4 years ago by amrrs
Indian Government recently made Twitter do similar things. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/26/twitter-under-...
Do you know what's worst? A guy was booked yesterday for Tweeting he needed oxygen cylinders which according to a state government is spreading fake news. https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-khanum-s...
While COVID hasn't been kind to the people of India, The current regime's attempts to curb democracy is quite disturbing.
4 years ago by yangikan
I don't know why twitter does this.
From https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/business/india-covid19-tw...
One of the tweets removed from view was posted by Moloy Ghatak, a labor minister in the opposition-ruled West Bengal state, where Mr. Modiâs party hopes to make big gains in an ongoing election. Mr. Ghatak accused Mr. Modi of âmismanagementâ and held him directly responsible for the deaths. His tweet included images of Mr. Modi and his election rallies beside those of the cremations and compared him to Nero, the Roman emperor, for choosing to hold political gatherings and exporting vaccines during a âhealth crisis.â Another tweet from Revanth Reddy, a sitting member of the parliament, used a hashtag that blamed Mr. Modi for the âdisaster.â âIndia recording over 2 lakh cases everyday,â it said, using an Indian numbering unit that means 200,000 cases. âShortage of vaccines, shortage of medicines, increasing number of deaths.
4 years ago by MattGaiser
> I don't know why twitter does this.
A reality of scaring social media companies with regulatory threats.
People call for regulation and unsurprisingly their priority becomes keeping those who might regulate them happy with them.
4 years ago by dalbasal
>>unsurprisingly their priority becomes keeping those who might regulate them happy.
Unsurprising, and not necessarily unwanted. IDK if you mean people or politicians by "they," but (in a democracy) they're the ones who make rules. Whether it's mandating access, limiting access, moderating, censoring, allowing freedom of speech or just mandating that stated policies are followed consistently... I think social media is unquestionably a "public concern" currently.
That doesn't mean that I support Twitter censoring on behalf of Modi. But, it does demonstrate on how broken the new media is. Zuck and Dorsey have no sense of responsibility, and no idea how to take responsibility even if they did have the sense.
It goes without saying that Zuck and Dorsey have no journalistic ethic. They're not journalism, they just ate journalism. No counterpart to a journalistic ethic, or even a lip-service to one. So... they control the important chunk of media worldwide, and they truly don't know what an ethical approach would even be.
Makes Murdoch look like a saint.
A big part of the problem here, ironically, is that Twitter and FB can get away with absolute arbitrariness. It makes it easy for thuggish political types to get their way.
4 years ago by nohat
I suspect that's the point.
4 years ago by baybal2
O People, tell me, what material is Modi G's approval rating made of? That would be a material science breakthrough.
It seems as if his approval rating is just glued to the 60%-70% mark no matter what, even today.
If it keeps above 60% even with the current royal mess happening, I don't know what else Modi can do to loose the election.
Are people sick, and tired of INC so much that they still prefer Modi over an alternative of INC coming back to power?
4 years ago by strategyanalyst
There is a lot of criticism of the government on social media right now. I'm not saying this government isn't trying to control criticism on social media, but these are small drops in an ocean of tweets and fb posts on this.
ResignModi has been trending on Twitter for days now. My FB feed is full of people angry at the government.
There is no 'censorship' of 99% of such posts. You can't really censor stuff in India, its way too big to control narrative that way.
4 years ago by OmegaPG
TheWire is biased and not reliable source.
I don't want to make this post political by mentioning names but this post has good information on the founders and their political background https://www.quora.com/Is-Thewire-in-biased
4 years ago by undefined
4 years ago by 1024core
Did you read that article? The guy's grandpa did not need oxygen, but died of a heart attack instead.
During this time of crisis, it's common for governments to crack down on speech. You've heard of the "shouting 'FIRE' in a crowded movie hall" analogy, right?
4 years ago by isatty
I seriously hope that I wonât have to resort to name calling here on HN but are you for real? Oxygen and advanced life support is not unique to COVID and his tweets donât say so either.
