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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

#161

Post by samantp »

tomrod wrote: post #55
jltsiren wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legitimacy of Indian courts is something only Indian citizens and people living in India can decide. Other people may have opinions, but they are more or less irrelevant. Anyway, the fundamental issue here is that domestic rulings often have international consequences. As a sovereign state, India obviously has the right to ban the Wikimedia Foundation, or any other foreign entity, from doing business within the c…

> As a sovereign state, India obviously has the right to ban the Wikimedia Foundation, or any other foreign entity, from doing business within the county I fundamentally disagree. The Indian State exists to serve its citizens, which are benefitted unambiguous by a free and unconstrained source like Wikipedia. The sovereignty of any state is subject to the benefit of its citizens, not the other way around. That doesn'…

Indian state can do what it feels correct. If Indian citizens disagree, then they can use the judicial system to compel the court to revert the decision in greater national interest (maybe ban that specific page being accessed from India). All, people, govt, ANI, Wikipedia, the editors of the page should feel that injustice is not being done to them.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#163

Post by chris_wot »

stogot wrote: post #158
dartharva wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the newer generations. I have multiple friends who are literally afraid of using ad blockers and sideloading apps on their Macs in fear of some imaginary boogeyman out to get them. And VPNs are exclusively the domain of criminals, apparently. There are a dominating amount of people who have turned into the caricature of the perfect CONSUMER. It is so frustrating.

To be fair, adblockers have an inordinate amount of access. We all trust uBlock’s creator but I’ve never met him. So it’s a realistic risk but we (hope) not a threat

If adblockers have a huge amount of access, then consider how much access ads themselves have.

uBlock Origin is open source.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#164

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

defrost wrote: post #156
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a wikipedia contributor (aroound 10-13 year old account) but not really serious, i have no kind words for wikipedia. The trolling and brigading is alive and well there. Thats the reason i stopped contributing. As my name would suggest, I live in a hotly contested part of the world and I have hundreds of pages in my watchlist. The amount of "bjp it cell" work they put in to portray their world view on Wikipedia is…

> bjp it cell I'm not Indian, I have no specific interest, I'm reading to pick up PoVs outside my own: BJP IT Cell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BJP_IT_Cell a department of the Indian political party BJP that manages social media campaigns for the party and its members. According to Washington Post, 150,000 social media workers spread posts aimed at exploiting the fears of India’s Hindu majority across a vast networ…

i.... am not dealing with it. i threw in the towel when it became unsustainable emotionally and physically.

edit: i had a relative who was borrowing a photographer friends camera and taking those news worthy shots for lulz and out of sheer boredom. next thing we know, he is on twitter doing some discussion and the was doxed, threatened with calling the cops and his past dug up just because he used a handle that had links to his afk name. it was terrible for him. and i would say it was all state sponsored.

he had to nuke a lot of his online presence and this was around 4years ago when he was around 20. you can imagine.

this was all thanks to that BJP it cell. these minions even say as much because they literally are the law. Paid for by the state so they do represent the power of the state in covering their asses and decimating their virtual opponents.

as i said, its hopeless

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#165

Post by CalRobert »

stogot wrote: post #158
dartharva wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the newer generations. I have multiple friends who are literally afraid of using ad blockers and sideloading apps on their Macs in fear of some imaginary boogeyman out to get them. And VPNs are exclusively the domain of criminals, apparently. There are a dominating amount of people who have turned into the caricature of the perfect CONSUMER. It is so frustrating.

To be fair, adblockers have an inordinate amount of access. We all trust uBlock’s creator but I’ve never met him. So it’s a realistic risk but we (hope) not a threat

The eff makes privacy badger if you trust that organisation more

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#166

Post by chris_wot »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #153
typewithrhythm wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As more normies got on the web more of it becomes about how to herd them. In the early days there was less gain from authoritarian actions, because you are more likely to be resisted by the users of any service. The current users don't know how to bypass restrictions, and are generally more numerous. Making authoritarian actions more valuable. Unfortunately this leads to previously useful sites declining.

