Comment by akudha
12 hours ago
Does naming WiFi hotspot to reflect one’s political views achieve anything? I am not against free speech or expression of freedom, just wondering if such “protests” (assuming that is what this is) have any affect at all?
Flying is already a stressful experience - between security checks, waiting for flights, unruly passengers, super cramped seats etc. Why add more stress? Either protest seriously at an appropriate time/place or just use the airport for what it is, to go to your destination. Why get cute with ineffective methods of protest like changing WiFi name? In the end, all it achieved was hours of delay and even more stress to passengers, right?
Well we're talking about this now, so this was actually effective. The point of talking about something is to make people aware of the issue.
For example I don't leave my house often, so a walking protest in the middle of a city has zero chance to reach me. HN post does.
I’d certainly want everyone who’d feel uncomfortable because of a “Free Palestine” WiFi access point to feel maximally uncomfortable.
I really don’t think this is an uncommon opinion.
It's a device name. Why is anyone feeling uncomfortable? It's crazy to be upset by such an easy to ignore thing
Exactly, I’d imagine anyone genuinely bothered by such a network name must be a particularly unpleasant person anyway.
Not very likely, imo, that they did it specifically for the flight. More likely they named it weeks or months ago and just now boarded an airplane.
> Does naming WiFi hotspot to reflect one’s political views achieve anything?
Does action-less speech achieve anything? Advertising, PSAs, political campaigning, etc. all indicate its value in attaining mindshare. Moreover, freedom of expression is liberating for people.
If they aren't actively harming people nor threatening to do so with their words then that's their right. Can by tacky or in bad taste, why's that matter? It's not harming anyone and is a bad WiFi name even meaningfully annoying?
It's the woke shit behind it that is annoying.
Would you say the same if it praised Israels bravery? Honoured Charlie Kirk? Said anything you don't agree with?
Yes, I would. Because it’s just words. Beyond that, it’s words you don’t even have to look at. You would be choosing to repeatedly read the list of WiFi networks.
Irrelevant objection.
Currently signalling support for Palestine is common online. In videogames in my country (Spain) every third player has some such signal (flag or phrase). It's not a serious protest, it's a sign of belonging to group x (whatever group x is), something teens in particular are big in signalling. It's not a big deal and reacting operationally as if it were is a huge security error.
It seems to be just bored, edgy teenagers. Probably "acting out" in one of the few ways they can. (They can't vote but they already have solved every political problem in their head. Ahh youth.)
Still doesn't make it OK, though.
> I am not against free speech or expression of freedom, just wondering if such “protests” (assuming that is what this is) have any affect at all?
They do not, it is all woke signaling to others.
They can put a pic up on Reddit, Insta and get updoots for it from all the genz maniacs.
If you wear a PLO shal you are basically a terrorist in my eyes.