171–180 of 213 posts
Unfortunate that this rightward lurch by the Modi government (still incredibly popular in India) will be ignored by the "west" due to competition with China. India considers unfettered social media and speech a threat to stability, just like China.
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> the current ruling party is straight up unironically fascist and descends from the same political party that inspired the german nationalist socialist party. This is false. There is no link between the German Nazi party and BJP. If you are talking about RSS, the link comes from a quote in a book published in 1939 (well before the world found about the holocaust) by the RSS founder [0]. Admiration for Hitler and his…
Also Golwalkar is 100% pro-nazi, he only went against them later for gains. "German Race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races -- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences g…
Interesting, because Indian Government recently jailed an independent fact checker for a tweet he made 4 years ago. This new body seems to be a tool to suppress dissent and promote the fake news machinery Government and the ruling party is notorious for. https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/alt-news-pratik-sinha-mohamma...
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Ten years ago I would have agreed. Today? I'm not sure you're right about which is the greater threat. Yes, state censorship can be abused. But promoting misinformation is a known threat to Democracy today . Right now. I'm not sure what the real answer should be. If "the market" manages to get the propaganda farms' misinformation under control, then great. If they don't , the only answer I can see is for government t…
How do you reconcile the premise of democracy (that the general public will be able to discern and organize for good) with calls to supervise what opinions they can be exposed to?
If the people are completely brainwashed by lies that are completely contrary to the truth--like nearly a quarter of our population seems to be at the moment--then they will vote for those with the most convincing lies.
If someone who gets their information from Fox "News"--which has been shown to be less reliable than not watching any news at all--is given an equal vote to those who actually know what's going on, Democracy is subverted. At that point you actually have a "fake Democracy", where the country is actually guided by the propagandists and not the people.
The US is one of a very few Democracies with this absolutist attitude about freedom of speech. It's not a required component of Democracy, and it's ultimately self-destructive, but it's clearly (based on the downvotes and responses to my comment) deeply ingrained.
As an example, Trump should have gotten barely any votes in the last election. He accomplished almost nothing besides stacking the supreme court and passing a deeply unpopular tax cut. Yes, we beat him, but 74M people voted for Trump. And those 74M people, nearly 47% of the voting public, were manipulated by blatantly false Russian and Republican propaganda.
To my mind, the "free speech as a religion" POV is looking like it will be the death of our democracy. If we can't fight misinformation, it may bury the country.
And clearly those on HN disagree. I won't argue with you further. But as things stand, we're circling the drain.
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Being Indian, I am clued in well enough. I understand by "Indian friends" you mean upper caste Hindu Indian friends who are Modi acolytes and his primary voting demographic. Not Indian Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Dalits or Shudras who form greater than 50% of the Indian population.
No, I mean people with loads of common sense who can tell you both side of the story. >> Not Indian Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Dalits or Shudras who form greater than 50% of the Indian population. Acc to you, if they are more than 50% AND not happy with Modi, why is Modi winning back to back elections and almost certain to come to power again in 2024?
Additionally, Muslims in Gujarat and UP have been coerced into voting for BJP candidate by threatening them with shut down of municipal services when BJP wins. This is enabled because EVMs report summary statistics from each location which the government employees have access to.
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Great that you poured your heart out for others to read. Made my job much easier.
The last part is a common knowledge. Don’t worry.
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Also Golwalkar is 100% pro-nazi, he only went against them later for gains. "German Race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races -- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences g…
The whole point was that most of the world was pro-nazi until the events of WW2 and the holocaust. And if you are comparing someone's views in the 30s to the current worldview, I hate to break it to you that everyone's racist and fascist, including Roosevelt, Churchill and MK Gandhi. Gandhi pretty much called for the Jews to offer themselves up to be butchered by Nazis and Arabs.
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How do you reconcile the premise of democracy (that the general public will be able to discern and organize for good) with calls to supervise what opinions they can be exposed to?
Democracy is about the people being able to participate in government. That's it. In order for that to be a good thing, the people need to be informed about the decisions they're making. If the people are completely brainwashed by lies that are completely contrary to the truth--like nearly a quarter of our population seems to be at the moment--then they will vote for those with the most convincing lies. If someone wh…
But why is that a good thing? We don't have to have everyone participate. You don't seem to believe in democracy yourself here.
> were manipulated by blatantly false Russian and Republican propaganda.
I think we should be extremely cautious about views that suggest cross sections of the population are not capable agents. Either you're right, 47% of people are manipulated idiots, and the other half are enlightened, or they hold grievances and values you just don't understand.
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You're abusing the word "gaslighting". Nobody is claiming that Nupur Sharma deserves any retribution beyond expulsion from her position. High-profile figures are more vulnerable than average individuals and it is not in anyone's interest to make incendiary statements that expose themselves to higher security risks. Sharma should have taken this into consideration before saying what she did on national television, eve…
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You can keep spewing non sense like this, but people here are more literate than what you are used to. Your argument boils down to - if you insulted or are perceived to have insulted the prophet of Islam (by even quoting a hadith), then you deserve to die and live in perpetual fear of being murdered by a "ghazi". No one cares if Nupur Sharma lost a bloody BJP job. You are justifying murder and religious fanaticism.
Don't put words in my mouth. The murder is not justified and the perpetrators deserve the appropriate penalties. As the Supreme Court explained, Nupur Sharma made the incendiary statements that incited the murder. Nobody here has claimed that Sharma deserves to die for her rhetoric. Sharma knew her comments were provocative and much more than "quoting a hadith", which is why she issued her apology after she was suspe…
I am incapable of putting words into your mouth, you are just taking hilariously diametrically opposite positions in the same conversation.
She apologised after she was thrown under the bus by her party (in a cowardly manner), which got pushback on this issue from India's middle eastern partners. The Supreme Court Judge's comments on her are unprecedented and disgraceful. After having received severe criticism for those comments, the court silently provided her the same relief from prosecution that she had sought in the first place.
The next time you turn up to support islamic barbarism, at least own up to it.
Here is a link in response to all your outdated bogus links: https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-protects-nu...
You can do a text search on "Nupur Sharma" on livelaw as well.