An Indian startup is abusing DMCA to curb online dissent against their products

This has actually become a David vs Goliath situation. Pradeep Poonia has been at the forefront fighting this curbing of free speech and abuse of content moderation. They've started a subreddit(https://www.reddit.com/r/whiteHatSr) and numerous channels on YouTube to spread awareness but most things keep getting taken down.

The main issue is that these people are promoting coding for kids aged 6-12 to be a silver bullet that'll land them Rs. 150,000,000 salaries. Gullible parents are shelling out $1000 for very basic classes in scratch. And FOMO is being used to drive this.

Re: An Indian startup is abusing DMCA to curb online dissent against their products

#6

Post by glaucon » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 12:06 PM UTC

eznzt wrote: post #4

darkhorse13 wrote: post #2

Maybe include the name of the startup in the title?

I'm not Indian so "An Indian startup" says more to me than "WhiteHat Jr". Titles have a length limit so both things probably don't fit.

It's implied in the article that the DMCA behaviour began after WhiteHat Jr was acquired by Byju, described as an ed-tech giant.

Re: An Indian startup is abusing DMCA to curb online dissent against their products

#7

Post by glaucon » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 12:06 PM UTC

Always amusing to watch corporations utterly ignore the significance of the Streisand effect.

Re: An Indian startup is abusing DMCA to curb online dissent against their products

#8

Post by paulgb » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 12:08 PM UTC

Yet again with the DMCA, this comes down to the problem that there is basically no disincentive from abusing it to remove content you don't want out there. In 20+ years of its existence, there have been I think one (maybe two now?) cases where someone actually had to pay up damages after a false takedown. Meanwhile, it's an effective way to censor anyone as long as you're willing to bet they won't be able/inclined to put up an expensive legal defense.

Re: An Indian startup is abusing DMCA to curb online dissent against their products

#9

Post by glaucon » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 12:11 PM UTC

Difficult to be sure this is authentic but if so this is just the icing on the cake ...

https://old.reddit.com/r/whiteHatSr/comments/jghwoc/okay_so_...

Re: An Indian startup is abusing DMCA to curb online dissent against their products

#10

Post by modernlearner » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

eznzt wrote: post #4

darkhorse13 wrote: post #2

Maybe include the name of the startup in the title?

I'm not Indian so "An Indian startup" says more to me than "WhiteHat Jr". Titles have a length limit so both things probably don't fit.

They were acquired for $300m, could have put that in that title? https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/05/indias-byjus-acquires-whit...