Libya - civil unrest & now NATO involvement
- Thread starter ernestolynch
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elbows
Well-Known Member
Not a huge amount of news yet this morning, Tripoli described as calmer than last night, BP suspend operations in the country, Benghazi citizens trying to organise their own security, some casualty numbers starting to come in from a few Tripoli hospitals but too early to confirm any of them yet.
elbows
Well-Known Member
And lol that this does not help Blairs hopes that history will judge him kindly.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-accuses-Britain-of-legitimising-Gaddafi.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-accuses-Britain-of-legitimising-Gaddafi.html
elbows
Well-Known Member
There is a report that the Libyan Revolutionary Council asks Gaddafi to step down & hand over power to army to stop bloodshed. This would be significant if true, because the Libyan Revolutionary Council are quite a large part of the system in Libya (the revolution refers to the one that brought Gadaffi to power, not the one thats toppling him)
dylans
overlord of all acorns
BBC reporting that crowds in Tripoli celebrating the (rumoured) news that Gaddafi had fled were machine gunned last night
elbows
Well-Known Member
Unfortunatly that may well be true, sounds of lots of gunfire were reported by multiple sources last night, as were several reports that crowds were being shot at (some said it was during Saifs speech)
Unconfirmed report in arabic says that Asharq Al Awsat: Mustafa AbdulJalil, Libyan Justice Minister resigns.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
elbows
Well-Known Member
Totally unconfirmed rumours flying around right now range from signs that phonecalls are being tapped, undercover police on the streets of Tripoli, a military base somewhere being attacked by the airforce, military sent to oil-producing region.
There continue to be stories which point to pro-regime people taking over the square at some point later last night.
I have to go to work now so wont be posting so often, I guess we will see if current BBC 'wisdom' that people will keep off the streets of Tripoli during daylight today prove correct.
There continue to be stories which point to pro-regime people taking over the square at some point later last night.
I have to go to work now so wont be posting so often, I guess we will see if current BBC 'wisdom' that people will keep off the streets of Tripoli during daylight today prove correct.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Im not convinced, dictators & family have a habit of running away in advance these days.
classicdish
Well-Known Member
I have to disagree with you over this.
I have been following various sources including ShababLibya and the bulk of what they post has actually turned out to be accurate, judging by other media sources and footage that has come out in the following days and other phone interviews conducted by AJE and BBC for example.
Your demand for "fact checking" misses an important point - they are aiming at forming a bridge between Libyan people texting and calling from mobiles or landlines within and out of Libya and turning these into short English-language tweets. There is a difference between creating an 'open-access' channel of raw communication and what the mainstream media do involving having an editorial line, interrogating sources and waiting until several different and independent reports come in before publishing something. They are also operating on a different time-scale (almost immediate versus waiting hours or even days before publishing).
You are also missing the *process* - that someone calling or texting democracy activists with information that they hope to be passed on may well be giving out their identity, location, activities etc. - they may well be have complex discussions about what/where/when is happening in a town, but this gets condensed down into a 140-character tweet with spcifics removed for the sources own safety. Some information may come from already known sources while other may be a random text from an anonymous mobile number.
Tp help me make more sense out of events I have been compiling a detailed time-line /spreadsheet based on all sorts of media reports since Tuesday 15th and I can say that most to the stuff reported by @ShababLibya gits in very well with other evidence.
You put a lot of store by having video footage and photogaphs and not much by witness accounts - you don't trust the channels or the sources. In reality footage gives a very partial account and witnesses and activists are a better source as they provide context and more nuanced information.
Can I ask you stop complaining so much about lack of information and spend a bit more time analysing fewer things in detail rather than getting overwhealmed by every last bit of info. If you think you have a feeling for what is happeniong (and what isn't) then please share it. Complaining about other people making their best and bravest efforts, confusing 'open channels' with what the normal media do (usually a day or so later), contributing little in the way of constructive suggestions or background analysis/research yourself and sneering at people who have been exiled/refugees in the UK and elsewhere, rather than in touch with them and helping them - this isn't very helpful or nice.
