Twitter announced earlier today that it will start deleting Tweets in some countries. There have been many cases in which governments have complained to Twitter regarding some of the content that its users generate.
Twitter spokesperson Jodi Olson said that the company is doing its best to comply with such requests while protecting freedom of speech.
The tweets that Twitter delete will still be available to the rest of the world because Twitter values freedom of expression and does not want to remove content globally. For example, pro-Nazi tweets will be banned in Germany and France only. Olson also said that it will practice transparency by letting the users know if their tweets are removed.
I understand that user-generated Internet content can be uncontrollable and cause fervor or conflict. Twitter must have been bombarded with requests to remove certain tweets, not just from governments but also from groups, organizations and individuals.
Nonetheless, why must Twitter dictate what people can say in their countries? Twitter seems to be willing to accord with government policies – but what if these policies don’t do any justice? Governments may just be trying to censor Internet content for their own agenda and benefit. If Twitter yields to these regulations, we are losing another mechanism for expressing our democratic civilian interests.
Twitter may say that it only wants to emphasize freedom of speech, but, with this latest decision, it is only doing what it wants to appear to be against: censorship.
Following weeks of protest in the Maldives, President Mohamed Nasheed resigned. Initially, he was popular among the voters on the islands. He won the presidency through competitive, multiparty elections; the first elections after a 30-year autocratic rule.
The article on The Guardian describes the Maldives as a “fresh democracy” because the contested elections only happened four years ago. Based on the concepts explained by Collier and Levitsky, this article seems to apply the procedural minimum definition – assuming that a democracy involves competitive elections, full suffrage, and unhindered civil liberties. It indicates that the fine line between autocracy and multiparty elections reflect a transition to democracy. Although Collier and Levitsky also distinguish autocracy from democracy as opposing, or mutually exclusive, concepts, multiparty elections simply does not show that a country is a full, proper democracy. On the ladder of generality, the term “fresh democracy” with reference to the Maldivian political system characteristics would rank high. The Guardian uses few defining attributes to refer to democracy in the Maldives, meaning that a “fresh democracy” with recent multiparty elections can be applied to many cases of democracy. Nonetheless, we have to be aware that President Nasheed ordered a military arrest of the court chief judge Abdulla Mohamed after Mohamed called for a release of a government critic. Protests followed, with military troops firing bullets at the police. Human rights issue is being discussed as many people believe that the arrest of the judge was unnecessary. Evidently, a high position on the ladder of generality in describing the democracy in the Maldives shows an extent of conceptual stretching. Even though there were fair elections, the government still practices its power to arrest those that think differently, and employs the military to fight protestors. Should “democracy” be applied to a country like this? It is only a matter of defining how this “fresh democracy” exemplifies democratic ideals without conceptual stretching.
In other news, Syria has been experiencing some serious domestic conflicts that the whole world is watching over. This article from Huffington Post calls Syria an “illiberal democracy” because, although the Syrian president was elected, the Syrian population basically have no civilian liberties. The oppressive Assad regime has used violence against civilians protesting the government, and, as a result, thousands of people have been killed. Even though many international organizations, including the United Nations and the Arab League, have attempted to take Assad out of power, so far there has been minimal success. The Assad regime is using military forces to continue abusing its power on civilians, and denying any objections from foreign actors – calling it a breach of Syrian sovereignty. According to Collier and Levitsky, “illiberal democracy” is a diminished subtype of democracy. It is true that Syria held elections, like any democracy would. It would definitely fit under the term “electoral regime”, which is high up on the ladder of generality. As we proceed down the ladder toward conceptual differentiation, Syria’s connection to the root concept of democracy decreases. Given the condition in Syria right now, it would definitely be contested as a full democracy. Conceptual differentiation helps understand that Syria, although it possesses democratic aspects, is a subtype of democracy because civilians have little to no liberties.
The Arab League nations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman gave Syria a deadline of this Thursday to change up its illiberal, undemocratic government. The Arab League nations have a mission in Syria to stop violence against civilians, release political prisoners, seize weapons from the cities, and establish more open travelling for foreigners. They also hope to convince the current Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to transfer his political power to his vice president and form a national unity government. They have made it clear in their report their plan of forming a new constitutional council and holding parliamentary and presidential elections.
