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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

#131

Post by mrlongroots »

albert_e wrote: post #117
mrlongroots wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "Contro…

> "anti-establishment" as in holding the government accountable

I'm all for holding the government accountable, but the apt metaphor for some of the cited outlets would be that they protest for a road where the government hasn't built one, and protest for the tree where they chopped one to build a road.

> Volunteers are free to add.

I tried addressing this in my initial response. I have nothing more to add.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#133

Post by joveian »

iafisher wrote: post #65

On-wiki discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#T...

Thanks, this article quoted in that discussion provides helpful background (written about a different case but might apply):

https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2020/05/16/a-sullivan-fo...

"Quashing in a criminal defamation case is a difficult prospect. This is because – to simplify – under Section 499 of the IPC, a prima facie offence of defamation is made out with the existence of a defamatory imputation, which has been made with the intention or knowledge that it will cause harm. This is, evidently, a very low threshold. Section 499 also contains a set of exceptions to the rule (such as statements that are true and in the public interest, statements made in good faith about public questions, and so on) – but here’s the rub: these exceptions only kick in at the stage of trial, by which time the legal process has (in all likelihood) dragged on for years. What we essentially have, therefore, is one of those situations where the cost of censorship is low (instituting prima facie credible criminal proceedings), but the cost of speech is high (a tedious, time-consuming, and expensive trial, with the possibility of imprisonment). Long-standing readers will recall that this structure of criminal defamation law – and the chilling effect that it causes – was part of the unsuccessful 2016 challenge to the constitutionality of Section 499."

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#134

Post by small_scombrus »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #88
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…

Unrelated: >> "In my opinion, ANI and many media houses in India are partially controlled by incumbent party ( BJP ) either by incentives or manipulation, you can read about Income tax raid on BBC and some other media outlets for understanding their methods." By the Indian court standards, HN would be compelled to globally take down this topic.

In theory that the quote starts with "In my opinion" should protect HN in this scenario.

Wikipedia almost exclusively words things as if they are know facts (because they usually are), which means they lose the safety of it being an opinion

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#136

Post by dartharva »

t2o3423423243 wrote: post #113

[flagged]

Your claims, even taken on face value (which would be ridiculous), aren't enough to justify threatening a public-service knowledge website with bans in modern society, which is today defined by Western values (for better or worse). And Western values have this peculiarity where free speech is sacred and any infringement on it is sacrilege.

But most of Asia is a newcomer to the concept and so doesn't see a problem in censorship where it sees fit. On a side note, I can't recall a single point in time throughout its several millennia of history when South Asia ever featured 1A-levels of free speech. Such a lack in society is downright disgusting for anyone raised in Western influence.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#137

Post by SoftTalker »

nradov wrote: post #125
ants_everywhere wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it's a pretty fundamental tenet of liberty that you have the freedom to do things only to the extent that you don't harm others. And it's a simple consequence of scaling that the more massively you scale a communication system like the internet the more pathways there are for person A to harm person B. So naturally there end up being more cases evaluating harm that involve the internet. Some of those cases wil…

Most of these cases don't involve any actual harm beyond hurt feelings, so that's largely a red herring.

These days, causing hurt feelings is called violence by many people. Or sometimes, saying nothing at all is.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#138

Post by RockyMcNuts »

mtnGoat wrote: post #127

The fact they pulled it means I will no longer be donating. I can’t support orgs that won’t go the distance to protect a free and open internet when that’s what they argue for.

they didn't pull it

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_News_International

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#139

Post by teractiveodular »

EasyMark wrote: post #95

I can understand shutting it down to Indian IP ranges, but the whole world? I think they should have stood up to the Indian court and took wikipedia offline for India, otherwise soon there will be avalanche of demands to take down anything negative about modi, trump, xi, and putin.

Taking Wikipedia down for India would probably be a victory as far as the BJP is concerned.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#140

Post by smsm42 »

fireflash38 wrote: post #34
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have governments become more authoritarian? It's not just governments. It's people that support grandiose efforts against "misinformation", "disinformation" and "malinformation". > Or has our energy for resistance just been slowly whittled away? People don't have energy to hear wrong and dangerous opinions anymore. Everything dangerous to the current order should be banned, otherwise fascism is inevitable.

Do you think that there's a link between an extreme proliferation of misinformation and people wanting to control it?

Yes. People who want to control the information want to distribute misinformation freely and be guaranteed nobody can contest them. That's the link. The censors always will be the liars, because once you can control who can say what, it is impossible to resist the temptation to lie a little bit for a good cause. And then a little bit more. We have seen it happen many, many times.
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