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Comment by zepolud | Hacker News Reader

Remember the thousands of people arrested for "insulting officials" on social media in Turkey?

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-turkey-arrests-1656-social...

If you want to compare the US to Turkey, that's your own decision; I'd think a good place to start would be finding the US equivalent of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_301_(Turkish_Penal_Cod...

I'm not comparing anything, merely reacting against any attempts to trivialize the very real need for a platform for anonymous dissent.

From the lives of the people involved to the stability of the democratic institutions themselves, those are very real and very high stakes. It would be extremely disingenuous and insulting to pretend that the intent of the article was to anonymously tweet "trump is a poop".

The "stability of democratic institutions" are under attack when anonymous entities fan hysteria by disseminating information in the guise of "Rogue Gov" agencies, institutions, etc. That is not dissent.

Actual, factual, courageous, whistle blowing and dirty laundry airing:

https://twitter.com/sibeledmonds/status/832644475197353985

Thankfully, Deep Throat wasn't aware of that.

Even if I were to accept the official Watergate story (which I do not considering that the star reporter was Naval Intelligence just 2 years prior to his 'big break') "Deep Throat" was not running an alternative information outlet in public.

Accepting this makes it trivial for non-governmental elements, or foreign governments, to put up e.g. @AltStateDepartment for every single governmental org. That is not going to promote "stability" of our system. In fact, this is precisely what I would do if I wanted to entirely demoralize Jane/Joe public and undermine /the public and democractic state/.

What I would do if I wanted to undermine and demoralize the country is elect a president much like Donald Trump.

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