finally, where do you draw the line? Will you be entirely amoral and cooperate with any laws? Will you supply torture implements because the government wants them? A surveillance system primarily aimed at a ethnic or religious minority, or to identify supporters of the opposition? Genocide?
Most businesses claim to have some moral stance, and when they fail to stick to it it just looks like hypocrisy to me. A very visible example is the complete lack of rainbow logos in the same companies Chinese or Saudi operations during pride month - and media businesses that have a gay rights stance in the west will edit our gay scenes in Asia. Plenty of companies will claim to be anti-racist but do business than funds the Uighur genocide.
No repercussions for anything short of calling violence is actually an American idea, to some extent other Anglophone countries. It is not generally accepted in continental Europe which has always had far more restrictions on speech. So its not generically "western". On the other hand some level of free speech is widely supported by many people in non-western countries. its in a lot of constitutions, and people will generally say they support free speech.
Yes. Does your business have people who second guess local laws and customs according to their higher sense or morality?
> the general concept of freedom is pretty universal
No it’s not. To some freedom is doing whatever you want. To some freedom is free from bad choices and unhappiness. To others, freedom is for themselves and not others.
> Secondly, ideas of western origin might well be widely supported by people anywhere.
You’re still missing where this is a responsibility for operating a business.
> Will you be entirely amoral and cooperate with any laws
That’s what businesses generally do, yes. And they use the legal system to fight laws they disagree with.