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Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

thewire.in

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Re: Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

#221

Post by hesarenu »

aravindet wrote: post #212
hesarenu wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article. Once guy posted a old cremation pic as covid cremation happening now. Another posted a pic about a different city as happening in guj(since modis from guj). They are by definition disinformation. Unless you have a source that includes other tweets which are accurate. For Wire claims it be true while OP claims its false. Obviously OP is more free to diss on that. If the situation was reversed…

I read the post, but it looks like you did not understand my comment. The OP India article reproduces a small subset of the censored tweets that is disinformation. The government action here is not too problematic. The Wire article, and the Medianama article, reproduces a different subset of blocked tweets. Those are certainly NOT disinformation, were made by very prominent individuals (elected MPs and MLAs) and were…

It saw Vindo Kapri name in Medianama article. That is the who posted a old picture as what is hapenning now.

were made by very prominent individuals - does not mean its true. That too coming from elected members, heh even journalist are tweeting incorrect information. Without checking the tweets we cannot come to any conclusion.

Re: Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

#222

Post by mohanmcgeek »

0xmohit wrote: post #66

The government believes that hiding data is the answer to the problem. > “It’s a complete massacre of data,” said Bhramar Mukherjee, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who has been following India closely. “From all the modeling we’ve done, we believe the true number of deaths is two to five times what is being reported.” [0] A related comment [1] on censorship in India. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/…

Or maybe their model is wrong.

To say that reality is wrong when the reality doesn't match somebody's model is peak absurdity

Re: Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

#223

Post by mohanmcgeek »

colinmhayes wrote: post #152
villgax wrote: post #56

It is not the governments duty to maintain an image, citizens or foreign parties are always free to criticise or praise any government. If the government feels something is factually wrong then it can present statements from its press agency but not suppress criticism. This is the difference between an authoritative regime & a democracy. Whenever we are done with dealing with the pandemic who ever is responsible for…

The vast majority of Indians approve of Modi's premiership. Everyone is aware that it's an authoritarian regime, they don't mind. He has complete control over the courts, so I don't see how a trial could accomplish anything other than further cement his regime.

Ah "the government that I don't like is authoritarian" logic.

This government originally asked everyone to impose self lockdowns before real lockdowns became necessary. Surely what an authoritarian government would do.

Re: Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

#224

Post by ishanjain28 »

aravindet wrote: post #18
galtwho wrote: post #3

Few of the tweets removed are detailed here https://www.opindia.com/2021/04/covid-pandemic-hoax-to-shari... Ps : the usual propaganda site or govt mouthpiece claims are bound to come out now. Read the article and make up your mind

Opindia is a well-known source of right-wing disinformation. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpIndia > OpIndia is an Indian right-wing news portal founded in 2014 by Rahul Raj and Kumar Kamal. The website has published fake news and anti-Muslim commentary on multiple occasions, including a 2020 incident in which it falsely claimed that a Hindu boy was sacrificed in a Bihar mosque. > OpIndia is dedicated to critici…

HN Crowd is so butthurt that when you correctly point out how opindia is a source of right wing disinformation, People feel that they have to down vote you for that.

Re: Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

#225

Post by nirav72 »

dTal wrote: post #203
forks34 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The U.S. 300 million citizen don’t have the monopoly on morals when 1 billion Indians have a different idea about them. So don’t be pretentious, adapt to local laws and let people figure out their own ideas about life. Maybe, just maybe, the U.S. has the wrong laws.

We are talking about freedom of speech here, not food regulations. Once it goes away, it doesn't come back. Where is the line between "culture war" and "moral imperative"? How far does moral relativism go? A country is gradually turning fascist - will you continue your hands-off policy even as they commit genocide? (A million Uighurs say yes unfortunately). Countries aren't wild animals, to be observed Attenborough-l…

A significant part of the world doesn't see what's good for you is good for them.

Re: Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

#226

Post by root_axis »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #132
root_axis wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your point. Murdering children is an unequicoval act of heinous evil, deleting posts from your website is a shady business decision.

Where do you draw the line? Lots of people would say that heavily silencing government criticism is evil. Not heinous evil, but can't we be mad at boring evil?

