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Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

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Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#51

Post by jaldhar »

jutrewag wrote: post #20
imperio59 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes no sense. Democracy is not going to die because people spread false information. Newspapers have had the monopoly on spreading whatever information they deemed correct (whether it turned out to be or not) for decades and have now lost that and they are pissed. This is why there is a rise in apparent outcry that all of a sudden anyone and everyone can spread their message broadly where only a handful of org…

Democracy will definitely die if you spread false information because everyone is making decisions based on falsehoods.

How do you know they aren’t making decisions based on falsehood right now? You have to get information out there and only then can you evaluate whether it is true or false (or practical or inconvenient which is arguably more important in politics.). All democracy means is that we trust the citizens to evaluate truth for themselves. Not everyone believes this. India, for instance, has from its founding has taken the paternalistic position that the wise philosopher princes of New Delhi know better than you or me. I don’t agree but most people over there don’t seem to mind. (And I bet 90% of the ones who claim to be upset about it are only upset because it is the wrong set of philosopher princes.) This unfortunately is also democracy. So what are you going to do?

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#52

Post by vorpalhex »

standardUser wrote: post #37
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten years ago I would have agreed. Today? I'm not sure you're right about which is the greater threat. Yes, state censorship can be abused. But promoting misinformation is a known threat to Democracy today . Right now. I'm not sure what the real answer should be. If "the market" manages to get the propaganda farms' misinformation under control, then great. If they don't , the only answer I can see is for government t…

> Yes, state censorship can be abused. Correction, state censorship will be abused. What happens when India elects their version of Trump? Suddenly, what might seem like half-decent system under better leadership becomes a weapon to completely obliterate the news media and target individuals to pursue personal vendettas. EDIT: If you don't like my comparison, choose any other politician who has documented history of…

Their current leader, Modi, is extremely divisive and has been accused of very actively fanning the long-running ethnic/religious conflict in the country. The BBC documentary on him is not unbiased but still very revealing.

So you should view this action using the same lens you would as any other divisive leader, eg Trump.

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#53

Post by Xelbair »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #48
demindiro wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it fascinating that people defend censoring "misinformation" because people (supposedly) cannot discern it from "real" information. If we cannot trust the judgement of the common folk, why have a democracy at all?

I mean, have you seen the common folk?

and what makes you think you are better than them?

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#54

Post by drdeca »

jutrewag wrote: post #42
lockhouse wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Censorship: the action of preventing part or the whole of a book, film, work of art, document, or other kind of communication from being seen or made available to the public, because it is considered to be offensive or harmful , or because it contains information that someone wishes to keep secret, often for political reasons https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/censorsh...

Then banning bomb making is censorship but there’s no opposition to that.

Banning instructions on how to make bombs would be censorship.

Banning the making of bombs is not censorship.

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#55

Post by honkler »

throwaway_9120 wrote: post #50
mrcheesebreeze wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

lol what? There have been plenty of Hindutva terror incidents, one as recent as the day before yesterday, when 3 men killed a couple of undertrials in front of live camera and then went on to scream the terror warcry of "Jai Sree Ram".

> If this is “fascism” as you say, majority of the Indians are happy living under it.

Do you have a sense of irony? Majority is always happy under fascism. It is the minority who matters in that case.

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#56

Post by cubefox »

mrcheesebreeze wrote: post #23
shasts wrote: post #17

Interesting, because Indian Government recently jailed an independent fact checker for a tweet he made 4 years ago. This new body seems to be a tool to suppress dissent and promote the fake news machinery Government and the ruling party is notorious for. https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/alt-news-pratik-sinha-mohamma...

[flagged]

> They constantly lie to the indian people to promote a possible genocide against the muslim minority.

What evidence do you have for that?

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#57

Post by honkler »

cubefox wrote: post #56
mrcheesebreeze wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> They constantly lie to the indian people to promote a possible genocide against the muslim minority. What evidence do you have for that?

That India is on the highest level alert as per GenocideWatch, and plenty other institutions.

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#58

Post by gus_massa »

thewanderer1983 wrote: post #28
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten years ago I would have agreed. Today? I'm not sure you're right about which is the greater threat. Yes, state censorship can be abused. But promoting misinformation is a known threat to Democracy today . Right now. I'm not sure what the real answer should be. If "the market" manages to get the propaganda farms' misinformation under control, then great. If they don't , the only answer I can see is for government t…

>Yes, state censorship can be abused. But promoting misinformation is a known threat to Democracy today. Right now. State Censorship is being abused today right now. State Censorship is also a threat to Democracy. It's giving the most powerful institutions the tools to attack Democracy. Who gets to decide what is mis/mal/dis information? The government? We as human beings are constantly weighing up information and ev…

I agree with mst of your post, but there is no scientific truths, just a method to search knowledge that suck less.

Also, there are a lot of good informed guess by scientifics that are reported as Scientific truths. Last month there was a new study that showed that it's good to give peanut butter to children to avoid allergy later, that is the oposite of the standard recommendation during the last decade(s).

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#59

Post by shasts »

throwaway_9120 wrote: post #32
shasts wrote: post #17

Interesting, because Indian Government recently jailed an independent fact checker for a tweet he made 4 years ago. This new body seems to be a tool to suppress dissent and promote the fake news machinery Government and the ruling party is notorious for. https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/alt-news-pratik-sinha-mohamma...

[flagged]

You got sources for this claim? If he has done anything wrong, why is he not in jail for that?

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#60

Post by gus_massa »

autoexec wrote: post #36
johndhi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the government well suited to declare what it and isn't misinformation though? Shouldn't we farm that out to a third party?

> Why is the government well suited to declare what it and isn't misinformation though? Presumably because much of the lies and disinformation going around involves them to start with. When some nutjob starts posting about something like millions of American citizens being locked up in FEMA camps, or claiming that a proposed healthcare bill calls for the formation of a government death panel any respectable fact chec…

What about weapons of mass destruction?
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