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Will India Ban Twitter?

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Re: Will India Ban Twitter?

#31
post #14
post #2

Can someone summarize the issue? The article is behind a paywall.

The current party in power in India is removing minimum purchase prices for produce. This is akin to removing minimum wage for farmers in a market where it would be financial ruin for most farmers and give way to corporate farms leading the way. The farmers were peacefully protesting and the government has reacted by attacking them quite brutally etc.. recently they've also issued FIRs (effectively arrest warrants) f…

Well my dads a farmer and he has no problem with these laws and you will find the same with majority of the farmers in India. They support the law, literally every economist is giving their approval to these laws. There will naturally be some opposing the law and the government has held a dozen meetings with the small number of farmers to discuss each and every point, but they are hell bent on repealing the law instead of amending, which imo is not very constructive.

Re: Will India Ban Twitter?

#32
post #12

Right now I'm listening to a report on NPR about how India, the world's largest democracy, leads the world in the number of times it has shut down Internet access. As this will inevitably (sadly) become the norm, I fully expect we'll see the same in the U.S. in relatively short time. Hopefully that's too pessimistic; but, to be prepared -- what is the state of the art of HAM-based networking in the U.S.?

Keep in mind that amateur radio operators are banned from using encryption* on the air which means no HTTPS/TLS, SSH/SFTP, VPNs, or Tor. You'd basically be operating with the privacy of the Internet circa 1995. Almost all commercial activities are also banned.

* Authentication is allowed but the contents of the messages cannot be concealed.

Re: Will India Ban Twitter?

#33
post #12

Right now I'm listening to a report on NPR about how India, the world's largest democracy, leads the world in the number of times it has shut down Internet access. As this will inevitably (sadly) become the norm, I fully expect we'll see the same in the U.S. in relatively short time. Hopefully that's too pessimistic; but, to be prepared -- what is the state of the art of HAM-based networking in the U.S.?

NPR is one of the most anti-India media houses in the world. Please refer to something more credible if you want to understand the truth about India.

Re: Will India Ban Twitter?

#34
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current party in power in India is removing minimum purchase prices for produce. This is akin to removing minimum wage for farmers in a market where it would be financial ruin for most farmers and give way to corporate farms leading the way. The farmers were peacefully protesting and the government has reacted by attacking them quite brutally etc.. recently they've also issued FIRs (effectively arrest warrants) f…

Well my dads a farmer and he has no problem with these laws and you will find the same with majority of the farmers in India. They support the law, literally every economist is giving their approval to these laws. There will naturally be some opposing the law and the government has held a dozen meetings with the small number of farmers to discuss each and every point, but they are hell bent on repealing the law inste…

Whether your dad is okay with it or not is irrelevant though.

The fact remains though that many are unhappy about it and have been attacked violently. The fact is that the police have filed FIRs against people for voicing support.

Those are the salient points to this discussion on whether India will ban Twitter or not

Re: Will India Ban Twitter?

#35
post #29

Indian. I resisted getting a twitter account all these years, but created one just to keep track of the pandemic. As far as I can tell, Indian political parties and "news" outlets have completely gamed the system. Every day, there would be a new outrage hashtag. And by no means are these outrages driven by one political faction. Over the last one year, I notice that Twitter itself has taken steps to limit the "trendi…

>As far as I can tell, Indian political parties and "news" outlets have completely gamed the system. Every day, there would be a new outrage hashtag. And by no means are these outrages driven by one political faction. Over the last one year, I notice that Twitter itself has taken steps to limit the "trending" hashtags. Since 2021, I see just one or two such hashtags on the homepage.

It's exactly like that in America too.

Re: Will India Ban Twitter?

#37
post #25
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current party in power in India is removing minimum purchase prices for produce. This is akin to removing minimum wage for farmers in a market where it would be financial ruin for most farmers and give way to corporate farms leading the way. The farmers were peacefully protesting and the government has reacted by attacking them quite brutally etc.. recently they've also issued FIRs (effectively arrest warrants) f…

Just to add the context - the law does't target MSP directly. They are basically saying that now all farmers of the country can sell their produce without the control of government owned marketplaces called 'mandis'. In 'mandis' there is a minimum support price, so farmers have a guarentee of getting atleast that much for their produce. Now when market will be opened, this will probably kill the MSP system, as now th…

To be clear the police did attack the farmers long before republic day. It's a pressure cooker situation right now

Re: Will India Ban Twitter?

#39
post #29

Indian. I resisted getting a twitter account all these years, but created one just to keep track of the pandemic. As far as I can tell, Indian political parties and "news" outlets have completely gamed the system. Every day, there would be a new outrage hashtag. And by no means are these outrages driven by one political faction. Over the last one year, I notice that Twitter itself has taken steps to limit the "trendi…

For an example of how "one political faction" can manufacture trends, check this out - https://twitter.com/Kirangandhi/status/1188354450458468352. They contact famous personalities (in this case athletes who had represented India at the Olympics), give them a text ("I thank @narendramodi for his initiative to honour and empower...") and ask them all to tweet it at the same time. Then they use their vast network of fake accounts to amplify it. Same thing yesterday, when they requested cricket players with large followings to implicitly criticise Greta Thunberg and Rihanna for "interfering" in India's affairs.

It's so easy to co-opt this too. One person got access to the shared google doc where they store the next tweets that need to be trending and changed it to something critical of Modi. It was promptly tweeted out regardless by government ministers who said "working for the middle class is low on the agenda of Modi Govt" and "Modi govt has not made inclusive development as the focal point".

(https://twitter.com/free_thinker/status/1095571793233043456?...)

Re: Will India Ban Twitter?

#40
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes considering all the news we see about Hong Kong. It is surprising that Kashmir isn't covered despite being in worse situation for more than a year, over a similar issue.

Kashmir was covered even less. Remember the ethnic cleansing in the 90s? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Kashmiri_Hindus

yes. 219 deaths and 100k displaced against 100k deaths https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_Jammu_massacres

>an estimated 20,000–100,000 Muslims were massacred.

yes. you are right. i do remember displacement but it does not hold a candle to 1947 jammu massacres. what do you think? who are more important? 100k deaths or 219?

https://www.thehindu.com/news/ldquo219-Kashmiri-Pandits-kill...

https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/right-wing-exaggerate...

this article in the print literally says the figures are exaggerated

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