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Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

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Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#31
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies, revising previous comment because I misunderstood the said text. He indeed said that they created a WhatsApp account with 32 lakh people in it... Hence the translation above is correct.

> He said that we have created 32 lakh WhatsApp groups (not people). Don't lie man. Not cool at all! He said "Woh isliye hopaya ki hum battis lakh WhatsApp ka EK group banakar khade the". Which translates to "it happened because we created a WhatsApp group with 32 lakh people in it". You accuse a political party of spreading misinformation and you do that yourself! Did you seriously think you are the only one who kno…

Thanks for correcting me. It was a genuine error and I’m sorry.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#32
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He said that we have created 32 lakh WhatsApp groups (not people). Don't lie man. Not cool at all! He said "Woh isliye hopaya ki hum battis lakh WhatsApp ka EK group banakar khade the". Which translates to "it happened because we created a WhatsApp group with 32 lakh people in it". You accuse a political party of spreading misinformation and you do that yourself! Did you seriously think you are the only one who kno…

Thanks for correcting me. It was a genuine error and I’m sorry.

It is alright. Happens to the best of us. Apologies for being harsh. Just sick and tired of seeing leftwing propaganda on Hacker News. Especially against India. Hence created a throwaway account just to protect my identity but still voice my counter. Did not expect you to own up to your mistake. Thanks for doing the right thing. A lot of the international audience here don't know Indian political context and gauge whatever is shown on Western mainstream media to be the reality of things. But when local Indians who know regional language also contribute to that propaganda it pisses me off big time. That is why I was harsh in my comments. Apologize again for being rude.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#33
post #10

The Indian leading party has over 3.2 million WhatsApp accounts. These groups are used during Election Day in many states to spread misinformation amongst gullible citizens and change the outcome on the last moment....

It's crazy. The leading party has the entire country believe in fictional "surgical strikes" against neighboring countries. Gullible indeed.

The surgical strikes were real. Get used to it.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#34
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies, revising previous comment because I misunderstood the said text. He indeed said that they created a WhatsApp account with 32 lakh people in it... Hence the translation above is correct.

> He said that we have created 32 lakh WhatsApp groups (not people). Don't lie man. Not cool at all! He said "Woh isliye hopaya ki hum battis lakh WhatsApp ka EK group banakar khade the". Which translates to "it happened because we created a WhatsApp group with 32 lakh people in it". You accuse a political party of spreading misinformation and you do that yourself! Did you seriously think you are the only one who kno…

32 lakh people in a WhatsApp group? or is this supposed to mean that they created various groups and the total count of all the members is 32 lakh?

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#35
I'm not on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. All Indian politicians are given special treatment on Twitter. When I flag comments by ordinary users, they get taken down pretty soon. I flagged a few videos of a politician inciting a beheading, but both he, and his videos are on Twitter.

In that respect, Twitter (and Facebook) are no different from Indian law enforcement agencies. One set of rules for nobodies like me, a different set of rules for the "rulers". Ironic, because they are not supposed to be our rulers, but our servants.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#36
Ugh. The BJP are Hindu nationalists that should be labeled as extremists — a bunch of Napoleon-complex-having-authoritarians...

But India is the next big thing so all companies from Apple to Facebook and everyone in between will likely pander to the government.

I’m East Indian but born in America (lucky me I guess) living in Berlin. I mean no disrespect to my fellow Indians just to convey my utter contempt for Modi and his thugs both the BJP and his gestapo the RSS.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He said that we have created 32 lakh WhatsApp groups (not people). Don't lie man. Not cool at all! He said "Woh isliye hopaya ki hum battis lakh WhatsApp ka EK group banakar khade the". Which translates to "it happened because we created a WhatsApp group with 32 lakh people in it". You accuse a political party of spreading misinformation and you do that yourself! Did you seriously think you are the only one who kno…

32 lakh people in a WhatsApp group? or is this supposed to mean that they created various groups and the total count of all the members is 32 lakh?

> or is this supposed to mean that they created various groups and the total count of all the members is 32 lakh?

I am sure he meant this. But I am more interested in translating what he said verbatim than add/remove meaning from it. What you interpret it as is up to you. But a translator should be true to what the source said and not add/remove from that.

But to actually give more context to the video itself: Amit Shah (the speaker in the video) says that one of the members in the group sent a fake message saying that a local political opponent slapped his father (who is also a politician and an erstwhile Chief Minister). That message spread like wildfire. And many people of that State (where the election was taking place) did not take kindly to that bit of story (slapping your father is the worst thing you can do in an Indian context). So Amit Shah says that even though that message worked to the ruling party's advantage, that should never have been done. He told them (the workers of the party present in the gathering) to not indulge in such activities and instead spread the truth. After that he makes that statement that the message was spread so fast only because they have a group of 32 lakh volunteers/party workers in it who spread the message. Now obviously one group cannot have 32 lakh members. Neither is Amit Shah so tech savvy that he will moderate/admin the groups. I am sure he doesn't even know/have the time to create a WhatsApp group. There is an IT wing that manages the show. So when he says 32 lakh members in a group, you should interpret it as many groups but total count of 32 lakh. Now it definitely isn't 32 lakh groups (that would be crazy and pointless).

So only when you take the entire speech into account will you understand the context in which this was said. But if you cherry pick, you can derive any meaning you like.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#38
post #35

I'm not on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. All Indian politicians are given special treatment on Twitter. When I flag comments by ordinary users, they get taken down pretty soon. I flagged a few videos of a politician inciting a beheading, but both he, and his videos are on Twitter. In that respect, Twitter (and Facebook) are no different from Indian law enforcement agencies. One set of rules for nobodies like me, a differ…

They made this pretty explicit for the former president of the US: anybody "newsworthy" (ie. has enough power to hurt the platform) has near free play around the rules.

In contrast my personal opinion is that we should hold people in power to a higher standard.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#39
post #28
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the Hunter Biden story was "wiped from everywhere" because it was part illegal (the authentic parts, if they were indeed authentic, would likely have violated revenge porn laws in addition to Facebook's ToS on nudity), part misinformation and part (and this is probably the least important) character assassination. It also wasn't a very successful "wipe" if the story got coverage in various mainstream media. It wa…

A story about hunter biden is not the same as the material itself, which might have been illegal. Just like obtaining and publishing Trump's tax returns were illegal, but talking about it isn't, and they most certainly weren't wiped from Facebook and Twitter. Which is an extremely easy example of just what double standards there were during the election. Also - how do you know it was illegal? Has a court ruled so? Ar…

The Hunter Biden story violated Twitter's ToS doxxing rules at the time, by including his personal email address which was specifically mentioned in the rules. To my knowledge, Trump's tax returns may seem comparably personal but didn't include any of the identifying information to get them flagged.

That was Twitter's justification at least. I think they mishandled the situation terribly, and they somewhat agree by their ToS change after the event.

Re: Facebook removed fake accounts in India until it saw BJP politician was involved

#40
post #6

With this finally being mentioned, it also needs to be said that they are quite enthusiastic about mowing down Congress on FB, and IG. And that very much unlike other far more on the fringe parties. This was going on for far longer before Facebook's political engagement became known in the West. It feels to me, Zuckerberg wants INC dead, and buried. Wouldn't be against that myself. INC, is for all reasons, synonymic…

I dislike BJP propaganda as much as next educated person, but could it be just that if facebook stops sensoring BJP bots, they might provoke mobs to physically attack Facebook in India, and their employee's safety is important for them?

> provoke mobs to physically attack Facebook in India, and their employee's safety is important for them?

This doesn't support the notion that they blocked even more fringe, and radical parties than BJP

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