Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#51

Post by kjs3 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

dartharva wrote: post #4

OzyM wrote: post #2

"The IT rules, which became effective end-May, are aimed at regulating content on social media and making firms act more swiftly on legal requests to remove posts and sharing details on the originators of messages. They also require the appointment of certain new executives." The article makes this sound like a massive detriment to free speech. Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, g…

>However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash tag related to farmer protests against new agricultural reforms") can't be good. That plus forcing the company to hire government-approved executives seems like a slippery slope. Most governments (including India's) already have the power to make Twitter and other sites censor content. The requirement for a local complianc…

The requirement for a local compliance officer comes from the desire to have someone associated directly with the company to lean on/harass/put in jail if the parent company doesn't comply with local government desires. Lots of countries have such a requirement.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#52

Post by tomjen3 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

sudhirj wrote: post #42

OzyM wrote: post #2

"The IT rules, which became effective end-May, are aimed at regulating content on social media and making firms act more swiftly on legal requests to remove posts and sharing details on the originators of messages. They also require the appointment of certain new executives." The article makes this sound like a massive detriment to free speech. Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, g…

> forcing the company to hire government-approved executives seems like a slippery slope. Think is this closer to the GDPR requiring the Data Protection Officer role. I don't it needs to be govt-approved. Not in favour of the overreach by the govt here, but it's not quite as bad as that. They want a single point of contact they can put pressure on.

They want somebody they can arrest.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#53

Post by vowelless » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

mullen wrote: post #10

vowelless wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit is complying with local laws. Not all countries have “first amendment style free speech”. Note the speech restrictions in the Indian constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_India The farmers protests were allegedly detrimental to the sovereignty and security of India and so it makes sense to ban those kinds of hastags. FWIW, the American government also requests removals from…

> FWIW, the American government also requests removals from social media sites. No, they don't. Any American Government official requesting a removal of anything from social media sites would probably lose their job. That's saying a lot because American Government officials rarely ever lose their jobs.

I thought that there was American government pressure to remove Al Qaeda/ISIS propaganda from social media sites. If not, then I hope the american gov takes a stronger stance against terrorism.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#54

Post by jbishop156 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #21

OzyM wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super interesting Wikipedia article, thanks for the link! Some of the restrictions on free speech make me instinctually uncomfortable (i.e. restrictions for the sake of "decency and morality"), but I recognize these are hardly unique to India and countries such as the U.S. have censored plenty of books, etc. in the past. I'm not sure that I personally am in favor. However, you're clearly right in that it's hardly unp…

>countries such as the U.S. have censored plenty of books, etc. in the past. The modern interpretation of the 1st amendment as being fairly absolute is only 50-100 years old. Don't forget the federal government had political prisoners for protesting against the US getting involved in WW 1, and the HUAC and McCarthy hearings were blatantly unconstitutional under modern jurisprudence. We don't even need to talk about t…

That's true. It did take the US 200 years to come to the correct interpretation of First Amendment being damn near absolute. Shameful as that delay was, we progressed in the right direction.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#55

Post by xibalba » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

l0k3ndr wrote: post #49

I don't like the government, but I hate monopoly of the twitter ever more than I hate the existing government or their opposition or any coalition of them. I hate any single entity owning this much power. So government bending them a little is a good thing at least right now.

By what definition is Twitter a monopoly?

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#56

Post by sudhirj » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #52

sudhirj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forcing the company to hire government-approved executives seems like a slippery slope. Think is this closer to the GDPR requiring the Data Protection Officer role. I don't it needs to be govt-approved. Not in favour of the overreach by the govt here, but it's not quite as bad as that. They want a single point of contact they can put pressure on.

They want somebody they can arrest.

They can already arrest any employee, like this head of marketing.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#57

Post by pcmoney » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

l0k3ndr wrote: post #49

I don't like the government, but I hate monopoly of the twitter ever more than I hate the existing government or their opposition or any coalition of them. I hate any single entity owning this much power. So government bending them a little is a good thing at least right now.

I am somewhat confused how a middling social network of ~200M (generously) active users with a message limit of 280 chars has a lot of power? Celebrating government strong arming is an interesting take and only nice when its going your way.

Always imagine whatever government excess you are ok with in this instance is now going against your position and see if you still like it.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#58

Post by alex_smart » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:58 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #25

oneplane wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they do. Not personally, but they do. The amount of child exploitation that falls through the filters is not zero, and sometimes the government of the US intervenes and asks for the content to be removed.

Removing that kind of illegal content by the police is 100% different from political officials asking to have content critical of the gov't removed.

The point is that India is a sovereign republic and has its own laws about what is illegal and is not. According to India's laws, spreading false rumours about the police shooting a farmer when there is clear evidence that the person actually died by running his tractor into a barricade is illegal. And when Twitter failed to comply with government's orders to remove these tweets, they didn't have any point of contact from the company they could turn to for accountability. That's why the need for the compliance officer.

Also, criticizing the government is not illegal according to Indian laws.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#59

Post by pcmoney » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

invertedreversi wrote: post #43

vishnugupta wrote: post #41

It is worth noting that the IT mister resigned[1] just a day back in a massive cabinet reshuffling (if you could call that). Twitter attracted the ruling government's wrath when it didn't censor/takedown Tweets supporting farmers' protests and those critical of government's handling of COVID's 2nd wave. [1] https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/breaking-ravi-shankar...

Let's be specific. The Government requested the takedown of the hashtag, #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide This seems reasonable.

Reasonable in fascist Germany sure, on a democratic platform? Not so much. US companies need start saying "screw you" to more countries (the US included) when asked to violate their values. We need to be telling China to pound sand every day in every way we can.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#60

Post by netcan » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

xibalba wrote: post #55

l0k3ndr wrote: post #49

I don't like the government, but I hate monopoly of the twitter ever more than I hate the existing government or their opposition or any coalition of them. I hate any single entity owning this much power. So government bending them a little is a good thing at least right now.

By what definition is Twitter a monopoly?

By the commonplace colloquial definition. Economic taxonomy might call it an oligopsony, monopsony or whatnot.

To the average person, "really big powerful company that stands above ordinary competition and choice dynamics, influences politics, dominates a business sector or other realm, dictates rules to a market and such."

In many parts of the world, if you are a politician, journalist, celebrity or other public figure, twitter is extremely powerful... a determining factor in hundreds of thousands of careers. What trends on twitter trends in society.

But no, it doesn't fit neatly into a "cornered the market for turnips" box.