Well, in response, the US govt could (in theory) break up YouTube into YouTube and YouTube India, thus freeing the US version from foreign influence. Perhaps this is another reason why companies shouldn't be allowed to get so big.
India’s government wants total control of the internet
81–90 of 207 posts
Re: India’s government wants total control of the internet
#82Yes there is increasing threat to freedom of speech, but India is not new to this. The left leaning Congress had even worse norms when they imposed martial law (Emergency). India has a robust sphere of public debate and draconian laws and acts of discrimination by the government are regularly criticised. In more cases than not the government embarrasses itself by its clumsy use of power to restrict opposition, like i…
> judging by the way it allowed the Bharat Jodo Yatra
I mean, sure, yeah, we're not North Korea yet. And is that the bar we are setting for the "World's largest democracy?"
Re: India’s government wants total control of the internet
#83Someone who has been on the receiving end of this, I can say that they are VERY persuasive. To a point they will lock you up for sedition,without trial for a decade and if you are really lucky, some stupid judge will be allowed to let you go on a planted technicality. I am not bragging but I've survived been charged with "waging war against India" whatever the hell that means and having my wits in the moment saved my…
[flagged]
Re: India’s government wants total control of the internet
#84The main priority of "Big tech" is profitability not freedom. They're not "giving in" as much as they're following a business model to maximize revenue. Ultimately internet censorship will benefit the biggest companies who are able to keep up with the regulations. It will effectively grant them unofficial monopolies as smaller companies struggle to keep up.
IMO I dont think this is true. If that was the case then big tech wouldn't have closed shop in Russia for their crimes. Their morality is just conditional
> big tech wouldn't have closed shop in Russia for their crimes
Do you really believe big tech cared about some wArCrImEs, instead of getting a call from their lobbyist/investor/gov.account advising them to play along, or else?
JFYI, YouTube (and the whole of Google) is still operational in Russia, I can still use my iPhone, pay for iCloud, and buy a new one as soon as I want.
Business is business, I don't understand why people ever suppose it would be fighting for their political goals.
Re: India’s government wants total control of the internet
#85I have learnt a very valuable lesson about my country's people at the face of the fascist govt. Caste affinity triumphs anything and everything. No matter how cruel the BJP is, their core vote bank which is the Upper caste population are not going to deviate away from them. The BJP has perfected formulas to win elections using hook or crook in every state now. Modi is going to do more fascist stuff and take away righ…
Pardon me for interrupting in the middle of a “LITERALLY HITLER REEE!” but LOL if you don’t think every every other political party isn’t trying to appeal to some caste or the other particularly at the local level. Of course they do because democratic politics is about people first and ideas second. In India jati is the basic unit of society, in Ancient Greece it was the Demos (which is exactly the same thing) and in…
Yup he gets things done. Just like he got a pogrom done and shown their place.
Also thank you for proving my point above. Lol
Re: India’s government wants total control of the internet
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
They make money selling the rights to stuff they produce in other parts of the world. Maybe not for this particular show, but in general. They presumably treat everything on the service exactly the same, because it would cost them money to do otherwise, and also because they probably don't want to pay for the bandwidth for foreign users. I suspect you probably have to have a UK TV license to watch it, too, which mean…
At some point BBC needs to make a streaming service for everyone. Anyone with a 100 video content library is making their own, BBC is leaving money on the table I think. Unless licensing their content makes them way more money, the only other blockers I can think of are competence related and things being slow because of BBC's semi government organization.
This would be the smart thing to do. Still baffled that they don't do it. Maybe no visionaries work there.
Re: India’s government wants total control of the internet
#87Well, in response, the US govt could (in theory) break up YouTube into YouTube and YouTube India, thus freeing the US version from foreign influence. Perhaps this is another reason why companies shouldn't be allowed to get so big.
I appreciate the thought behind this, but I don’t see how it would work when India would not saddle their own social media with the same antitrust restrictions. Imagine the Indian equivalent to TikTok or whatever, which would be (by virtue of being huge and having better network effects) competing against a field of weaker American competitors. You could of course ban the foreign product, but that feels like we’d just be trading one type of censorship for another.
Also, I suspect the US likes a monolithic YouTube from a “iPod diplomacy” perspective - being the cultural centre of the world is an advantage!
Re: India’s government wants total control of the internet
#88We already have "multiple Internets". See China, there is barely anything common ground between the services "we" use and China use.
To be fair, it's not like people leave the western segment of the internet much, even when other national "internets" are not isolated from the rest of the network.
Who has ever tried visiting any ru-net platforms, for example?
Re: India’s government wants total control of the internet
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And let's be honest, who buys one in a country which has restricted internet to begin with? It would be the first thing I'd get in a country with restricted internet :)
You'd buy a VPN outside of that country, not inside it.
Ah but most VPNs have exit nodes in pretty much every major country in the world.
Re: India’s government wants total control of the internet
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's quite sad, it's a generic "this video isn't allowed globally due to rights". That makes perfect sense when you're talking about last nights showing of Moanna, or even Eastenders (where background music in the pub might not be cleared for use outside the UK), but when it comes to a program like this you'd hope exceptions would be made.
These programs are often made by commercial entities (like BBC Worldwide, which is separate from the normal state funded BBC) who license their material to foreign streaming services like Netflix. If every impactful documentary would be given away for free, there's no incentive for anyone to pay the company behind it to make more. Journalism is expensive and I don't think enough people would donate to a large corpora…
Part of the BBC's remit is the world service, and serving India especially. There is a very large production office in Delhi which produces multiple TV programs each day in various languages.