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Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

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Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#111

Post by mise_en_place »

zelse wrote: post #40
praveen9920 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You read the statements right. Indian judges tend to give such statements, sometimes even worse. For example, recently one judge in unrelated case gave a statement that “criminalising marital rape is bit harsh”. The main problem in this case is that Wikimedia hasn’t complied YET with high court orders of revealing people who did the edits. ANI just went ahead and filed contempt of court case before Wiki legal tea…

This. They're following the Orban-Erdogan-Harper (International Democratic Union) playbook - purge the judiciary of independent judges, control the news media, and open culture-war fronts to distract and sap the strength of opposition while riling up your base. The situation in the world's largest democracy is a very dire one.

Start your own Wikipedia.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#112

Post by lolinder »

ziofill wrote: post #99
Rury wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just politics... Replace "open internet" with "land" and imagine countries (ie people) are attempting to block others access to some resource. It was naive to assume that the internet wouldn't adhere the nature of our reality.

That’s not a fair comparison: land is finite in a way that the open internet isn’t.

Yep. It's hard for us to un-learn the instincts taught by millions of years of evolution. We see scarcity in everything, even where there is none.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#114

Post by OutOfHere »

tomrod wrote: post #85
OutOfHere wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way in which this could be possible, if not via VPNs, is via everyone have direct satellite internet, which is a bit difficult without good line of sight. It would also require an independent means of payment like layer II of bitcoin. The better answer would be one where the ISPs don't have any ability to block websites. Web3 technologies could make it possible.

That's not quite accurate. E2EE, mesh networks, and similar are also available alternative technologies. Satellites are still corporate-driven (necessarily) or government driven and thus can be focal points to block.

Mesh networks can be good for spreading the reach of satellite networks.

Satellite networks can be managed by foreign corporations that can in theory receive payment via a cryptocurrency without control of the local government.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#115

Post by thimabi »

I’d like to clear up some misconceptions about jurisdiction going on in this thread, purely from the perspective of international law.

As a matter of sovereignty, a state can exercise judicial jurisdiction over its territory, over its nationals, over national security concerns and over the most grave crimes.

A state’s jurisdiction can apply even to foreign people/companies who have no presence in said state at all. What the state’s courts can’t do is enforce their decisions abroad.

I know nothing about Indian law, but I know it has the right to set its own judicial jurisdiction. Accordingly, it can surely grant courts the power to order worldwide content bans. The real questions at stake in this case are:

1) does Wikipedia have any presence in India, so that Indian courts can compel it to follow their orders?

2) which countries where Wikipedia operates are able to receive requests from Indian courts and take enforcement action based on them?

It might not be fair, or right, but that’s the way it is. Thankfully, the obstacles to enforcing absurd orders abroad are usually high enough that they discourage said orders, or render them ineffective.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#116

Post by tomrod »

thimabi wrote: post #115

I’d like to clear up some misconceptions about jurisdiction going on in this thread, purely from the perspective of international law. As a matter of sovereignty, a state can exercise judicial jurisdiction over its territory, over its nationals, over national security concerns and over the most grave crimes. A state’s jurisdiction can apply even to foreign people/companies who have no presence in said state at all. W…

It's not the way it is, unless people accept it as such.

Sorry, but VPNs exist, Wikipedia is inherently clonable and downloadable. Silicon rock beats Indian paper courts, any way you slice it, unless Wikipedia chooses to back down.

They shouldn't.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#117

Post by albert_e »

mrlongroots wrote: post #75
jprete wrote: post #4

This article might be more informative although I can't say how accurate it is: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/wikipedia-suspends-ac...

Some context that is essentially personal opinion, take it for what it's worth: It's not that ANI is an absolutely non-partisan and an objective outlet. They do lean pro-government, but the yardstick being applied here is not consistent at all. No Indian news outlet is great by that yardstick, but one is being called an absolute sham, and those who consistently take anti-establishment stances, often without merit, ba…

> those who consistently take anti-establishment stances, often without merit, barely get a footnote

"anti-establishment" as in holding the government accountable and asking questions of them -- irrespective of which party is in power?

isn't that the job of news media?

if they are doing it consistently - good on them.

why does it need a footnote or disclaimer?

I am sure there is enough content to file under a "Controversies and Crticism" section on the page of every anti-establishment media house. Volunteers are free to add.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#118

Post by rembicilious »

ivewonyoung wrote: post #90
driverdan wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what would be an effective countermeasure against stuff like this. You withdraw all operations from within that country and you don't comply.

Doesn't work, see Brazil vs X. Censorship friendly competitors BlueSky and Threads swooped in and took away X's users and revenue. BlueSky couldn't stop boasting how many users it got from the fiasco, and their posts were highly upvoted on HN and celebrated.

There’s plenty of hate for X on HN and abroad. I don’t think the crowd on HN is going to have the same reaction to Wikimedia taking a hardline stance against censorship.

Blocking the world’s foremost encyclopaedia vs blocking an extremely popular gossip app.

Sadly, an Indian competitor would appear, probably by ripping off Wikimedia’s own content.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#119

Post by dh77l »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #42

I wonder what would be an effective countermeasure against stuff like this. Maybe we need a write-only global database and somehow separate the hosting/publisher from the organization that certifies it. Imagine if they simply sign an archive which is distributed over IPFS or some other distributed system. It would become impossible to take down content and as such impossible to comply with any blocking orders. They c…

Decentralize.

All centralized systems have this weakness.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#120

Post by Barrin92 »

ivewonyoung wrote: post #90
driverdan wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what would be an effective countermeasure against stuff like this. You withdraw all operations from within that country and you don't comply.

Doesn't work, see Brazil vs X. Censorship friendly competitors BlueSky and Threads swooped in and took away X's users and revenue. BlueSky couldn't stop boasting how many users it got from the fiasco, and their posts were highly upvoted on HN and celebrated.

Twitter is a private profit seeking company, Wikipedia is a non-profit with the overwhelming majority of its funding coming from the US and EU[1]. Additional users cost them money, they don't bring any so it is in fact baffling that they would comply with something like this.

[1]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2020-21_Report#/...

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