[Y_Y]

Obviously this is wrong and tyrannical etc.

I can't help wondering though if this may have unexpected benefits for e.g.: sleep quality, civility in online discussions, exercise. It's hardly intended that way, but could end up being a net benefit for the well-being of citizens, particularly if it were implemented in a highly-developed country like the US.

[Tenoke]

Given that the curfew seems to be directly related to the large-scale protests where thousands are getting wounded and some killed, I wouldn't count on them having e.g. better sleep than before the curfew.

[mFixman]

I think this is the most HN comment ever read.

And no, having an Internet curfew for preventing bloody protests won't improve the well-being of citizens.

[owl57]

Depends on whether it's successful in preventing bloody protests. Almost everything is better than war.

[ChristianBundy]

The best way to prevent protests is to stop doing things that your constituents want to protest.

[JoeAltmaier]

If only! In America, there's a culture of 'fun protesting' where you wave signs about things you don't know about. Like your parents did in the 60's, but now just for a lark.

[owl57]

When we are talking about "best way" to do something, we probably imply a (rational or not quite) agent making decisions, not the government as a whole. A monarch is without a doubt such an agent. Does abdication[1] count as stopping doing things?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdication_of_Nicholas_II

[authoritarian]

So tyrannical oppression is ok because it stops the citizens from bringing attention to the tyrannical oppression through protests? That is absolutely not better; sometimes violence is required to spur change unfortunately

[owl57]

Some of the violence of past centuries brought us good parts of the current order, sure. But the relevant question is: are there any definite recent examples? Examples of violence turning a bad (sometimes really bad, I won't disagree!) peace into endless war are plentiful.

[throwaway66920]

What about war and progressive social change

[jmiskovic]

I'm thinking of different benefit - raising awareness of internet backbone being single point of failure for communication within any local community. Widespread mesh network technology would help with both fighting oppressive regimes and organising the crisis relief.

[wbronitsky]

If I read this correctly, your post can be summarized as: "Disclaimer, people should have rights... yadda yadda yadda. But..... would it be so bad if they didn't have rights?"

I, for one, don't care at all about the positive externalities of taking away people's rights, nor do I see the merit in discussing them. It normalizes the taking away of rights when we discuss how great it could be when you aren't allowed access to information and freedom of movement.

[seanmcdirmid]

Those kids might have nothing except go outside and assemble together...perhaps another instance of the law of unintended consequences?

[dastx]

This is already the case for those that are up in arms about these protests. People in Iraq aren't as fortunate as the west where every 5 year old has their own ipad for youtube or what have you.

The streets are still full of kids because no one can afford to give every child the latest smart phones.

[seanmcdirmid]

Iraq isn’t Afghanistan, they might not be rich, but the country is in the upper middle income development band.

[dastx]

Citation needed.

Iraq is a war torn country. Minus the big cities like Baghdad and Erbil, most of the people don't have a lot.

[aaronmdjones]

When you're talking about the Internet, the US is far from a highly-developed country.

[lolsal]

Can you elaborate?

[aaronmdjones]

Lack of competition, poor customer service, high prices, regulatory capture, lobbying preventing cities and municipalities developing their own service, price fixing, ISPs that take lump sums and tax rebates from the government for "infrastructure development and expansion" that don't materialise, lack of net neutrality, ... ?

[lolsal]

Are we talking about Technology or Politics? As far as technology goes, it's not actually far from a 'highly-developed' country, right? Gigabit in some places (and growing), really decent broadband in others. Free wifi is ubiquitous, cellular technology is also really decent in places like the frontier states - Eastern Oregon, Montana, etc. Not to mention lots of actual technical hardware and software development happens in the US like Loon[1] and Starlink[2]. On the software side stuff like HTTP/2[3], AMP(for better or worse)[4], Chrome, Firefox, etc. originated in the US, didn't it? I'd argue the US is the most 'highly-developed' country for Internet technology, but I'm biased since I am from the US.

If you're just complaining about politics, I won't argue.

1: https://x.company/projects/loon/ 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2 4: https://developers.google.com/amp