A letter has been sent to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon proposing a national unity government. It seems like the Arab League is serious and diplomatic about transitioning Syria into a more liberal democratic country. The Arab nations made it clear that they do not want military intervention, but want to gather international support through the United Nations Security Council.
Nonetheless, as it always is with spreading democratic principles, the issue of national sovereignty arises. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said that the Arab League is violating the national sovereignty of Syria by intruding on its domestic matters. We have to ask ourselves, how much is too much then? When there are serious harms inflicted upon the people and foreign relations, I think it is necessary for the international community to step in. Arab League is definitely not trying to decrease Syrian sovereignty, but sees that solving the unhealthy political conditions in Syria is more important than completely letting Syria to be.
Hopefully, the United Nations and the rest of the world will join the Arab League in efforts to deal with the situation in Syria – sooner than later.
Just today, it was announced that the European Union adopted an oil embargo against Iran and froze the assets of the Iranian central bank. By doing so, the EU is trying to pressure Iran to consider further negotiation on its nuclear program. The latest sanctions will immediately place an embargo on any new contracts, while the existing contracts will be in effect until July.
The EU wants to show Iran that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons is heavily discouraged by the international community, and that the community is willing to have talks with Iran on its nuclear program.
There is one problem that the EU must face: Greece, one of the EU members in dire financial crisis, depends a lot on cheap Iranian oil. The EU foreign ministers claimed that they will make up the costs that will impact Greece due to the embargo — but have not exactly specified how.
Sometimes, economic sanctions only bring a series of further conflict and predicaments. They can even backfire on the region or the group that initiated them. With Iran being one of the biggest exporters of oil to the Western country, how will the latest oil embargo impact the world?
The EU is firm on the belief that this is mainly for the security of the world – but they need to realize the economic consequences this may bring, especially to one of its very own members, Greece.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/23/world/europe/iran-eu-oil/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn
After a few tumultuous years involving multinational coalitions, interim governments, and insurgencies, the Iraq War finally ended. The U.S., having led the initial invasion in 2004 with the U.K., pulled out the last of its troops in December, 2011.
Nonetheless, this does not mean that the unrest among the Iraqi population is over. According to a report that came out today from the Human Rights Watch, the situation in Iraq is worse than it was one year ago. People are still being tortured in a secret prison called Camp Honor, which the Justice Ministry promised to close down – but hasn’t yet.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki denied that Camp Honor exists, or that prisoners in Iraq are being tortured. He did, however, say that there could be individual cases of torture unrelated to the government, and that they will be responsible for human rights violations.
Human Rights Watch claims that this is “a routine process” that recurs in Iraq, and peaceful protestors are being violently treated by the government forces. Journalists are being abused and even murdered, and women and children are consistently the targets of violence.
This worsening situation only shows that, even though the war in Iraq may be over, and the country established an “elected” government, the struggle to establish a true liberal democracy is far from ending. The Iraqi government needs to actively seek out violent crimes and tortures and make the people understand that human rights violations is not acceptable. Without any effort on its part, Iraq may just be slipping further away from achieving a democratic system of government.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/22/world/meast/iraq-human-rights/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn
This article is dedicated to three of my classmates, for whom I’ve found some interesting articles on the Internet. Hopefully you will learn something new, gain a fresh perspective, or enjoy reading it at the very least!
Louise Lu:
You have to get into Columbia Law!
Vicky Chan:
Continue entering pageants after you get your law degree! 😛
Naryan Bell:
Somewhere along the fierce and somewhat entertaining series of the Republican presidential campaigns, a new topic is on fire: the accusations of Newt Gingrich, a major Republican presidential candidate, wanting an open marriage.
It’s really not a surprising matter – hearing that yet another famous politician has been disloyal to his spouse. And the timing is not all that startling either, because these scandals usually arise amidst a huge political event, like the Republican primaries.
The accusations come from Gingrich’s second and ex-wife, Marianne Gingrich. She claims that Mr. Gingrich offered to stay married to her only if she allowed him to have an open relationship with his former congressional aide. Of course, Mr. Gingrich denied such claims, and was infuriated that he would even be asked about it during a presidential debate. While other candidates Rick Santorum and Ron Paul seemed to allude to ‘forgiveness,’ Mitt Romney avoided the topic as a whole – saying they should focus on the real issue of political debates.
