Live data from Hacker News

WhiteHat Jr’s founder files $2.6M defamation suit against critic

techcrunch.com

51–60 of 300 posts

Re: WhiteHat Jr’s founder files $2.6M defamation suit against critic

#51
post #18
post #7

They are the biggest scam in India capitalizing on FOMO of Indian parents. They charge heaftily (more than $2000) to teach app development (using Scratch, Firebase etc.). Their staff is poorly paid and just reads off scripts. Their staff doesn't know even the basics of CS (as evidenced in this video: https://youtu.be/1Y21eSn_zSM?t=64 , when the student asks how files are stored in Cloud Storage, she says the files ar…

Sounds terrible. How are his accounts being taken down?

WhiteHat Jr. abuses the DMCA and copyright policies to take down accounts and content. There was this article [1] where they detailed it really well (its a long article and requires login)

> It seems that fairly early on, WhiteHat Jr figured out that it can create temporary nuisance for everyone by reporting their video as a copyright or trademark infringement. Which is why after say, 15-30 days, several of Poonia’s videos were reinstated, after having been taken down.

[1] https://themorningcontext.com/indias-whitehatjr-is-startup-h...

Re: WhiteHat Jr’s founder files $2.6M defamation suit against critic

#52
The truth is much worse than this suggests: This recent article in The Morning Context gives a lot more detail as to why this company is absolutely unethical: https://themorningcontext.com/indias-whitehatjr-is-startup-h... [Requires sign in to read unfortunately]

WhiteHat Jr. is the sleaziest company to emerge from India's start-up ecosystem. They have used underhanded and unethical means to take down fair criticism online. They have used misleading and outright false advertising to sell their product to parents.

I can only hope that people wake up to how evil this company is.

Re: WhiteHat Jr’s founder files $2.6M defamation suit against critic

#53

This is a lot worse than it looks. https://twitter.com/whiteHatSnr/status/1330455721897443329/p... Shame on Whitehatjr and on Byju's. This is outright fraud.

Beside that: check out the ad on the right hand side of the screenshot. The keyboard ... ><

Re: WhiteHat Jr’s founder files $2.6M defamation suit against critic

#54
Recent post by the Pradeep Poonia showing proof how fake their ads are. There is a slack screenshot posted where the employees (including their CEO) talking about creating a fake app that they advertise as an app made by a 13 yo kid. https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/jyt7et/whitehatjr_fi...

Re: WhiteHat Jr’s founder files $2.6M defamation suit against critic

#55

Khan academy is a wonderful resource and for free. People falling for this utter bullshit is directly attributable to one word. Marketting.

Khan Academy is a golden standard, which these guys can't ever aspire to become.

Re: WhiteHat Jr’s founder files $2.6M defamation suit against critic

#56
post #22
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. This reminds me of the story of Siraj Raval, a formerly highly influential YouTuber on machine learning and blockchain topics: https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2019/10/16/why-siraj-ravals-... Some years ago, when I started getting into machine learning, I couldn't tell he is a fraud. Considering that just before he was broadly exposed as a fraudster, he was invited by the European Space Agency (ESA) to gi…

Not just the ESA, India's most prestigious college IIT-Bombay also fell for him. The roster usually includes folks like Stroustrup, Vint Cerf etc & then a couple years ago 'Siraj Raval' of all the people on earth.

He also had a course on Udacity (which is now removed) on AI

Re: WhiteHat Jr’s founder files $2.6M defamation suit against critic

#59
I have had my personal stint with trying to "expose" an Indian startup (I am an Indian), also coding related which gained some traction on LinkedIn (around 500+ reactions, if they mean anything).

This guy is in serious danger, trust me. I had to delete my linkedin post when my ex-manager called me to delete it otherwise the startup's employees will go crazy and try every which way to make my life hell.

Unfortunately, thats what you get in living in this country and trying to voice your opinion (without any strong political and financial credentials).

I have mentioned this earlier, people keep complaining of "brain drain" here in India as tech graduates keep leaving India for opportunities abroad; I thought I won't be that one and will do something for the country; it's just too difficult, I have add enough, I can't wait to leave.

I always tell people to just be anonymous, having your personal identity linked when saying anything remotely offensive is just an open invitation for personal attacks and things like this.

Re: WhiteHat Jr’s founder files $2.6M defamation suit against critic

#60
Pathetic. All this dude did was show users their fake ads and fake reviews. He's also showcased reviews where the instructors don't seem to know much about how the internet works.

Now the legal system is being used to maliciously prosecute him. There is little hope for this man in India given the level of corruption and rot in the system. If there are well connected folks in the west who want to spend their time on actual injustice as opposed to casting in Hollywood movies and other first world problems, I'd invite them to speak up for this man and contact the investors / folks at Disney and other Byju's investors.

Also if you know folks at Reddit or YouTube congratulate them on having such a trash tier DMCA review process where a decent man with the intention of protecting a gullible population of poor folks can't stand up to a scam corporation backed by a mammoth like Disney, on your platform.

Post reply on HN