[Foundation-l] Since Egypt has shutdown internet, should we too?

[George Herbert]

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 4:51 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28 January 2011 12:47, Amir E. Aharoni <amir.aharoni at mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
>> 2011/1/28 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
>
>>> The idea of getting samizdat copies of Wikipedia into Egypt appeals.
>>> Airlift in current-article dumps of ar:wp and en:wp on SD cards by the
>>> thousand?
>
>> Don't forget arz.wikipedia. It's small, but shouldn't be ignored.
>
>
> The more the better!
>
> I expect we don't actually have the money on hand to do this, it's
> mostly just a pleasant thought :-) Though if someone just happens to
> have thousands of SD cards and something to make HTML versions of
> article dumps ...
>
>
> - d.

I appreciate the sentiments, but in the week that it would take to do
anything significant, this will be over one way or another.

Geopolitics is a nasty game; civil insurrection even nastier, as the
geneva conventions don't get applied.  The guns are out (Egyptian army
deployed to back up the overwhelmed police); either they restore order
(by simply being there, a bit more teargas, or shooting people in
whatever quantities are needed to restore order) or there's going to
be a new government in Cairo shortly.  Situations don't teeter this
close to the edge for long.

The worst thing the Foundation can do is attempt to intervene in a way
that gets other authoritarian regimes more likely to censor us, IMHO.
This is not a value judgement on supporting democracy in Egypt - it's
a realpolitik issue with the rest of the world we will continue to
have to deal with for the next few decades.  That we wouldn't censor
coverage or information on an uprising or oppressive behavior doesn't
mean we should organizationally take a stand on an uprising or attempt
to get involved.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com