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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

#151
When X came out with allegations about interfere from govt agencies HN crowd was mocking them nothing burger etc

Now they are concerned about freedom of speech

If can't defend freedom of speech regardless of your political opinion then you don't deserve freedom of speech

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#152
post #116

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.

For reasons nobody understands, paper beats rock.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#153

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…

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 astounding.

Ithought naively for a few years I could fight them but I simply couldnt.

They just March across pages, make edits with their clear intentions and make you the enemy.

I remember a time when I had a particular "pronoun" ish word on certain pages and that was swiftly being edited out as soon as I changed it.

It became hopeless.

Besides, they just go "Well since this is "Indian" page, we are responsible to maintaing it in our image".

I dont really use Wikipedia these days because of their hate.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#154

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…

It’s the same on Reddit. I wouldn’t confirm if it costs of ‘teams’, since it could also include loosely organized organic behavior.

Reddit also has similar turfing efforts for Sino related news and content.

The only time this ever gets over turned, is when some news article gets traction during EU/US consumption hours, and gains its own following.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#155
post #125

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.

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 hurt.

In the context of this conversation, I’ll argue its an un-pragmatic dismissal of a pertinent fact.

I’ll make this argument: “At the scales we are talking, and across the breath of human cultures, feelings end up mattering.”

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#156

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…

> 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 network of WhatsApp groups.

    BJP orchestrates online campaigns through its social media cell to intimidate perceived government critics. Sadhavi Khosla, a BJP cyber-volunteer in the BJP IT Cell said that the organisation disseminated misogyny, Islamophobia and hatred.
That's a hell of a propaganda machine you're dealing with there.

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments have ways of making themselves difficult to ignore.

Usually the worst that happens for services in foreign countries is that they get blocked, and wikipedia will survive not being accessible in India.

Wikimedia India is an independent nonprofit, with executives in India who could be held in contempt by the Indian courts.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#158

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.

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

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#159
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments have ways of making themselves difficult to ignore.

Do they? What is the administrative division of governance in Liechtenstein? I don't know, and you might, but we mostly live blissfully unaware in the undergirding bueracracy that surrounds us. And if Liechtenstein calls for my head for saying that I know nothing about them, fantastic. I'll still never hear about it. The have no power where I am. But a government threatens an internationally beloved and fundamental i…

A market with billions of users is a bit different than Liechtenstein

Re: Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court

#160
post #15

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_News_International covers the lawsuit as well. "In July 2024, ANI filed a lawsuit against Wikimedia Foundation in the Delhi High Court — claiming to have been defamed in its article on Wikipedia — and sought ₹2 crore (US$240,000) in damages.[16][17][18] On 5 September, the Court threatened to hold Wikimedia guilty of contempt for failing to disclose information about the editors…

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…

Some illustrative examples:

- Judge Mahesh Sharma told TV channels that "the peahen gets pregnant" only by "swallowing the tears of the peacock".

- The Delhi High Court granted anticipatory bail to a rape accused government accused after the survivor’s mother expressed that she has no objection to the same.

- In a bizarre order, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court granted bail to a man accused of raping and impregnating a 17-year-old girl under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act on a condition that he marries he after she attains the majority age of 18.(Tamil Nadu)

- Granting pre arrest bail to a rape accused, Karnataka High Court took sexual violence jurisprudence back by decades.The court speculated why the complainant did not approach the court earlier when the accused was allegedly asking her for sexual favours. The court also questioned why the complainant went to her office late night and did not object to consumption of alcohol. The court said that the complainant’s explanation that she fell asleep after the alleged crime is “unbecoming of a woman; that is not the way our women react when they are ravished”.

Just memorizing law to a great extent doesn't elevate judges above societal prejudices and backwardness.

[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-40116001

[1]: https://sabrangindia.in/article/delhi-hc-grants-pre-arrest-b....

[2]: https://sabrangindia.in/madras-hc-grants-pocso-accused-bail-....

[3]: https://sabrangindia.in/article/falling-asleep-after-being-r...

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