How the hell is this equivalent to shouting âFIREâ in a crowded place?
4 years ago by sanmon3186
To be fair, anyone looking for oxygen in the current situation would assume it is for Covid. Not saying 88 old grandpa of his cousin did not deserve attention, but the guy got called from cabinet ministry, thrice.
4 years ago by ravenstine
That principle was never intended as a reason for censorship. People shouting fire in a crowded theater should receive a trial. Facebook and Twitter aren't known for having a formal appeals process, and you're lucky if they even give you any attention.
4 years ago by dagmx
Did you read that the statement of it being a heart attack came from the police (that are being used to intimidate people) and not medical professionals.
4 years ago by omegaworks
Oxygen is typically necessary for people with heart conditions. Any pressure on the supply will have impact all across the board.
4 years ago by asenna
The media control and censorship here in India is definitely getting our of hand!
Setting aside the absolute criminal mismanagement and planning of the Covid situation in the past few months, the fact that the people in power are still applying their brains and might into figuring out how to manipulate the narrative and how to squash dissent in this moment when the country is going through an unimaginable disaster.
Just today, a guy was slapped with some serious charges (which could lead to Jail time) because he tweeted that he needed Oxygen for his Grandfather. [1][2]
I know this is sounding alarmist but I've seen the change in the past 8 years and the country is heading in the direction of China at breakneck speed right now (not in the good way).
[1] https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-khanum-s...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/mzx3zb/youth_sought_...
4 years ago by elliekelly
I donât understand what Modi is doing. It seems like many huge companies based in the west will be looking to leave China (as much as possible) in the next 5ish years and India is a democracy perfectly situated to grab all of that economic productivity. They have the education, the infrastructure, and the population. All they have to do is be a bit less dictator-y than China and a bit more respectful of human rights.
That should be a pretty low bar. But for some reason when Modi should be positioning India as âweâre not like Chinaâ he instead seems intent on repeatedly pointing out the similarities on the international stage. It just seems really short-sighted to me.
4 years ago by asenna
Absolutely agree with this. In fact even if the minimum they do is walk back to how the country was before Modi, that would be a huge step forward. Not talking about politics here but just to a time when comedians and journalists didn't have to fear harassment for doing their jobs.
Also a fun fact - Modi has not done a single open, unscripted press conference in his entire 7 years of being in power! Can you actually believe that. He hasn't taken a single question on camera that was not pre-determined. Most likely because of the lesson he learned after the one interview he did with a reputed Journalist a while back before coming to power - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAGAYL8dtic
The effort that he puts into forming his public-image is actually impressive at some level.
4 years ago by ramphastidae
No press conferences, massive rallies during a pandemic, and demonizing foreign powers for not solving problems they are responsive for solving? Sounds familiar ...
4 years ago by Bang2Bay
probably the likes of arfa khanum are not of interest to modi.
4 years ago by akiselev
Many Indian politicians learned the exact opposite lesson from the 90s to 2000s when China's economy far outgrew India's despite the supposed geographical, labor, and education similarities between the two (i.e. see the debate from a western perspective in [1][2][3]).
The idea that democracy and free markets help with economic growth simply didn't pan out for India w.r.t. its neighbor and biggest rival. As far as Modi is concerned, why keep trying something that doesn't work? Especially when the alternative is self serving.
[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2003/07/01/can-india-overtake-chin...
[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/06/india-plays-catch-up/
[3] https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/07/05/think-again-indias-rise...
4 years ago by baybal2
One needs to be heavily inebriated to call India a market economy even today, after 3 decades of supposed economic "liberalisation."
I myself is in the process of scouting an opening for a satellite office in India now.
The progress India made towards freer markets since a decade ago is this ->_<- much.
Best to compare it with Bloc of late eighties, early nineties.
4 years ago by sumedh
Didnt China open up to the world before India, so they had a headstart.
4 years ago by plinkplonk
>I donât understand what Modi is doing.
I assure you, neither does he.