As a wikipedia contributor (aroound 10-13 year old account) but not really serious, i have no kind words for wikipedia. The trolling and brigading is alive and well there. Thats the reason i stopped contributing. As my name would suggest, I live in a hotly contested part of the world and I have hundreds of pages in my watchlist. The amount of "bjp it cell" work they put in to portray their world view on Wikipedia is…

Wikipedia lost many good editors over a user named BrownHairedGirl. She single handedly removed extraordinary valuable editors and left a bunch of simps in her wake. The site has never recovered.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#167

Post by SllX »

iafisher wrote: post #65

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

This was enlightening. Thanks for posting the link because I never would have found this page.

Notably, Jimmy Wales also posted a statement on that page. The tl;dr seems to be they are intent on exhausting all legal options in India, but non-compliance in the short term is not an option if they wish to retain the right to appeal in India’s court system. I don’t know anything about India’s courts myself, but I copied his statement below:

> Comment from Jimbo Wales

> Hi everyone, I spoke to the team at the WMF yesterday afternoon in a quick meeting of the board. Although I've been around Internet legal issues for a long time, it's important to note that I am not a lawyer and that I am not here speaking for the WMF nor the board as a whole. I'm speaking personally as a Wikipedian. As you might expect, it's pretty limited as to what people are able to say at this point, and unwise to give too many details. However, I can tell you that I went into the call initially very skeptical of the idea of even temporarily taking down this page and I was persuaded very quickly by a single fact that changed my mind: if we did not comply with this order, we would lose the possibility to appeal and the consequences would be dire in terms of achieving our ultimate goals here. For those who are concerned that this is somehow the WMF giving in on the principles that we all hold so dear, don't worry. I heard from the WMF quite strong moral and legal support for doing the right thing here - and that includes going through the process in the right way. Prior to the call, I thought that the consequence would just be a block of Wikipedia by the Indian government. While that's never a good thing, it's always been something we're prepared to accept in order to stand for freedom of expression. We were blocked in Turkey for 3 years or so, and fought all the way to the Supreme Court and won. Nothing has chnaged about our principles. The difference in this case is that the short term legal requirements in order to not wreck the long term chance of victory made this a necessary step. My understanding is that the WMF has consulted with fellow traveler human rights and freedom of expression groups who have supported that we should do everything we can to win this battle for the long run, as opposed to petulantly refusing to do something today. I hope these words are reassuring to those who may have had some concerns!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:13, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#168

Post by anal_reactor »

lolinder wrote: post #17

On January 18 2012, Wikipedia went black to draw attention to SOPA [0], a bill they described as one that "could fatally damage the free and open Internet". Since then, we've seen a slow and steady march in the direction we all dreaded. Country after country has decided that they have the right to block content on the "free and open Internet", and business after business (even those who joined the SOPA protests) has…

Internet transitioned from a fun toy for nerds to a serious tool used by the masses, and needs to be regulated accordingly. Looking back, it was extremely naive to think that even though we regulate every single aspect of social life, the internet would remain the bastion of freedom just because it would be cool if it did. Think about all the rules we have about what can and what cannot be said not to break social cohesion on TV, or radio, or newspaper, or street sidewalk, or workplace, or family gathering - the internet is moving in the same direction. The anarchy was never meant to last.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#169

Post by ruthmarx »

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…

Organizations like Wikipedia need to make sure they have no satellite offices, and just completely independent affiliates with sharing agreements. That way when a silly court tries to ban something worldwide they can be rebuked.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#170

Post by ChoHag »

intended wrote: post #155
nradov wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not sure what cases you are referring to, but “Hurt feelings” in India have caused multiple riots, resulting in utter carnage, spilling over to years, decades longs strings of terrorism and reprisals against minorities. Feelings are the reason people get up to live in the morning. I get why we used to make that statement. In a way it’s about rationality mattering, and how feelings being hurt are different from actual…

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