This story really got my blood boiling. CW: involves a forced expulsion of people
Anyone who is buying vanity domains, nevermind tech companies, is giving the British government far more money every year through taxes, even in the US. And divestment from the .io TLD is not, as far as I can see anywhere in the advocacy links they provided, cited as part of their activism, so doing it doesn’t send a message to anyone.
If the Chagos people are not making the argument for divestment, why is the author?
In another blog post the same author equates Apple taking out ads on Twitter, to Apple doing anti-LGBT+ advocacy, and I think there’s an important parallel to this post:
It’s one thing to hold views like
- “Twitter is anti-LGBT+ and I won’t use them”
- “Britain is settler-colonialist, and I won’t support them”
But taking those viewpoints, which are very much NOT the common view by most people, and then using them to accuse said people of being pro-settler-colonial or anti-LGBT+, is not a workable or even helpful position.
If all the tech companies divest of their .io domain names right now, what will that gain the Chagos people? If we’re being honest, absolutely nothing. Hell, if the companies don’t all issue press releases as they do it, I doubt even the Chagos refugees themselves would think it had anything to do with them.
Maybe I’m just getting tired of activism that seems content to revel in its own… mindfulness, we’ll call it- without actually trying to change anything, but it feels like the author would have been hard-pressed to choose a position to advocate that has LESS chance of helping the Chagos people without just being totally unrelated.
The Chagos Refugees are seeking repatriation of the .io domain name and fees. They likely don’t want people to stop using that domain unless they lose that case.
So in other words, tech companies divesting of it would potentially HURT the Chagos people, since they will receive that money if they gain control of the TLD. Amazing.
The UN can’t even get them back their land, what makes you think international law is going to go out of the way to give them money for a domain?
Wouldn’t that need to be done if they’re given the islands back, though?
Completely agreed. If anything this kind of accusation pushes people to the right as they got defensive.
Every significant organisation, government, big company probably had done something terrible at some point. The world is not black and white. Internet activism is “not helpful”.
If people want to help the refugees, donate to organisations helping them. Or even better, volunteer to help them. Stop doing “purity tests” in the online world.
The only thing I want to push back on is that internet activism isn’t helpful. It’s incredibly important for education, because most people don’t see or hear anything but CNN or Fox in their daily lives, so Facebook and Twitter have become an excellent opportunity and tool to get important causes in from of peoples’ eyes who would otherwise never encounter them.
In the context of the blog post, I found the background information about the Chagos refugees incredibly educational, it was just a terrible call-to-action. Like you said, the CTA should have been to donate or to volunteer, or to spread the blog post in order to educate others. It became counterproductive when it became about a highly-specific, questionably-impactful action that no one reading the article can likely affect.
Facebook and Twitter have become an excellent opportunity and tool to get important causes in from of peoples’ eyes
CNN/Fox are biased, for sure - but that’s nothing compared to straight up lies pushed by large sections of the internet. And those lies tend to perform better than facts on algorithmic timelines that optimise for engagement. For example articles showing “proof” that covid-19 killed various celebrities who are, in fact, very much alive and healthy, with the clear intent to create fear among large sections of society. A tactic that seems to be far too effective.
I think the world needs to go back to human moderation. Like we have on (well run) fediverse communities.
I never said Facebook and Twitter are good, I said they’re an important tool for getting non-mainstream/neoliberal viewpoints in front of people. They exist whether we like it or not.
Do the algorithms favor conservative viewpoints? Yep. But that’s no reason to just wholesale cede those platforms to the Right.
Every significant organisation, government, big company probably had done something terrible at some point.
Yup, which is why it’s basically impossible to be an ethical consumer these days. “The Good Place” did a really entertaining exploration of this idea.
If anything tbf .io puts the Indian Ocean Territory on the map.
I have seen enough White Savior advocacy for a lifetime, that focuses on the wrong things.
If I had a dollar for the amount of shit opinions from shit blog sites on these technology forums, I would be a rich man.
TL;DR
.io represents the British Indian Ocean Territory 🇮🇴, which is basically a joint UK/US military base as a state. It was formed after natives were forcefully evicted off of those islands to construct it.
More details here http://thechagosrefugeesgroup.com/our-history/
While this is an interesting read, this doesn’t appear to be the case:
Every .io domain you buy funds a government committing crimes against humanity.
The .io TLD wikipedia article claims that it has always been operated by private entities and no revenue is shared with the United Kingdom
A little more nuanced than that, at the bottom of the article it says:
According to a 2014 Gigaom interview with Paul Kane, then chairman of the Internet Computer Bureau, the domain name registry is required to give some of its profits to the British government, for administration of the British Indian Ocean Territory.[23] After being questioned as a result of the interview, the British Government denied receiving any funds from the sale of .io domain names, and argued that consequently, the profits could not be shared with the Chagossians, the former inhabitants forcibly removed by the British government.[24] Kane, however, contradicted the government’s denial.[25][26]
A bit too exaggerated I might say… There are many things in this world that fund institutions that may be less ethical in their practices. But to write 10 pages about such a small thing I’d say is too much. We have more important things to worry about rn. I’ll keep this in mind when buying a domain? But is that the solution…
I find it funny how King Charles III is King of so many vanity domains. .gg? Guernsey. .io? Indian Ocean Territory, a UK overseas territory. .TV? Tuvalu, a commonwealth realm.
Good grief.
Like reading 10 pages that Milkshake duck is racist.
Agreed that it could use an executive summary, but I appreciated driving in to the history.
agar.io in shambles
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What is also sad here is that this is not news. I remember reading a story about this at least 3 years ago. All those cool tech websites are just handng money over, sometimes knowingly.
Is CW the same as TW (trigger warning)? If so, what does the C stand for?
I believe it’s content warning
Ah, thank you.
I have a similar story, not well known as well… but yeah, this is close to home.
