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

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

#201

Post by msravi » Fri, Jul 09, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

forcry wrote: post #200

msravi wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without explicitly calling for violent uprisings, etc So that's the problem in this context. Twitter WAS being used to call for a violent uprising in the name of a blatantly false non-existent "genocide": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773994 To repeat, a farmer rammed a tractor into a barricade causing the tractor to overturn and was killed. The whole thing was clearly caught on camera[1][2]. Within minute…

>Twitter refused to take down such blatantly false and deliberately incendiary tweets. The problem of applying censorship to counter fake news is that the same thing can be applied to counter legit news as well. So such a precedent should never be set.

That's a good philosophical position to take, except when you're in charge of the law and order of a city, and you have messages such as these doing the rounds in the midst of a large scale protest.

The messages are used to legitimize people armed with daggers and sickles and machetes belonging to sundry outfits pouring out onto the streets and indulging in arson, rioting, and murder. The situation is not hypothetical.

Twitter itself, of course, does not take that philosophical position.

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

#202

Post by 8eye » Fri, Jul 09, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

the people of india shouldn’t put up with such tyranny. every person is born free, we are humans first, citizens of our country second. anyone who forgets that has fallen into satans path.

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

#203

Post by fellellor » Fri, Jul 09, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

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…

Benefits: Videos where a person pisses on the Quran or desecrates the statue of a Hindu god, can be removed. Left alone it might cause a riot where dozens would die, and a lot of private (and public) property would be destroyed. The details of the uploader would be shared with law enforcement.

This course of action is primitive in western countries, but understandable in a country where the police to population ratio is around 100 times lower than in the west and only 2% of the working age population pays any taxes.

Self regulation as a course of action is a failure. Companies who want to “grow fast and break stuff” don’t care about riots in a country like India.

Dangers: Indians’ free speech will get trampled. Parties in power will enforce the law in a biased manner as they always have done.

This trade off is acceptable since western companies operating outside their home country only care about profit and don’t operate with any social conscience. It would be utterly foolish to outsource the fight for our rights to them. It is more preferable to have these companies operate within the boundaries of Indian law, no matter what they are.

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

#204

Post by inapis » Fri, Jul 09, 2021, 10:53 AM UTC

billh wrote: post #172

rammer wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any benefits to this regulation I'm overlooking? > Yep lots, A democratically elected government of a state is at least answerable to its constituents who can boot them out if the government doesn't do the right thing. These monopolistic social 'platforms' are not answerable to anyone but the whims of their management and advertisers. They purposely allow lies and misinformation to propogate as it boosts en…

> A democratically elected government of a state is at least answerable to its constituents who can boot them out if the government doesn't do the right thing. How can constituents come to any informed opinion if a government appointed executive is summarily striking any public discussion on controversial topics? Seems completely antithetical to any semblance of a functional democracy.

Twitter is not the only place for discussion. And people do not vote exclusively based on public discussion. Indians have tight knit communities and how the community votes is a much major influence on the elections than what is being discussed on twitter/facebook or even national TV.

Case in point, Indians might elect BJP for the central government but consistently have been booting them out at the state level for the past 3-4 years. BJP has actually lost power in multiple states since 2014.

Indian politics is way more nuanced than any discussion on an internet forum would ever allow for.

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

#205

Post by forcry » Fri, Jul 09, 2021, 10:53 AM UTC

msravi wrote: post #201

forcry wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Twitter refused to take down such blatantly false and deliberately incendiary tweets. The problem of applying censorship to counter fake news is that the same thing can be applied to counter legit news as well. So such a precedent should never be set.

That's a good philosophical position to take, except when you're in charge of the law and order of a city, and you have messages such as these doing the rounds in the midst of a large scale protest. The messages are used to legitimize people armed with daggers and sickles and machetes belonging to sundry outfits pouring out onto the streets and indulging in arson, rioting, and murder. The situation is not hypothetica…

> except when you're in charge of the law and order of a city, and you have messages such as these doing the rounds in the midst of a large scale protest.

I think that cannot justify it. There are lines that should not be crossed, no matter what.

Because if some kind of unrest gives you the justification to take some freedom away from the people, then nothing is preventing you from staging such an unrest, and proceeding to do exactly what you wanted.

> legitimize people armed with daggers and sickles and machetes belonging to sundry outfits pouring out onto the streets and indulging in arson, rioting, and murder.

Also can you give be some proof that this was happening?

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

#206

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Jul 09, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #193

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, really it’s not. Yes, some American governments have tried that, but they’ve always failed because the courts don’t take a sympathetic stance with the government’s intentions. This is what separates a country with some notion of rule of law and an independent judiciary to one where all power is concentrated centrally.

To me it seems like America is increasingly the land of pushing boundaries and abusing technicalities from a position of power, such that politicians approximate those other countries you’re othering. Can we prove a link between congressional pressure for private companies to censor and the censorship performed by those same private companies? Not very easily. That’s exactly why members of the government shouldn’t ev…

As a second term house member, AOC’s influence is mostly limited to getting her fans riled up on Twitter. Yes, companies can face pressure from people, but that influence is not being exerted via the government (via laws, it’s executive organizations, or it’s courts).