Personally I have been in contact with some of the people posting information to clarify some things. I have also been involved in London activity re. Egypt and online re. Libya. I don't doubt you care about what is going on, but I really don't like your sneering and negative attitude about the efforts peiople are making and your seeming lack of constuctive contribution to the process of helping this along. A lot of your comments seem to come from your confusion and lack of knowledge of Libya, the activist networks etc.
I am happy for you to come right back at me about this but ultimately I am actually going to spend the next few hours reading stuff and communicating with people who are actually involved in something constructive. If you can make some actual concrete suggestions about how to 'do this better', or if you lead by example in providing some useful analysis then great, but being relentlessly negative but with little to offer yourself is not so great, sorry if this is a nasty thing to say but I am getting a bit fed up with your negativity and blaming your own confusion on someone else "not being good enough".
DrRingDing
'anti-human wanker'
On R4 this morning a guy was explaining that they are waiting for nightfall to come out as it's too dangerous in the day.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Its pretty simply really, I obviously find ShababLibya to be a useful source because I've repeatedly used them to post info here. However I feel it would be remiss of me to do so without pointing out that they get a bit overexcited sometimes. I've no problems with what they have been saying in general, its the fact they use the word CONFIRMED when they should not, and this has ramifications. Someone in Tripoli has been trying to calm them and undo some of the problems their misinfo could cause.
I got off their case for a while but really, considering the Wafalla tribe is estimated to comprise of up to 1 million people, they should not have been saying that this tribe are on Gaddafis side without checking very carefully.
In any case its not like I have been wasting their time by criticising them on twitter, whatever I say about them has no bearing on their ability to be of use to Libya during this revolution. Anddont worry, Im under no illusions that I have done anything useful for the Libyan revolution at all.
Sorry if you think my negativity is excessive, but I find it equally dangerous to be posting stuff from such sources without pointing out their track record.
I got off their case for a while but really, considering the Wafalla tribe is estimated to comprise of up to 1 million people, they should not have been saying that this tribe are on Gaddafis side without checking very carefully.
In any case its not like I have been wasting their time by criticising them on twitter, whatever I say about them has no bearing on their ability to be of use to Libya during this revolution. Anddont worry, Im under no illusions that I have done anything useful for the Libyan revolution at all.
Sorry if you think my negativity is excessive, but I find it equally dangerous to be posting stuff from such sources without pointing out their track record.
Tankus
Amused OAP
BBC have just stated that there are rumours that gaddafi has used his airforce to bomb non loyal military bases to prevent heavy weaponry falling into the hands of his enemy's
And that he has left Tripoli for a base south in the desert ... I wonder if its the same place where he met blair
got to be the end game
And that he has left Tripoli for a base south in the desert ... I wonder if its the same place where he met blair
got to be the end game
elbows
Well-Known Member
These sorts of rumours may tie into a rumour that he is going to try to hold out in an oil-producing region of Libya and hold the oil infrastructure 'hostage'!
Upon further reflection regarding my negativity towards ShababLibya, I think I probably have come across as too negative because I have only posted here about my negativity towards a few of their tweets, and as I havent posted when I am positive about other tweets by them, I am guilty of a bad imbalance. Sorry about that.
I was guilty of the opposite. ShababLibya had been spot on about everything that i had read from them on twitter, i recommend them on here and within minutes they were breaking CONFIRMED (false) news of the Wafella tribe siding with gadaffi 
Naturally this was retweeted around Libya and the world and could have caused a lot of problems, even if it was quickly retracted.
It certainly seems likely that he Mad Dog, it not in Tripoli, BBC seem confident enough to keep saying so (albeit unconfirmed).
Naturally this was retweeted around Libya and the world and could have caused a lot of problems, even if it was quickly retracted. It certainly seems likely that he Mad Dog, it not in Tripoli, BBC seem confident enough to keep saying so (albeit unconfirmed).
Totally unconfirmed, Warning, NSFW, contains footage of burned corpses.
@ChangeInLibya
WORLD MEDIA: THIS IS GADDAFI BURNING HIS SOLDIERS INSIDE THEIR BARRACKS FOR REFUSING TO KILL PPL: http://on.fb.me/gYqMzK #libya #feb17
@ChangeInLibya
WORLD MEDIA: THIS IS GADDAFI BURNING HIS SOLDIERS INSIDE THEIR BARRACKS FOR REFUSING TO KILL PPL: http://on.fb.me/gYqMzK #libya #feb17
classicdish
Well-Known Member
We are getting *far* more than rumours, but we have to either wait (maybe overnight or 24 hours) for the news organisations to process stuff for us, or we have to try and analyse the raw material, filter out old info, discard or 'make pending' the most improbable, look around for confirmation from other sources - in other words all the kind of stuff that journalists normally do for us.
