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Candelestine ,

… wtf is going on over there… What kind of douchebags did you guys elect? I mean, I’m American, I know I can’t throw stones here, but y’alls were better than that. You like, wisely stood against our 9/11 invasion and we probably should’ve listened.

But, wtf?

btw, if anyone was too lazy to dig, this publication is a nigerian newspaper that actually seems legit. Founded in 2020, so pretty new still. Looking at their front page they mostly just do local reporting. Has had run-ins with local power.

Pili ,

The last election was a shitshow.

As usual, the younger generation didn’t bother voting, and the older one voted en masse for conservative candidates because they are those our media push for, while at the same time slandering progressive ones.

In the election runoff, we had the choice between an openly fascist candidate from a party literally founded by former Nazis, and a “light fascist” one that people were seeing as the lesser evil. Though it’s pretty obvious now that his fascism isn’t so light (he openly admires Petain, a french leader who collaborated with Nazi Germany), and I hope people will remember that for the next election and understand that voting for a democratic candidate in the first turn if very important.

alliswell33 ,

Weird how this sounds alot like what’s happening in the US. Almost like fascism is encroaching all acrost the world as it crumbles.

RestrictedAccount ,

If people get out and fucking vote like it’s your last chance, we can get some sanity.

Hypnoctopus ,
@Hypnoctopus@lemmy.ml avatar

Why would young people vote when they can stay at home and browse tiktok instead?

/s

PowerCrazy ,

Oh? Should people vote for the lesser of two evils? Because that’s your only choice if you continue to insist you can vote your way out of this.

RestrictedAccount ,

Absofreakinglutely!

There will never be a perfect candidate. This is politics.

PowerCrazy ,

Well then enjoy voting for Hitler (D) because that’s what you are going to get.

sangle_of_flame ,
@sangle_of_flame@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, if one candidate is like “Hell yeah, let’s actually do more fascism” and another’s like “This is bad but we mustn’t get rowdy, our dignity will shame the others into doing the right thing” and others are in between those two

then voting won’t actually do anything

absentthereaper , (edited )
@absentthereaper@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Oh, I’m voting alright; but it’s more than likely gonna be all write-ins. My hand to my gods; I would sooner wipe my ass with my ballot and fling that fucker up a tree than cast it for a democrat after what Obama and Biden have done.

Pili ,

Yeah, it’s happening all over western liberal democracies. Inflation is going crazy and wealth inequalities are growing at an alarming rate. Because of that, people in power are afraid of a popular uprising, and they would rather see fascists rise to power and protect capitalism, than an economical shift to the left and lose some of their wealth.

It happened many times before. The more commonly known examples being:

  • Prominent industrialists and agricultural landowners providing financial support to Mussolini’s party because they feared the rise of socialism, and saw in him a means to counter it.
  • German industrialists who were fearful of the rise of the Communist Party and provided financial support to the Nazi party.
  • Spanish landowners and businessmen who were alarmed by the social and economic reforms of the Second Spanish Republic and supported Franco’s rise to power.

History tends to repeat itself.

Candelestine ,

To add to this, it would simply be remiss for any actual rival of the west to not attempt to stir their democracies against them.

It’s a fundamental weakness that only representative governments have, and authoritarians would simply be stupid not to target it. It’s very inexpensive to operate in the modern information space.

I mean, we got all these checks and balances in the first place because our systems are fundamentally very vulnerable. If you’d like a story on a less-secure system, look into the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

I mean, in the craziest of crazy scenarios, we could wind up with civil wars. Wouldn’t there be some folks out there that’d just love to see that? You think they can’t make bots, produce content, hire cheap labor?

Pili ,

Oh yes, voter manipulation is very concerning. Even the simple fact that foreign powers can legally finance a candidate for another country’s presidential election is absolutely crazy to me.

But I think there is something even worse than that:

  • When participation is so low that barely 50% of electors cast a vote, with one category of people (the elderly) being massively over-represented.
  • When there is no possible recourse if the majority of electors isn’t satisfied with their options, and blank ballots aren’t even accounted for.
  • When the main platforms where campaigning happens are all owned by and handful of billionaires, who can choose to present in a good light the candidates that will be the most favorable to them, and do the opposite for others.
  • When political campaigns are funded privately (and as I said, sometimes even by authoritarian foreign powers), those who favor billionaires being again at a massive advantage.