Romney pulled the right card here – discussing someone’s private life on national television during a presidential debate is what some would call mudslinging or dirty politics. This is, after all, about their performance as politicians and presidential candidates. Whatever goes on in their home and family should not be a focal point, or even a relevant subject, of a presidential candidate’s proposed policies and agenda.
On the other hand, how somebody is in their home can reflect a lot on the character of the person. Both time his first and second wives were diagnosed with illnesses, Mr. Gingrich left them. The congressional aide with whom he supposedly asked his wife’s permission to have an open relationship is now his third wife. Ironically, he was disloyal to his wife while he was trying to impeach ex-President Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Obviously, Marianne Gingrich succeeded in distracting the nation during this key point of Mr. Gingrich’s presidential bid. Now, it’s up to Mr. Gingrich – whether he can graciously save himself from further humiliation and accusations against him, or he will fall into the trap that Marianne so calculatingly set up, and stumble along the primaries putting in time and effort to steer the attention away from it.
You can read the full article on Gingrich and the accusations on TIME:Â http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/20/gingrich-and-the-open-marriage-question-how-newt-can-spin-things-to-his-advantage/?xid=healthland-daily
It’s certainly relieving to read that positive changes are being made in some countries. Take Myanmar, for example, which has been under military rule for about five decades. The Burmese military regime has had endless and persevering democratic opposition, and yet has famously placed its people under oppression and human rights violation. Of course, this lack of “democratic principles” in Myanmar caused a strain on multiple diplomatic relations that it once had with other countries, like the US, UK, and France.
More recently, however, Burmese President Thein Sein has shown the rest of the political world that he is serious about bringing about reform in his unstable country. According to this article on The Economist, this past week, his government released some 300 political prisoners. Some of them had been imprisoned since 1988, after the famous “88 Generation Movement” by student protesters. This, along with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit in December, paves way for restrengthening of ties between Myanmar and the other countries. Norway and Australia are also opening up the doors to relations with Myanmar, and foreign officials are realizing how serious Thein Sein seems about the reform.
It’s definitely not an easy task to reform your entire country and its political system to introduce and accept democracy. Thein Sein probably is aware of all the challenges that lie ahead — releasing political prisoners is just a beginning step of many that will and should follow. If Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy wins seats in parliament in the upcoming by-election this April, Myanmar will be well on its way to joining the other established, democratic countries. America has been actively pressuring the Burmese government to release all the prisoners – with the incentive of Myanmar’s prospect of abandoning its political isolation in the international realm.
It seems that the US has a lot of say in it – as the argued hegemon of the political world and a country that has been promoting democracy around the world for years. When a country tries to reform itself to form a democratic system, it usually follows the Western model of democracy that we find in the US, France, etc. And there is no doubt that American, out of all nations, will be watching closely what goes on in Myanmar.
Hi everyone!
I’m Annie and I’m a 3rd year UBC student doing Political Science major and Women’s and Gender Studies minor. I’m very excited to be taking a writing-intensive course this term because I absolutely love writing. It’s my favorite hobby, and I definitely want to incorporate that into my career someday.
I was born in Seoul, Korea and moved to Canada with my family in 2001. We settled down in Burnaby, where I attended St. Thomas More Collegiate. After my 9th grade, however, I transferred to a mini-school program called UBC Transitions. It’s a high school situated on UBC campus, so I’ve had quite a lot of time to familiarize myself with UBC before I even was a student here. Thanks to that program, I was able to graduate a year early and attend UBC. Since an early age, I’d known my passion for politics and delve right into political science courses. I enjoyed every single one so far – I’m not kidding! – and trying to expand my field of major by being part of the World Model United Nations organizing committee this semester.
Last term, I was on exchange through Go Global in Lyon, France. Being a political science major in Vancouver, Canada, I thought it would be useful to have fluency in French. Living and studying in France for 5 months was definitely an eye-opening, at times challenging, but mostly enjoyable experience. I also had an opportunity to travel around Europe quite a bit – and visited places like Spain, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, England, and Monaco. In the midst of my travels I think I was bitten by the travel bug because I’m just itching to go somewhere new! Nevertheless, it is nice to be back in my home town, at my home university.
In my downtime I do fashion blogging and play classical piano. I’ve played the piano for 15 years and have performed in the US and Europe.
I’m looking forward to this course and to reading all the interesting things everyone has to write!
Cheers,
Annie
