Re:How WhatsApp Destroyed a Village
by stordoff on Monday September 10, 2018 @01:28AM
(#17949587)
How is blocking WhatsApp justifiable (or indeed useful -- this could be accomplished with more or less any communications app)?
I know it pails in comparison, but the London riots of a few years ago were (in part) organised over BlackBerry Messenger. I don't recall many on HN advocating for blocking BlackBerry Messenger. I feel this comment from the time applies as much here as it did there:
> Neither Blackberry, Twitter, nor Facebook fuelled the fire under London's riots, any more than the internet, radio waves, or electricity did. Violent, hateful people did that.
I know it pails in comparison, but the London riots of a few years ago were (in part) organised over BlackBerry Messenger. I don't recall many on HN advocating for blocking BlackBerry Messenger. I feel this comment from the time applies as much here as it did there:
> Neither Blackberry, Twitter, nor Facebook fuelled the fire under London's riots, any more than the internet, radio waves, or electricity did. Violent, hateful people did that.