The game is so strongly rigged, I’m surprised that the general population still widely considers us democracies. Starting by reforming our electoral systems would do a lot of good and would be a lot simpler than trying to stop social media bots in my opinion, even though we should also tackle that issue.

Candelestine ,

Main problem is election reform would permanently destroy one of our political parties in its current state, and they are fully aware of this. They will burn our country down with us inside before they let it go, so it is wise to proceed with caution.

I don’t think the rest of the world wants to see not Russia’s nuclear arsenal dispersed, but ours.

Fighting a foreign power, however, rings straight to a huge strength of my country at least, the good ole US–our love of righteousness, competition and victory. This leaves a gap in their strategy, where they intended to inflame tribalism, but that can be turned definitively against them at the drop of a hat.

thoro ,

Scratch a liberal…

CanadaPlus , (edited )

Recently I read it’s actually worse in Europe, because the far-right has noticeable youth support, unlike here where it’s proportional to age.

That makes me very, very nervous.

MRPP ,

This seems to be the case yeah. The rhetoric of the left is preaching acceptance and solidarity, but in an uncertain world “feelgood rhetoric” isn’t strong enough. The right are preaching what appear to be solutions (close borders, nationalism, tax cuts to income and gas, segregation and defunding social programs to adress debt) so people buy into it.

What they don’t realise is that the tax cuts hurt the debt cutting messures and eroiding social security hurts nations and paves way for more insecurity, hate and fear (which fuels the right wing machine).

There’s precious little education on politics and choices for 20-somethings, and people are left to try and understand what the media pushes out. Finland benefits from a trusted national news media, though they have been criticized by the right of being politically biased and not worth their budget. So people slanting toward the right tend to be sceptical of it, and are pushed away, toward other news sources.

CanadaPlus , (edited )

There’s precious little education on politics and choices for 20-somethings

What does it look like, in your experience? Here we study our political systems throughout the upper grades, and in secondary school we study local political parties. As a bonus, in the final year we study general ideologies including Fascism and Marxism where I live, but I don’t think that part is typical for North America.

Finland benefits from a trusted national news media, though they have been criticized by the right of being politically biased and not worth their budget. So people slanting toward the right tend to be sceptical of it, and are pushed away, toward other news sources.

That describes the situation in Canada too.

MRPP ,

As it stands, vocational education is faltering but high school is still ptetty strong - and they are mandatory untill you are 18. Not all vocational school/trade schools suck, but I’ve talked with a good deal of young students (hundreds) to get s feel that there are staggering differences in how much the teachers care, or are able to motivte the kids into caring about learning.

If you take vocational education/trade school, there’s a good chance you have a single course or two of publics, history or similar subjects and that’s that.

It’s also turning into a bit of a gender issue, since our high schools are skewing heavily toward female students, with boys opting more and more to do trade school, partially due to lack of grades, partially because they feel like the school system isn’t for them and studying theory is unpleasant or downright hard. So they get demotivated and go where it’s considered “easier”, and scrape by.

After you graduate secondary education, a lot if guys don’t pursue further studies, so their access to education and discourse stalls. Young women do pursue higher education though, but it is not an idel situation at all.

CanadaPlus ,

Interesting. There is a noticeably higher interest in academics among girls here as well.

I imagine young people use more government services and pay less taxes (do to lower wages) over there too, so that’s not a great selling point for the right. One thing I’ve wondered is if the “culture wars” message plays better in a country where there’s actual continuity into the deep past.

sovietsnake ,
@sovietsnake@lemmygrad.ml avatar

As far as I know in the Global South we have a wave of left wing governments, maybe you forgot white people is not the world.

standardissue ,

In Latin America, definitely. But I’m not sure that there have been a wave of left wing governments elsewhere the Global South, unfortunately.