Over the last week it has been clearly shown that the info and 'consensus' on twitter has been about 24 hours ahead of the mainstream media and a lot of it has in fact been shown to be very accurate, even if people were sceptical at first.
Whether you want to call the original tweets "rumours" is up to you but a lot of the time they are perfectly valid reports by first hand witnesses who have communicated with pro-democracy activists who have then tweeted or blogged it. Of course some are just speculation or second hand rumours - unfortunately people then re-tweet or paraphrase but without clarifying exact day/location or actually knowing the original source - trying to be helpful in getting information out, but also creating multiple noisy echoes.
The best way round this is to try following out lots of twitter accounts and #hashtags, but then discard the rubbish ones and follow the ones that prove reliable (although none will be 100% reliable unless they are only restricting themselves talking about stuff from the middle of last week).
There are loads of people blogging/tweeting so no point getting hung up over one account or another. I wouldn't be surprised if Gadafi supporters notice if any single tweeter/blogger becomes very important, and then starts to feed them a load of rubbish, either to sow confusion and mislead protesters or to discredit the tweeter. They have definitely been actively hacking the websites and accounts of Libyan activists (and spending cash to pay for counter-demos in London). The beauty of internet-based citizen journalism however is that even if one gets burnt-out or messed up, it isn't all centralised via one channel - you've just got to keep looking around, rather than simply tuning in to the same single source.
Over the last week it has been clearly shown that the info and 'consensus' on twitter has been about 24 hours ahead of the mainstream media and a lot of it has in fact been shown to be very accurate, even if people were sceptical at first.
Whether you want to call the original tweets "rumours" is up to you but a lot of the time they are perfectly valid reports by first hand witnesses who have communicated with pro-democracy activists who have then tweeted or blogged it. Of course some are just speculation or second hand rumours - unfortunately people then re-tweet or paraphrase but without clarifying exact day/location or actually knowing the original source - trying to be helpful in getting information out, but also creating multiple noisy echoes.
The best way round this is to try following out lots of twitter accounts and #hashtags, but then discard the rubbish ones and follow the ones that prove reliable (although none will be 100% reliable unless they are only restricting themselves talking about stuff from the middle of last week).
There are loads of people blogging/tweeting so no point getting hung up over one account or another. I wouldn't be surprised if Gadafi supporters notice if any single tweeter/blogger becomes very important, and then starts to feed them a load of rubbish, either to sow confusion and mislead protesters or to discredit the tweeter. They have definitely been actively hacking the websites and accounts of Libyan activists (and spending cash to pay for counter-demos in London). The beauty of internet-based citizen journalism however is that even if one gets burnt-out or messed up, it isn't all centralised via one channel - you've just got to keep looking around, rather than simply tuning in to the same single source.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Oh thats sick, wish we knew more about the exact circumstances of these horrendous deaths.
Meanwhile:
elbows
Well-Known Member
You make a lot of great points here, and I dont want to start arguing with you again about some tweeters again. But I feel I must try to explain why the scepticism here was especially high. Yes in a large number of cases the early twitter reports later turned out to be true, but in relation to a couple of important events its not that the twitter users were simply ahead of the media, they were actually running well ahead of actual events on the ground. Specifically, and to the best of my memory, there were reports about how free important cities in the east such as Benghazi were by Friday evening, which turned out not to be true and rather dashed some of our hopes. Benghazi was declared free, and crucial barrack declared as fallen, at least 1 day before they actually were, if not two days.
Believe me that I am eternally greatful for all the people that have been dedicating their time to talking to contacts within Libya and trying as best they could to get this news to the outside world. Putting my sometimes excessive rants to one side, they have done great work, the good far outweighing the bad in almost every instance. And I was wrong not to make this point on the occasions where I was, perhaps somewhat misguidedly, trying to draw attention to the downsides of giving the tweets too much credence too soon.
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