(When it does start happening, it'll be obvious in hindsight we should never have let it get that far. Not that we'll be able to complain much).
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/representatives-propose-bi... ("Representatives propose bill limiting presidential internet ‘kill switch’" [2020])
Oh I agree. We've already let our civil rights go in the gutter. Although I do think it'll be political suicide for whoever does it, unless you're also holding an iron grip on power at that point.
I'm well aware, given I am indian lol. Notice how I said "Even during massive protests/terrorist attacks, nothing happens" in the said actual democracies? India doesn't follow that and shuts down internet on whim, during exams, protests, what have you.
India is hardly an 'actual democratic nation.' As an Indian, I would have thought I was making it clearer.
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In case that wasn't clear enough, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36285784
>>lol India does the same thing. Hell they do it for 'protests' as well. Kashmir for the longest time had 2G/GPRS/EDGE mobile data service at best. Why? Because they could protest. They did the same for that farmers strike.
>>...funny what authoritarian governments use as a pretense to stay in power. How dare someone speak out against them and organize a protest. No, no internet for you.
I don't want to touch on the merits of the exam as a whole, but rather just state that this exam is a big deal to a majority of people over there and they view the shutoff as a necessary inconvenience.
Who views the shutoff as a necessary inconvenience? The current president has promised to stop such cuts [1] as they are widely frowned upon, but it did not stop.
[1] https://radio-m.net/coupure-dinternet-durant-le-bac-les-prom...
We don't cut the internet.
Politicians, people in power really do ask “is this legal?”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-tube-...
the USA is 50 countries(with limited foreign diplomacy) masquerading as one, and BART's poor decision to do so hardly makes it commonplace.
I'm sure the shutdowns in India are "widely criticized" as well. Nobody went to prison for shutting down service and nobody even lost their job.
it was BART who did it, not the "US."
BART is operated by part of the United States government. Its board of directors are elected positions and it operates its own police force.
The underlying problem is using this exam to create the illusion of meritocracy.
Pure meritocracy doesn't exist anywhere, not even close, but nationwide exams do approach it more than other alternatives.
Single-shot standardized exams are well documented at not working. It's a top-down call for a commoditised body of knowledge expressed through a skill that can and is gamed. It's illusory because you could get approximately the same results with a random-number memorization contest or board game. It's an artificial bottleneck designed to filter, almost nothing more. (In fact, by forcing this commoditization you starve the labour force of chance at meaningful early differentiation.)
You tend to find these tests deployed and celebrated in systems with a decidedly non-meritocratic political core, in large part to distract from the fact that the rulers' kids' scores don't matter.
I say this, by the way, as someone who excels at tests.
I don't agree with the internet shutoff, but I can understand where it's coming from and hope that they figure out a better way to solve the underlying problem.