BestBouclettes ,

We elected him as the “last rempart to the extreme right”. Turns out he and his cronies are corrupted authoritarian fucks. Their shit social and economic policies are opening a highway to the actual far right in the near future, most likely 2027.

baked_tea ,

Lmao bait and switch

BestBouclettes ,

More like shitty electoral system that facilitates the choice of a lesser evil instead of the choice for the best candidate.

Fredselfish ,
@Fredselfish@lemmy.ml avatar

Sounds like the United States.

BestBouclettes ,

Definitely less worse but still shitty indeed

CanadaPlus , (edited )

They have proportional representation and a ton of parties. It’s a completely different kind of suck. Although I guess they also are presidential.

CanadaPlus ,

So what would be a good system. FPTP also sucks, or at least does for local minority voters like me, or if both parties become weak for whatever reason like in the US.

BestBouclettes ,

Maybe ranked choice voting, coupled with a parliamentary system instead of a presidential one ? I don’t think there is a perfect system but it would probably move things around in a better direction.

CanadaPlus ,

That’s what the Australia does. Also note that says nothing about proportionality either way.

sovietsnake ,
@sovietsnake@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Democratic centralism.

Serinus ,

Sinemaed.

Count042 ,

You know that America just… does this, right? No bill, no law… In fact it was the first to do this at all. It’s why in crime shows they remove the battery (from phone where you still can, of course.)

SheeEttin ,

No, the “Patriot” Act did authorize stuff like this in the US. There was also the “Freedom” Act, and generally this is all FISA stuff that has very low standards for what’s allowed.

AreYouNotEntertained ,

It is not legal for police to spy on citizens via their phone cameras in the US…

foggenbooty ,

Police, no. Homeland security? crickets

Pips ,

Still no. Do they do it anyway? Probably, but that doesn’t make it legal.

Zron ,

If I do something, people find out about it, and I don’t get arrested, it’s defacto legal

sangle_of_flame ,
@sangle_of_flame@lemmy.world avatar

are they gonna get in trouble for doing it, even if the government finds out?

probably not, so it’s practically legal; and that’s kind of the only kind of legality that matters in this case

angrylittlekitty ,

The movie citizen four did an excellent job detailing different ways a government (in this case the united states) can do this.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenfour

Serinus ,

It would require a warrant signed by a judge with probable cause.

Wiretap warrants aren’t easy.

MrPozor ,

It will be like that in France as well. But once they have the tools, there will be abuse.

Count042 ,

Sorry for the late response, but remind me again how many warrants the FISA court has denied?

That’s an approval rate of 99.97%

Boiglenoight ,

I mean, I’m American, I know I can’t throw stones here

Right? I’m wary of chastising any first world country at the moment. The past 7 years in particular have been especially WTF

Dr_Toofing ,

The article does not mention, how will this be achieved technology wise? I don’t know of any universal way that a government might activate these features on a person’s phone. Unless network operators/phone manufacturers start installing backdoors. This does not bode well.

Pili ,

I’m wondering the same. Hopefully privacy oriented projects such as GrapheneOS can counter whatever technology they will try to implement.

Jongaros ,

Patriot act requires them to do so. I am gonna guess they probably will unless they want to go to federal prison.

Pili ,

You’re right. I hadn’t even checked where GrapheneOS was based, that’s bad.

CalcProgrammer1 ,
@CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml avatar

Jokes on them. Run Linux phone, Android apps become useless. The PinePhones have the modem as an isolated module from the rest of the phone, connected via USB, so the modem can’t do anything too invasive.

Jongaros ,

You can technically bypass anything. Purpose of these type of laws is not catch all to access every single information under the sun. Real goal is make it so inconvenient and damaging to people material beings that 99.99% of the people rather give up their rights, data and freedom.

user224 , (edited )

You can technically bypass anything

Not if it’s disabled in hardware. This is what PinePhones have:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/PinePhone_Kill_Interruptors_de_Maquinari_del_PinePhone_4529.jpg

SheeEttin ,

Cell carriers can already push apps to your device.

forbes.com/…/carriers-can-now-install-apps-on-and…

Dasnap ,
@Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

I assume/hope this isn’t true if you bought the phone outside a contract?

Pips ,

If you have a cell plan, they can push to your SIM.

