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1. Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 15-Jan-2023 23:36:49 JST Aral Balkan

   A friend asked if I’d join their session at the World Summit on the Information Society Forum (“building back better and accelerating the achievement of the SDGs”).

   I already had grave reservations about the UN after hearing a talk on the SDGs where they said “we should stand aside and let the tech companies solve big problems” but I thought, “let’s give it the benefit of the doubt.”

   Guess who their main sponsor is? Yep, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

   Nope!

   #WSIS #UN #whitewashing #SaudiArabia

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 16-Jan-2023 00:15:22 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • the trouble with mia :baner:

     @fkamiah17 Well that Awad Al-Qarni dude doesn’t sound like a basket of peaches either (https://www.preachersofhate.com/awad-al-qarni/) but, yes, it’s alarming the influence they’re buying at various institutions.

   • the trouble with mia :baner: (fkamiah17@toot.wales)'s status on Monday, 16-Jan-2023 00:15:24 JST the trouble with mia :baner:

     in reply to

     @aral On a separate but related subject, here's a clip from the article posted below:
     "The Saudi government and state-controlled investors have recently increased their financial stake in US social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook"
     The whole article is worth reading, particularly the Netflix-sponsored event in Riyadh 🤨
     https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/15/saudi-arabian-academic-on-death-row-for-using-twitter-and-whatsapp
     #Democracy #SaudiArabia #Technology #Whitewashing

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 16-Jan-2023 06:40:55 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     Like, seriously, fuck the UN.

     https://m.thewire.in/article/environment/uae-oil-company-adnoc-ceo-cop28-president

     #UN #whiteWashing #BigOil #cop28 #climateChange #institutionalCorruption

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 16-Jan-2023 07:27:27 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Karin Sorenby

     @kcsorenby Me neither, Karin, me neither.

   • Karin Sorenby (kcsorenby@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Jan-2023 07:27:28 JST Karin Sorenby

     in reply to

     @aral oh jeeee…😣😣😣😣sometimes I just don’t know what to even say.. triple sigh….

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 16-Jan-2023 07:29:41 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Adnan 🦙

     @adnan I was invited to the Internet Governance Forum once. They held it in Turkey. Roomful of UN folks applauded a Turkish minister who waxed lyrical about how there should be limits to free speech online. A Turkish citizen who was tweeting critically about it during the plenary came up to me at the cocktail party afterwards to ask if I was ok. I said yes. He told me he had had two court cases opened against him. (I’d given up my Turkish citizenship before attending as I knew the risks.)

     #UN

   • Adnan 🦙 (adnan@1210.nl)'s status on Monday, 16-Jan-2023 07:29:43 JST Adnan 🦙

     in reply to

     @aral Maybe COP shouldn’t have gone to a county built on oil. Seriously problematic! What next - peace conference under Putin?

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 16-Jan-2023 16:39:11 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Steve Lord

     @stevelord Don’t give ‘em any ideas :)

   • Steve Lord (stevelord@bladerunner.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Jan-2023 16:39:12 JST Steve Lord

     in reply to

     @aral it's such a shame after all the progress made in the previous 27 UN Climate Change Conference Of the Parties events. /s

     But yeah, the UN represents global power, which is dependent on sustaining oil consumption. I'm disappointed but not surprised. What next, putting Tayyip on an anti-corruption task force?

   • Kim Possible (kimlockhartga@universeodon.com)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Jan-2023 03:01:07 JST Kim Possible

     in reply to

     @aral oh crap! Glad you did your due diligence. Yikes.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Jan-2023 03:01:07 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Kim Possible

     @kimlockhartga Always ;)