Not a particularly intellectual or introspective man. He is a living example of the Peter Principle.
Too bad a billion people have to suffer for his incompetence.
4 years ago by Bang2Bay
It is better to be a consumer than a west leaning producer. One would never advance when the primary market is outside the country.
4 years ago by yinyang_in
First the wire is known to be very alt-left but even then the patient didn't had any requirement for oxygen, his grandfather died of heart-attack. Not sure which part of article or twitter thread says a normal guy got screwed up ?
4 years ago by asenna
Here's the tweet:
https://twitter.com/khanumarfa/status/1386757457393770496?s=...
It's in the article as well. The text message was tweeted out.
I understand the wire can be considered left-leaning but does that automatically make everything they report on as false?
You can ignore their "alt-left" opinion but screenshots of texts and tweets are actual facts that happened.
4 years ago by Bang2Bay
the correct tweet is the one where the local elected leader was targeted[1]. the leader made police run around to help the person. cops found foul play.[2] What am I missing?
[1]https://twitter.com/elsamariedsilva/status/13867600304818954... [2] https://twitter.com/amethipolice/status/1386982878328758273?...
4 years ago by iliekcomputers
He has charges against him for trying to find oxygen for his sick grandfather. What part of that does not involve the guy getting screwed?
Also, instead of criticizing the source, criticize the content.
4 years ago by ceejayoz
https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-con...
> Often a person who is having a heart attack is given oxygen, which also helps heart tissue damage to be less.
COVID isn't the only disease that requires oxygen.
4 years ago by ben_w
So far as I can see, âalt leftâ is a recent neologism to denigrate anyone who opposed Trump. What do you mean when you describe them thusly?
4 years ago by petre
Alarming but otherwise China and to a lesser extent Pakistan take control of the narrative to their own advantage. At least the Modi government doesn't lock people in reeducation camps. India should remain a secular state though.
4 years ago by twoclicksnorth
Well a little more context will do. The man tweeted he needed oxygen to a famous celebrity. A union minister herself called him twice to help. As he was not answering she asked district magistrate to help. They found that man's grandfather is not suffering from covid and not admitted to any hospital and under private care. So the man just fired a tweet thus police has questioned him and let him go.
4 years ago by asenna
I've always wanted to ask the HN community about this problem, what exactly can be done from a technology standpoint?
I feel we're already at a point where tools are available to make a censorship resistant social network.
The main challenges would be: - Kickstarting a network is a difficult problem - A way to ensure sane content moderation (child porn / abuse, etc) while still keeping the decision-making decentralized enough - Easy enough for the first time mobile internet users to onboard
Would love to hear your thoughts. In my opinion a blockchain based solution seems appropriate (I know there's a lot blockchain-hate on HN but requesting for constructive comments).
I know something needs to come up soon because the situation on the ground is actually quite bad.
4 years ago by pax
If just enough celebs could be convinced to adopt & evangelize a new platform.
The last time I remember being excited about a new social platform was Quora. I was quite amazed by the quality of answers in the early days. I wonder how they managed to gather their first settlers.
4 years ago by lucasmullens
I think Mastodon might be similar to what you're describing?
4 years ago by asenna
Yeah I've heard about it and will be looking into this. But I haven't actually ever seen it in the wild anywhere online which makes me wonder why it hasn't gained traction much.
For a country like India, the solution needs to be dead simple. Exploring a mastadon server a bit, it doesn't feel like it would cut it.
4 years ago by undefined
4 years ago by lovecg
Whatâs a âcensorship resistant social networkâ? Would Trump be allowed on this platform? Would it be hosted on AWS? One personâs censorship is another personâs moderation.
4 years ago by xienze
Exactly, we already have the âcensorship resistant social networkâ (gab), but for reasons completely unrelated to not restricting speech third parties seem hell bent on nuking it from orbit. Such is the fate of any similar social network.
