Alexander Lukashenko is no fan of the internet. True, the President of Belarus, widely seen as the last remaining dictator in Europe, dislikes many things — democratic opposition, for one. But he reserves a special place for the Web. In the past he’s railed against the “anarchy” of the Internet. More recently The Economist reported that his attitude towards the rebels of the online world leans on familiar stereotypes — he described Internet users as nothing more than deluded teenage rebels: “16 or 17 years old, a cigarette dangling from his lips and a girl under his left arm”.
This weekend, however, Lukashenko took things a step further by cracking down on protesters who organized themselves online, and pushing his statewide ban on Facebook, Twitter and the popular Russian social networking site Vkontakte. Why? Because he is worried that young people are using it to try and give momentum to their political protests. Claiming that opposition to his regime is being run by foreign countries, he told AFP that the opposition in Minsk “is using social networks to call for strikes. I will watch and observe — and then whack them in such a way that they won’t even have time to run across the border.”
To read the full, original article click on this link: Why the Internet is America’s greatest weapon — Tech News and Analysis
Author:Bobbie Johnson
