Geography question

[Miss Chicken]

Last night, Australian time, I signed an open letter to Donald Trump rejected his hate-mongering and bigotry. Nearly 4 and a half million people have signed this letter and because I was bored I decided to keep a list of countries that people signing the letter were from (I know - pathetic).

Link to the letter

https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/president_trump_letter_loc/?pv=475&rc=fb



So far I have recorded 106 countries and 10 other places that are technically not countries (such as Puerto Rico and Frech Polynesia).

There are some countries that are notably missing. Some of these are explainable such as the five Communist countries - China (though people from Hong Kong have been signing), Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, North Korea). Also some countries where internet use would be very low - Bhutan, Afghanistan, and some of the poorest African countries though people from many African countries have signed.

Only a few people from some Latin American have signed but I have put that down to their time zone when I started. They started to appear just before I went to sleep last night and when I look recently they were also appearing.

Very few people from Russia, the former Soviet Republics and the Balkans. Maybe due to Trump being popular in those countries.

Muslim countries are well represented except for Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. I guess Saudi Arabia and Iran is due to censorship.

MY QUESTION IS

Can anyone think of a reason why no people from the following countries have seemed to sign so far?

Sri Lanka
Indonesia
Taiwan
Nepal (they have a higher internet usage than many of the countries that people have signed from).

 

[Spot's Meow]

My layman's guess would be that it just hasn't "gone viral" in those countries yet. It always surprises me how regional some of these things can be, even though you would think that the internet would break down location barriers. But there are still viral videos/memes/articles/whatever that seem to be ubiquitous to me, but I travel down to Southern California and suddenly no one knows what I'm talking about. I live in the United States and am very much against Trump, and have a lot of friends sharing links to things like this, but I hadn't heard of this letter.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Maybe you are correct. It will be interesting to see if those countries pick up.

I am finding this whole project educational. I have learned about the time zone of Latin America and also about internet usage around the world.

I was wrong about Bhutan having low internet usage. The have almost 40 internet users per 100 people while Nepal has 17. I am considering low internet usage to be less than 10 per 100.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

Nepal is still suffering from the 2 huge earthquakes they had 2015 and the also very bad one from last year. The infrastructure is still not rebuilt in many places, due to the difficult terrain and the season.

In Indonesia they currently have an unusually high volcanic activity and earthquakes. A very bad one was only 10 weeks ago in the province Aceh where the terrible Christmas tsunami originated a few years ago.

I'm not sure why the Sri Lankans are so silent. Some regions still suffer from the civil war that ended less than 8 years ago. Many regions - particularly in the north - are still landmine-infested. However, in most parts of the country the internet is up and running. Perhaps they are just too busy with their own problems to mind a moron on the other side of the planet.

 

[Miss Chicken]

My list is up to 120 countries now. I have seen Nepal a couple of times, and Taiwan half a dozen times but still have had no sighting of Sri Lanka or Indonesia.

Some Cubans have signed.

I was a little surprised about how often I saw Icelanders given how their small population is. However that might because their Taekwondo champion has been barred from the USA because he was born in Iran.

I have also seen several Andorrans and Liechtensteinians and there populations are very small.

Only seen two Russians so far. One Ukrainian, one person from Azerbaijan and one from Georgia. The Balkans countries are still low in number.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Just notice one that said 'North Korea' which, given their almost complete lack of the internet for the vast majority of their population, I seriously doubt it is real.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Yeah, it's too bad there's no real way to verify the accuracy of these names. That always seems to be the issue with online petitions/open letters. You want people to be able to add their names easily, quickly, and with some degree of privacy, but you also don't want the same person signing 100 times or people just making up fake info. I'm not sure how this website is handling that sort of thing.

 

[Miss Chicken]

You have to give a valid email address, that is about it. It would not let me use the same email address twice.

 

[jaz'a]

You have to give a valid email address, that is about it. It would not let me use the same email address twice.

What it is doing to prove that you are using a real email address?

I just signed with a fake one. I'm sure I could sign it another 20 times if I wanted to. I suppose it is possible that if they get an email bounce back as undeliverable they take the name off but how likely is that really?

It is useless. Donald Trump should be worried about what is best for his country and about what the US population wants. He should, and no doubt will, ignore silly open letters like this.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Sorry, but Donald Trump couldn't give a flying f*ck that people in other countries don't like what he does. It's more likely to confirm him in his view that he's correct to put America first.

 

[Miss Chicken]

You are right. It does accept invalid email addresses. The invalid email address I tried yesterday must have been rejected because it was actually somebody's valid email address both times I used @gmail but the first time I used a combination of my name and a number. Second time I used zozettedoggy which I highly doubt would be anyone actual email address.

I do not usually sign such petition because I regard it as slackavism. A close friend begged me please, please, please sign this and I did because he really want me to and I don't think it was worth upsetting him over.

My sole interest in this has been to determine the nationality of the people signing,

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Sure. I hold no objections to anyone signing such petitions -- I just feel it will be completely ineffective in this case. Apart from the reasons given, I suspect that perhaps it shows disinterest in political matters taking place far away relative to more immediate, local concerns (Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Nepal). The Taiwanese may feel that Trump will represent their interests better than Obama given Trump's expressed antipathy towards China and seeming dislike of the UN.

 

[Miss Chicken]

It is also interesting to see in which countries have high rates of signage, it would seem that Uruguayans are signing more often than Chileans and Argentinians put together despite Uruguay have a much smaller population than either country.

Uruguay did formerly have a President who was atheist, they were the first Latin American country to legalise same sex marriage, and they have legalised marijuana so it looks like they prefer progressive governments.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I don't think central and south Americans generally have a very high opinion of Trump, whom they appear to view as resurrecting a bullying US policy towards them.

 

[Australis]

I have a tinfoil hat theory that may explain Indonesia.

Indonesia doesn't much like Australia.
Donald Trump is big friends with the man who may be the next President (also has businesses there), Hary Tanoe
Trump just gave Australia a firm thump on the nose.
Indonesia sides with Trump.

I don't know how the story is playing there, and having trouble finding out, but it could be interesting.