India cuts internet around New Delhi as protesting farmers clash with police • Hacker News Board

Re: India cuts internet around New Delhi as protesting farmers clash with police

#11

Post by chanmad29 » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #2

"... clash with police" almost always means "are viciously attacked by police".

I am not pro-violence from any party involved, but I know that it is not always one sided, at least in India. We tend to back the David taking on the government Goliath a bit too vociferously.

Re: India cuts internet around New Delhi as protesting farmers clash with police

#12

Post by 1cvmask » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

What do we do about the Internet companies who are also censorship platforms. Should India censor the censorers as well?

The authoritarian government of English Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to cut off the Blackbery messenger service during the London riots/protests.

https://www.prweek.com/article/1084907/david-cameron-comes-f...

The French government of authoritarian Macron (the aspirational dictator):

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/13/tech/french-hate-speech-s...

Google (Youtube) censoring an academic censorship conference:

http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/2021/02/04/not-the-onion-aca...

So we should have a discussion on authoritarian companies like we do on authoritarian governments like the UK and France and Germany where there is no free speech.

And lets not forget the authoritarian (under both Obama and Trump) US and UK governments in torturing the news publisher Julian Assange.

Re: India cuts internet around New Delhi as protesting farmers clash with police

#13

Post by vondur » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #8

ncmncm wrote: post #2

"... clash with police" almost always means "are viciously attacked by police".

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/delhi-police-on-cops-photo-i... this looks like jousting to me, against unarmed civilians no less

According to the linked article an Officer was attacked with a sword and seriously injured. These officers on their own accord came up with the armor and weapons, and it was later confiscated from them.

Re: India cuts internet around New Delhi as protesting farmers clash with police

#14

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

meibo wrote: post #6

Since authoritarian governments noticed that this is something they can actually do, it seems as if it's becoming more and more popular. Will be interesting to see when this first happens in an European or American country.

It probably wouldn't happen (or at least shouldn't if they aren't complete morons) for the most amoral reason - how much it would cost.

The damage is in opportunity costs to businesses and after it happens the disruption causes them to lose/fail contracts and either go out of business or leave and flip the country on harsh terms as they are rightfully pissed at the large scale losses they took from them and to paraphrase George Harrison on Manilla "would only return to drop a bomb on the country." America and Europe would have more to lose not that it has stopped the latter before (WWI).

The wrinkles in such optimism are "Great Firewall" style more targetted systems and their own market clout.

A small scale example was pulled in America already almost a decade ago by BART pulling a Mubarak that disturbingly left open the option even as they rightfully rebuked them for breaking FCC law.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/barts-cell-phone-shutd...