alt Hacker NewsCorruption and Control: Turkmenistan turned internet censorship into a business
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I wonder what underpins the arising of this kind of pattern of authoritarian government, which we also see arising in supposedly liberal Western democracies.
Some people voice concern about the emergence of “prison planet” (a phrase with varied meanings), but with the rise of mass surveillance, drone tech, AI and authoritarianism I can well imagine the worst patterns of governance finding a stable equilibrium for a considerable period of time.
The blog cites an interesting tool called COST: The NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool https://netblocks.org/projects/cost
NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool™ (COST) is a data-driven online service that enables anyone – including journalists, researchers, advocates, policy makers, businesses, and others – to quickly and easily produce rough estimates of the economic cost of Internet disruptions.
https://progres.online/reports/internet-freedom/what-does-in...
"It indicates that a total internet shutdown in Turkmenistan for one day could result in a loss of 17.4 million USD, which translates to 6.4 billion USD per year, equivalent to around 7.8% of the country’s GDP in 2023."
> It was reported by Progres Foundation that this Internet shutdown has potentially costed 8% of Turkmenistan's annual GDP.
That’s a lot.
don't go that far, look at Cuba: 90 miles from the US's shores. Systemic corruption and narco dictatorship.
The very people blocking access were the ones selling it back.
"Create a problem, create the solution and profit from it" is not unique to Turkmenistan nor a new concept. I wouldn't be surprised if this is also true of the "anti-AI crawling" and "identity verification" stuff that's now showing up.