Frankly, you’d have a much better case if you pointed at politicians with much more power abusing their position (eg Trump or Biden), at least they have real influence on the DOD and DOJ. But even here, (recent) history has shown that this influence has very hard limits. Like Trump trying to punish Amazon by getting a cloud computing contract awarded to Microsoft, which was unwound this week due to undue influence playing a factor.

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

#207

Post by msravi » Fri, Jul 09, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

forcry wrote: post #205

msravi wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good philosophical position to take, except when you're in charge of the law and order of a city, and you have messages such as these doing the rounds in the midst of a large scale protest. The messages are used to legitimize people armed with daggers and sickles and machetes belonging to sundry outfits pouring out onto the streets and indulging in arson, rioting, and murder. The situation is not hypothetica…

> except when you're in charge of the law and order of a city, and you have messages such as these doing the rounds in the midst of a large scale protest. I think that cannot justify it. There are lines that should not be crossed, no matter what. Because if some kind of unrest gives you the justification to take some freedom away from the people, then nothing is preventing you from staging such an unrest, and proceed…

> Also can you give be some proof that this was happening?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Farmers'_Republic_Day_pro...

The agitating protestors vandalised a DTC bus and police vehicles. According to the police, the protestors used sticks, iron rods, pelted stones, while some Nihang protestors rode on horses fully equipped with deadly weapons like swords, kirpans and fursas and some protesters even used their tractors to run over the police. Some protesters driving their speeding tractors rammed barricades and attempted to mow down the policeman on duty

Another example, another city, another social media post: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Bangalore_riots

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

#208

Post by naruvimama » Fri, Jul 09, 2021, 11:59 AM UTC

mrd3v0 wrote: post #186

naruvimama wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Controversial farm reforms" - nothing controversial about it, it is in the manifesto of every major party. The problem is always with a small but powerful, adamant and ruthless minority that is ready to burn down the country to serve their interests. Ultimately the elected government is the only true representative of the people. Protests can be made to communicate your dissatisfaction and perhaps let the government…

The point is, people should be able to talk about it. Governments shouldn't decide for people what they can or can't talk about. Your opinion about the matter is one out of potential billions. They all equally deserve the same treatment by Twitter and the Indian government has no place dictating what kind of speech be posted on social media platforms.

In a parallel universe where a Twitter did not ban a Trump, that would be possible.

But then in such a parallel universe, we would probably not need nuclear weapons or armies.

The problem here is that in the space of global propaganda, you want to disarm democratically elected representatives while heavily arming dictators & tyrants.

Mass propaganda should not be the monopoly of few corporations and dictators.

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

#209

Post by forcry » Fri, Jul 09, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

msravi wrote: post #207

forcry wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except when you're in charge of the law and order of a city, and you have messages such as these doing the rounds in the midst of a large scale protest. I think that cannot justify it. There are lines that should not be crossed, no matter what. Because if some kind of unrest gives you the justification to take some freedom away from the people, then nothing is preventing you from staging such an unrest, and proceed…

> Also can you give be some proof that this was happening? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Farmers'_Republic_Day_pro... The agitating protestors vandalised a DTC bus and police vehicles. According to the police, the protestors used sticks, iron rods, pelted stones, while some Nihang protestors rode on horses fully equipped with deadly weapons like swords, kirpans and fursas and some protesters even used their trac…

So I think we can agree that there was a clash with police.

But you were saying the farmers where indulging in murder.

so do you have a number (and source for the same), for how many were murdered by the farmers, during this event?

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

#210

Post by mahogany » Fri, Jul 09, 2021, 12:43 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #177

mahogany wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people view freedom of speech as a right in a broad sense, particularly with respect to the government, but are also okay with a violation of it in certain contexts, like in a private domain. It seems to me that a bar owner kicking out a loud or inflammatory patron is an example of "oppressing that right", but most people understand this and have no problem with it because the alternative -- a world wher…

I don't disagree with your first paragraph, because of the assumption that there are other bars to go to. If there are not other bars to go to, and if instead of bars we're talking about vital services such as food, housing, or communication that have been monopolized or oligopolized, then that assumption no longer holds. I don't think Twitter itself is anywhere near that type of critical. But in general it's ignoran…

Sure, I absolutely agree that private enterprise can be a problem and can become intertwined with government. But the topic of this thread is Twitter, and more broadly, Big Tech, and I am not convinced that they are a serious problem in the way that telecom or rail monopolies were. I'm not even sure they are monopolies at all -- there's plenty of competition, even if people choose not to use it. A major difference that I see is that to start a competitor in, say, telecom infrastructure requires a massive amount of capital. To start a competitor with Twitter requires very little capital in comparison, although to succeed requires reaching some network effect.

If an argument about vital services is to be applied, I think it is much better applied to something more foundational to the internet, such as domain name registrars or ISPs.