27 ms·

It's really too bad that the two rising tech countries - China and India - have such a third-world approach to censorship on the Internet. You would think they

It's really too bad that the two rising tech countries - China and India - have such a third-world approach to censorship on the Internet. You would think they would want to mimic the US's successful formula in hopes of building their presence as a tech powerhouse, but in this area they don't seem to be doing that.

AWildC182 7y ago
Just because it's successful in the US doesn't stop politicians from trying to enact the same measures here as well. We need to continue to fight back at every turn such that we don't go down the same path.
_jal 7y ago
> mimic the US's successful formula You mean the one involving outsourcing IP law enforcement to private cartels amid increasing calls to remove 230 protections from public-facing internet companies?
- alunchbox 7y ago
  Can you elaborate on this a bit more? I'm intrigued yet confused from your comment.
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    People that don't like it when freedom of association is exercised by website owners want to chip away at safe harbor provisions such that all of the internet is turned into a virtual Disneyland where any objectionable content is banned out of fear of criminal liability for hosting it.
- duxup 7y ago
  I feel like anytime someone mentions "man it works in this place" someone has a specific gripe about a case where it doesn't work. Yes some things need a lot of work, but it's hardly "cut off everyone from the internet" level... not even close.
duxup 7y ago
Yeah I would hope so. But it takes strong laws, a strong / independent judiciary... and politicians who want to maintain the rule of law regardless of how convenient it is for them personally. Sadly it's not just a thing you "have" and keep. India and China don't have those things.
screye 7y ago
We have yet to see how the US reacts when a massive section of it wants to secede. India and China both face a significantly more difficult geopolitical reality than the USA. Some of the world's most westernized and developed countries (Spain, Israel) are starting to use violence and suppressive tactics now that they are faced with even the smallest amount of secessionist unrest. Kashmir is one of the most militarized border zones alongside the West Bank. I fully agree that there might be better and less suppressive methods that the Govt. can use to deal with the Kashmir issue, but to act as though a USA like policy would work in countries with very different ground realities is being willfully arrogant. At the risk of sounding too cold, if the choice was between death of a few million people (which India has a long history of) and complete destruction of communication frameworks. I would choose that latter. Now the big problem with what the Indian Govt. is doing, is that this has been going on for almost a year and they are making no efforts to bring Kashmir back to "normalcy". Such draconian policies should only come into place for very short durations with measures for removal, the second unrest goes below a certain point.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  We have yet to see how the US reacts when a massive section of it wants to secede. We have? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War
  - gbear605 7y ago
    The context was specifically for consumer encryption technologies, which wasn’t an issue during the Civil War.
    - loeg 7y ago
      That really is not clear from the statement: "We have yet to see how the US reacts when a massive section of it wants to secede," which is obviously false.
      - sykick 7y ago
naravara 7y ago
>to mimic the US's successful formula The American formula allows foreign agents to conduct elaborate, micro-targeted psyops campaigns to manipulate our elections; enables a dramatic resurgence in previously fading extremist ideologies; and facilitates one of the largest expansions of economic and regional inequality in American history? I don't know if we can really assert we have this figured out. These are all especially areas of concern for governments like India and China, where fear of balkanization, civil war, and severe communitarian violence are either contemporary problems or have been fairly recently in their political histories.
SpaceManNabs 7y ago
"have such a third-world approach to censorship on the Internet" Let's not associate the third-world with authoritarian or fascist. In addition, the term itself is outdated.
aniketpant 7y ago
Not that I disagree with what you're saying but can you please clarify what you mean by "third-world approach"? It seems to imply some sort of inferiority compared to "first-world".
xkemp 7y ago
Please don't use "third-world" as a generic insult for countries. Even the wrong-yet-common definition of "poor" doesn't fit here, because internet censorship isn't a function of wealth: Saudi Arabia is rather rich yet unfree. Russia and China area also not "third world". Russia, a leading internet censor, actually happens to be the (current version of) a country that used to be the definition of either "first" or "second" world.

AWildC182 7y ago

Just because it's successful in the US doesn't stop politicians from trying to enact the same measures here as well. We need to continue to fight back at every turn such that we don't go down the same path.

_jal 7y ago

> mimic the US's successful formula You mean the one involving outsourcing IP law enforcement to private cartels amid increasing calls to remove 230 protections from public-facing internet companies?

alunchbox 7y ago
Can you elaborate on this a bit more? I'm intrigued yet confused from your comment.
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  People that don't like it when freedom of association is exercised by website owners want to chip away at safe harbor provisions such that all of the internet is turned into a virtual Disneyland where any objectionable content is banned out of fear of criminal liability for hosting it.
duxup 7y ago
I feel like anytime someone mentions "man it works in this place" someone has a specific gripe about a case where it doesn't work. Yes some things need a lot of work, but it's hardly "cut off everyone from the internet" level... not even close.

duxup 7y ago

Yeah I would hope so. But it takes strong laws, a strong / independent judiciary... and politicians who want to maintain the rule of law regardless of how convenient it is for them personally. Sadly it's not just a thing you "have" and keep. India and China don't have those things.

screye 7y ago

We have yet to see how the US reacts when a massive section of it wants to secede. India and China both face a significantly more difficult geopolitical reality than the USA. Some of the world's most westernized and developed countries (Spain, Israel) are starting to use violence and suppressive tactics now that they are faced with even the smallest amount of secessionist unrest. Kashmir is one of the most militarized border zones alongside the West Bank. I fully agree that there might be better and less suppressive methods that the Govt. can use to deal with the Kashmir issue, but to act as though a USA like policy would work in countries with very different ground realities is being willfully arrogant. At the risk of sounding too cold, if the choice was between death of a few million people (which India has a long history of) and complete destruction of communication frameworks. I would choose that latter. Now the big problem with what the Indian Govt. is doing, is that this has been going on for almost a year and they are making no efforts to bring Kashmir back to "normalcy". Such draconian policies should only come into place for very short durations with measures for removal, the second unrest goes below a certain point.

reaperducer 7y ago
We have yet to see how the US reacts when a massive section of it wants to secede. We have? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War
- gbear605 7y ago
  The context was specifically for consumer encryption technologies, which wasn’t an issue during the Civil War.
  - loeg 7y ago
    That really is not clear from the statement: "We have yet to see how the US reacts when a massive section of it wants to secede," which is obviously false.
    - sykick 7y ago

naravara 7y ago

>to mimic the US's successful formula The American formula allows foreign agents to conduct elaborate, micro-targeted psyops campaigns to manipulate our elections; enables a dramatic resurgence in previously fading extremist ideologies; and facilitates one of the largest expansions of economic and regional inequality in American history? I don't know if we can really assert we have this figured out. These are all especially areas of concern for governments like India and China, where fear of balkanization, civil war, and severe communitarian violence are either contemporary problems or have been fairly recently in their political histories.

SpaceManNabs 7y ago

"have such a third-world approach to censorship on the Internet" Let's not associate the third-world with authoritarian or fascist. In addition, the term itself is outdated.

aniketpant 7y ago

Not that I disagree with what you're saying but can you please clarify what you mean by "third-world approach"? It seems to imply some sort of inferiority compared to "first-world".

xkemp 7y ago

Please don't use "third-world" as a generic insult for countries. Even the wrong-yet-common definition of "poor" doesn't fit here, because internet censorship isn't a function of wealth: Saudi Arabia is rather rich yet unfree. Russia and China area also not "third world". Russia, a leading internet censor, actually happens to be the (current version of) a country that used to be the definition of either "first" or "second" world.