Dasnap ,
@Dasnap@lemmy.world avatar

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a8/83/d5/a883d5f1b4d6ae0a7d25a5b02e56c66d.png

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar

Ohhh my sweet summer child. Who is it that is making those phones?

Let me tell you, it’s Google.

UnfortunateDoorHinge ,

Do they like, want the protests to continue on our something? They can’t be that stupid.

UpperBroccoli ,

…hold my sancerre!

– Emmanuel Macron, probably

Diabolo96 ,

The protests are for police brutality against Minorities. Apparently the shot 17 years old kid was repeatedly hit with back of the gun which made him moves his leg away from the breaks and since it’s an automatic the car started moving forward…the rest is history.

Mongostein ,

It’s almost like Macron wants to be decapitated.

ebits21 ,
@ebits21@lemmy.ca avatar

Ugh.

downpunxx ,

that’d be the point I’d forgo smartphones entirely

SafetyGoggles ,

A Google search for “France phone camera” only gives this posted link and dailymail.co.uk article, both of which are not really trustworthy sources, IMO.

So I’m gonna go with “this is very possibly fake news”.

Pili ,

It’s very real, here are two legit sources in french:

francetvinfo.fr/…/le-senat-donne-son-feu-vert-a-l…

rtl.fr/…/loi-justice-l-activation-a-distance-des-…

You can use the service of your choice to translate them if you don’t understand french.

Jack ,

lemonde.fr/…/france-set-to-allow-police-to-spy-th…

alliswell33 ,

The US has exported it’s police brutality and police state to France. They even have the similar right wing news apperatice to convince the populace it’s all good. Making Uncle Sam proud 🇺🇸🇫🇷🍟🥖

RestrictedAccount ,

Not every bad thing people do is the fault of the US.

The French can be proper assholes. Look up the history of Haiti and which European colonies purchased the most African slaves.

Then ask. Where did all they go?

average650 ,
@average650@lemmy.world avatar

Recently the French police seem to be worse.

NuMetalAlchemist ,

France has been burning itself to the ground longer than the US has even been a thing.

ChronoPixel ,

Wouldn’t this breach multiple EU privacy laws?

Awthatsnotright ,

This is what I’m wondering.

ErwinLottemann ,

I don’t think it does, as the GDPR does not protect ‘criminals’ or against the police using your data.

Figaro2x ,

There are exceptions for law enforcement/intelligence in GDPR. Those are particularly broad in the UK data protection act for example.

Bushwhack ,

1984 - George Orwell tried to warn us.

CanadaPlus ,

This is bad, but that’s such an overused comparison. It can even be counterproductive because the Oceania from the books is so obviously different from the real world.

Bushwhack ,

I’m talking about the wall in their rooms though that they can use to listen in when they want, you have no private conversations.

sovietsnake ,
@sovietsnake@lemmygrad.ml avatar

A rapist, a snitch, a plagiarist, and a racist walk into a bar.

The bartender asks “How’s the new book coming Mr. Orwell?”

Akasazh ,
@Akasazh@feddit.nl avatar

Care to elaborate?

polskilumalo ,
@polskilumalo@lemmygrad.ml avatar

The same book which has been funded to be spread as far as possible, all over the world by the CIA.

Classic. What a warning.

lokitkhemak ,

This will definitely not be misused by anyone in the government. How on the earth did such blatantly dystopian law get passed?

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar

Macron is a NATO puppet.

Madison420 ,

Yes let’s just say buzzwords without context or reason, makes perfect sense.

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar

Except that not really, France could easily have another revolution when things like this happen. NATO doesn’t want any revolutions because the workers would have more power, they want corporation to hold power and wealth, as they can be controlled and sanctioned more easily.

DestroyMegacorps ,

How to make your country burn faster 101

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar

I guess NATO stopped pretending they care about free speech and democracy?

Awthatsnotright ,

The Patriot Act took care of that for us in the US!

yogthos ,
@yogthos@lemmy.ml avatar

While people in the west have been smugly pointing fingers at China, their own governments did everything they’ve been denouncing in China and worse. Congratulations.

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