4 years ago by lindy2021
> Kickstarting a network is a difficult problem
Crypto networks can solve this through incentivising early adopters, e.g. https://bitclout.com
> A way to ensure sane content moderation (child porn / abuse, etc) while still keeping the decision-making decentralized enough
Subscribable mute and block lists. This allows each user to tailor moderation to their comfort level.
4 years ago by whiskyant
Updated at 1.17am IST, Thursday: Facebook comms Andy Stone said the company has restored the posts and is âlooking into what happened.â
4 years ago by lovecg
This headline is at best misleading and at worst intentionally dishonest. How I interpreted it when I first saw it: âFacebook is considering hiding these postsâ (looking into, as in planning to do something). Censorship, bad, etc. What it actually says (after reading the article and the referenced tweet): âFacebook is investigating why these posts were removedâ (looking into, as in investigating an action that happened).
4 years ago by mancerayder
Shocking. What do the pro censorship people say all the time when defending Facebook or Twitter: speech is free but not free from consequences. I believe that's the line.
4 years ago by neither_color
I believe they say "as long as we censor just this one particular politician because he's really bad just this one time using a variety of arbitrarily enforced technicalities, it's not censorship and it'll never come back to haunt us."
4 years ago by ceejayoz
> I believe that's the line.
I believe you're misrepresenting the line.
Free speech in the US is about being protected from government-inflicted consequences. I can say "fuck you" all I like, but that's never meant I can say it to my boss and demand a First Amendment right to remain employed.
It's never been an absolute, either. Incitement to riot, fraud, libel, actionable threats; all are speech, but we've long accepted restrictions on it.
4 years ago by hajile
When I was younger, the Left was pro free speech and against big corporations and corporate censorship. Now I'm a bit older and the Right is pro free speech and against big corporations and corporate censorship.
It seems that the big factor is power. When you're in power, you use any excuse to silence the people who disagree. When you're not in power, you recognize that free speech is a universal principle.
The majority of the US is anti-abortion. Would you be fine if they cancelled the other side? Huge swaths are anti-gay. Should coming out mean people are free to cancel you? While the number of churchgoers is around half, the number of Christians in the US is well over 75%. Should claiming to be another religion (or no religion) mean that cancellation is in order?
Once everyone agrees that persecution is acceptable, all that's left is arguing about who to persecute.
The government is by the people and for the people. It reflects the values of the people. You claim that free speech is government only, but why does the government create ideas like hate speech then? Why force private people and businesses to desegregate if your inalienable rights only apply to the government? If rights are inherent in humans, but may be stripped at a whim by the majority, either they aren't actually rights or the pro-cancellation majority are actually despots.
The pro-cancellation argument is all sophistry to gain and increase power.
4 years ago by dragonwriter
> When I was younger, the Left was pro free speech and against big corporations and corporate censorship.
> Now I'm a bit older and the Right is pro free speech and against big corporations and corporate censorship.
I'm not sure when you were talking about; since at least the 1980s the positions have been basically identicalâto today, both sides complaining of institutional biases cutting against them (often both accurately, though selectively), both sides claiming support for free speech but disagreeing that what the other side advocated for was genuine freedom. The big change is that the Right recently adopted the phrase âcancel cultureâ after nearly 4 decades of using âpolitical correctnessâ in exactly the same arguments.
Sounds more likely that as youâve gotten older youâve just gained more sympathy for the right and thus have given more credit to their claims of support for free speech than you used to.
4 years ago by lovecg
> It seems that the big factor is power. When you're in power, you use any excuse to silence the people who disagree. When you're not in power, you recognize that free speech is a universal principle.
This is an oversimplification to the point of not agreeing with reality in any useful way.
Just a few months ago the party in power was âfor free speechâ while the party out of power was arguing for âlimiting the reachâ of certain content.
It might me more true to say that each party wants there to be more speech that it agrees with (i.e. speech that preserves or gives it more power) and less speech that it doesnât like. There are more strategies than plain old censorship; as we saw recently drowning out the discourse with falsehoods works just as well. Few people care about some abstract ideal of âfree speechâ.