I didn't say not to be mad at anything, it just seems absurd to compare murdering innocents to twitter hiding tweets in one region.

Re: Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

#227

Post by fitzie »

forks34 wrote: post #163
ButtSpark69 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“For profit US corporation fighting foreign government atrocities” I think that's a bit of an unfair phrasing. How about "Good people upholding their morals instead of dropping them at the door when they go to work" I really am not a fan of how far we've taken the general image that 'business is business' and a bunch of regular morals are OK to toss out. We should preserve the social stigma we hold against people equ…

No. The U.S. 300 million citizen don’t have the monopoly on morals when 1 billion Indians have a different idea about them. So don’t be pretentious, adapt to local laws and let people figure out their own ideas about life. Maybe, just maybe, the U.S. has the wrong laws.

I see rights being of intrinsic value how much a country, both its culture and regulators, protect them can be directly scored. you can argue what exactly those rights should be, and you can argue that a society can still be happy and productive without those rights, but you cannot argue that people have their rights when the gov't and their proxies in the business world suppresses them.

all that being said, I suspect there is less policing of speech on twitter in India then what twitter does to discourse in the states.

Re: Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

#228

Post by dTal »

nirav72 wrote: post #225
dTal wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about freedom of speech here, not food regulations. Once it goes away, it doesn't come back. Where is the line between "culture war" and "moral imperative"? How far does moral relativism go? A country is gradually turning fascist - will you continue your hands-off policy even as they commit genocide? (A million Uighurs say yes unfortunately). Countries aren't wild animals, to be observed Attenborough-l…

A significant part of the world doesn't see what's good for you is good for them.

If they're forbidden from talking, how would we even know?

Indians aren't an alien hive-mind, they're regular people like you and me, and until someone proves otherwise I'm going to assume they don't like being oppressed.

Reality check - Twitter is censoring tweets critical of the government, at government request. Am I really supposed to believe that this government represents the people? Because it sounds less like "cultural differences" and more like bog standard authoritarianism.

Re: Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

#229

Post by dTal »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #158
mrtksn wrote: post #49

The expectation that a corporation operating in India will not obey Indian laws but American ones is appalling. EU, Canada, China, Turkey or North Korea - if you want to do business there you have to respect their laws. “For profit US corporation fighting foreign government atrocities” is a deeply flawed idea. If Indians believe that they need wider free speech rights or other protections, they need to change their p…

I expect Twitter to do exactly the same thing they would do if the US authorities were issuing a legally questionable censorship order. Fight it in the courts. Fight it in the public arena. Indian Twitter users and Indian civil society should have just the same expectation of receiving support from Twitter's lawyers as U.S users and U.S citizens get. That's what it means to be a global corporation. >If Indians believ…

I wish I could upvote this twice. The double standard is appalling.

Re: Twitter is blocking tweets that criticize the Indian government

#230

Post by sinyug »

fakedang wrote: post #177
mrtksn wrote: post #49

The expectation that a corporation operating in India will not obey Indian laws but American ones is appalling. EU, Canada, China, Turkey or North Korea - if you want to do business there you have to respect their laws. “For profit US corporation fighting foreign government atrocities” is a deeply flawed idea. If Indians believe that they need wider free speech rights or other protections, they need to change their p…

Uh, hello? By law India is a democracy, where it has always been OK to criticize the government - at least up until 2014, when the current government began abusing the British Era sedition laws. I think every Indian on this site is old enough to remember who the protests against the Delhi Rape Crisis and the government response were effectively coordinated on Twitter and Facebook. Twitter wouldn't have been breaking…

> India is a democracy, where it has always been OK to criticize the government - at least up until 2014,

1. 1975-77: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_(India)

2. 2011: https://www.telegraphindia.com/7-days/when-net-is-gross/cid/...

3. 2008: https://www.theregister.com/2008/05/19/google_india_gandhi/

No Indian politician or government _likes_ criticism. Modi is almost unique in the staggering amount of abuse and vitriol that has been directed towards him over the last twenty years. If it had been any one else, they would probably have lost it by now.

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