4 years ago by ceejayoz
> The majority of the US is anti-abortion. Would you be fine if they cancelled the other side? Huge swaths are anti-gay. Should coming out mean people are free to cancel you? While the number of churchgoers is around half, the number of Christians in the US is well over 75%. Should claiming to be another religion (or no religion) mean that cancellation is in order?
Why are these portrayed as hypotheticals?
4 years ago by mancerayder
>When I was younger, the Left was pro free speech and against big corporations and corporate censorship.
>Now I'm a bit older and the Right is pro free speech and against big corporations and corporate censorship.
100 percent. When I was growing up, the Christian Right wanted to pass anti-flag burning amendments, because veterans were offended. Pornography, because children might see it. Bad words. Unpatriotic stuff, defined as socialism or communism, was a few decades before me. Also to protect morality.
Today we ban so-called hate speech and X phobic speech because 'it hurts'. And in the same way, there's a religious zealotry where if you attempt to use reason you'll be psychoanalyzed and motives attributed.
My advice is, don't engage with these people. If someone uses phraseology like words kill, words are violence, silence is violence, there is no such thing as neutrality, megaphone, we need to do better, systemic Xism, and so forth, run, don't walk away. It's a secular religious movement.
My main problem is the secular religious movement of banishing naughty thoughts has taken Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue by storm.
4 years ago by readflaggedcomm
The First Amendment is about that. The principle is broader. We don't all accept restrictions on it.
4 years ago by thelean12
Not quite as simple as you make it out to be.
Why should I let you scream "fuck you" over and over again in my coffee shop?
Yeah yeah, maybe social networks are the new town square blah blah. My point is that the line isn't so black and white.
4 years ago by pionar
I believe you're:
A) using a strawman B) Comparing apples and oranges
When facebook decides on its own to remove posts, I'm ok with that, they're a private company and can do what they want on their platform.
When the government tells FB to remove posts, I'm not mad at FB; they can do what they want on their platform. I'm mad at the government for telling them to do that.
4 years ago by mancerayder
The government can suggest it and they can choose to do it. No?
Censorship is censorship. No one cares about narrowly defining Freedom of Speech as conflated with the 1st Amendment except Americans .. and especially Americans who support censorship on giant monopolistic platforms.
4 years ago by pyronik19
So when democrats drag zuck in front of congress and ask why he isn't banning more right wingers, no government coercion?
4 years ago by mancerayder
No because it's just a friendly suggestion, kind of like the Indian government.
Bottom line: Silicon Valley techies often suffer from a lack of education in civic matters and liberal democratic values in particular. They believe as long as Bad People have their, here's another term they often use, megaphones, taken away, then ethically it's a thumbs up.
The lack of civic education and historical education becomes evident when you ask them, OK, you support censorship and cleansing misinformation: now who decides?
4 years ago by rodgerd
The Indian government's position is perfectly in line with so-called free speech defenders: they are shutting down illegal content, not applying their own judgement.
4 years ago by saagarjha
Perhaps the issue is that the law does not protect free speech.
4 years ago by lindy2021
When you can define the laws, any content you dislike becomes "Illegal content".
4 years ago by mancerayder
Couldn't Facebook just call it Misinformation? Certainly authoritarian enough for Silicon Valley to rally behind.
4 years ago by 99_00
When your side is silenced it's 'censorship', when the other side is silenced it is 'moderation' or 'removing misinformation'.
4 years ago by smt88
I broadly agree, but I think it's not exactly the problem here.
In this case, one "side" would be a government (assuming this was done at govt request), which means it is literally censorship to silence the other side -- regardless of where the truth lies.
If FB did it proactively to appease a govt (which they did/do in the US), then it's a lot murkier of an issue. It's almost like "soft" censorship.
4 years ago by birksherty
No, it's all about truth, lie, death threats. Which one was deleted.
4 years ago by naruvimama
It is funny to discuss free speech on hn where people want to downvote you because they do not like facts that contradict their opinions about India of which they know nothing about :)
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