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BJP (ruling party) commands over a huge IT Cell and a larger fan base which activates at very slightest triggers. Few years back a popular Muslim actor (Aamir K

BJP (ruling party) commands over a huge IT Cell and a larger fan base which activates at very slightest triggers. Few years back a popular Muslim actor (Aamir Khan) made a mild comment on increasing radicalism in Indian society and incidents of lynching against Muslims. Within days everything related to him was scorched, the app he models for got millions of 1* rating on Android. A more recent incident is about an actress showing solidarity with students against violence in JNU, a left leaning university. The next movie ratings were grounded. Bias of Indian media houses makes Fox feel like champion of truth and journalism. In a nutshell, nothing to do with Disney, it must be pragmatic decision by Indian subsidiary to play safe.

ak39 7y ago
This "IT Cell" is pretty active on Twitter. It is vicious and relentless. I suspect it is present on HN platform too. I have posted two submissions (one from NYTimes and another from The Guardian) on issues that highlight the Modi government's continued descent into what writers are calling fascist policies. Both my submissions didn't survive being flagged within minutes. I am not sure if a concentrated group of users can achieve this objective on HN?
- woodrowbarlow 7y ago
  it's more likely that your posts were simply deemed off-topic by the community. the guidelines [1] say "most stories about politics" are off-topic. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - prostheticvamp 7y ago
    And yet political discussions are constantly on the front page. How often do we make it a week without a lengthy tangent about real estate policy?
    - nindalf 7y ago
      After reading HN for years I'm basically an expert on housing policy in the Bay Area. I may not know much about anything else but goddamn, I can talk for an hour and ten minutes without a break about the complexities of this one issue.
      - lwf 7y ago
        Write up a "compendium of SF housing policy complexities" article and post it to HN, then :)
      - BrandoElFollito 7y ago
        Some am I, too some extend. And I live in France and mostly skip these articles. In my case it is rather that weird interest in esoteric things about which I read without a reason to be interested (though SF indeed changed a lot between my visit 20 years ago and last year)
  - ddevault 7y ago
    I disagree. In truth, the flag functionality on HN is broken, and allows a small number of users to censor otherwise good posts. It happens a lot, and has little to no oversight.
- nindalf 7y ago
  In my experience, there are many Modi apologists on HN. In a recent thread about people being prosecuted for using VPNs, they were out in full force justifying the effective house arrest of several million people and the suspension of basic human rights like Habeas Corpus. And sure enough, they achieved their goal on that thread too - it was flagged and removed from the front page within hours. We shouldn't allow anything that tarnishes the reputation of our Dear Leader. You don't even have to go find the original thread. The Modi apologists are on this thread too. See if you can spot the person justifying murdering Muslims for the crime of eating beef.
  - dntbnmpls 7y ago
    > The Modi apologists are on this thread too. There are those for and against Modi in this thread. It's easy to spot both sides. An easy way to spot one of the sides is their use of words like "Modi apologists", etc. Considering Modi is arguably the most popular politician of a country with 1.3 billion people, why are people shocked when that support translates to support online? Or are only Modi detractors supposed to voice their opinions? Shouldn't Modi supporters have their say too?
  - thrwaway69 7y ago
    I flagged this post after reading comments at the bottom and in my experience, the reason why you see less political posts from india on the front page is mostly due to the demography of the site and guidelines. Indian posts always have little activity with or without political element and for few political threads that do get some activity, lot of uninformed opinions posted within a few minutes. People just aren't interested outside of HN too, I don't think the IT cell mob will come in private political forums/guilds. I might also point out indian news sites are horrible with tracking, adverts and UI/UX. A blog post from someone on hn about mac revealed that an average HNer spent very little time on the site compared to other places. So that might skew things further outside of international sites. Secondly, I can see who you might be referring to as modi apologist, I also see similar attack from the opposite spectrum. Either doesn't seem healthy and should be kept somewhere else. 1.34 billion people are a lot. That's 3x the size of US. We have greater inequality and varying standard of living resulting in highly different or counterproductive expectations from the system. A farmer getting by barely with not much need for hyper internet connectivity may not see the implications of laws that deteriorate freedom/privacy online. They are in different hierarchy of human needs than someone living in urban area with a lot of solved problems and some artificially created as a consequences. One want more roads, the other want more greenery. One want availability and affordability, the other want quality. There are highly controversial laws passed such as the act to give less qualified people the same authority of a doctor so they can treat patients and there were some consequences to it of course but it happened because someone wanted it or at least thought it was a good idea than nothing. I have met a couples like that and know personally. Becoming condescending, calling everything propaganda or blindness because you don't agree with it or think it's fine is a good way to cause hurdles in leading to a compromise. What you see online isn't representative of most things. People won't mention about a product/service they don't face any problem with, they mention about things they face problem with or have had a horrible experience most of the time. It's easy to say nothing than a thank you. We ought to do it more but we don't. The specific indian culture I have lived in doesn't encourage that and sometimes even discourage thanking people because it's their job or things should be like that encouraging people to share views in negative light more. This isn't specific to india either but we have a tad bit more pressure to live within segregated communities directly or indirectly. Marrying into the same caste, income bracket or status quo. Interacting with people from the same checks only. I would recommend working for upping the quality of life for everyone and things will stablize on their own but in the meantime, calling people modi apologist will give you a knee jerk reaction from otherwise people who may listen.
- delhanty 7y ago
  >Both my submissions didn't survive being flagged within minutes. I am not sure if a concentrated group of users can achieve this objective on HN? My subjective impression is that flagging feature on HN is routinely abused by flagging-rings conspiring to suppress submissions and comments on certain topics. I'm super happy that the ability to flag exists, but it would be nice if something could be done to stop its abuse.
cameronh90 7y ago
What is an "IT Cell"? I searched and I'm afraid I don't really understand the context.
- celim307 7y ago
  Internet terrorism?
- ignoramous 7y ago
  Straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL2ZYXLW5bU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL2ZYXLW5bU
- drimphgol 7y ago
  IT Cell or "Information Technology" cell is an Indian English term for an internet brigade. India's ruling party BJP has a ton of such internet trolls employed.
riffraff 7y ago
a decision to silence dissent to avoid upsetting people is still a serious issue, I would say. Understandable, but still not great.
zahreeley 7y ago
Every Hindu is against radical Islam. Are you not? Jai Modi. God bless Modi & Trump.
ignoramous 7y ago
Disney's Indian subsidiary might not stream it on Hotstar but their International counterparts aren't geo-censoring it on YouTube (at least not yet): https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qVIXUhZ2AWs https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qVIXUhZ2AWs It'd be interesting to keep an eye on the video's viewership count [0]-- at 4,606,963; at the time of writing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
justaguyhere 7y ago
The fastest way to get depressed is to read the news. I can't name a single decent leader of a major country/party/region today. Everywhere we look, there are politicians stroking differences. We desperately need good leaders and thoughtful/responsible voters.
- jedberg 7y ago
  Merkel seems to be doing a good job unifying her country. But I'm not German so I don't really know.
  - prostheticvamp 7y ago
    Highlights of the 20th and 21st centuries: German unity.
  - leipert 7y ago
    Well in the last few years, we have seen an uproar of the right wing party „AfD“. Some attribute that to Merkel‘s Party moving away from the conservative side of things. After Fukushima, Merkel pushed for immediately closing out all nuclear power plants, which some say also say is in conflict with our plans of becoming carbon neutral. Massive financial support for solar and wind energy has been stopped as well, which devasted at least the local solar industry. We had waves of right wing terrorism, her party is pushing something like a „black 0“ (no new debt) instead of investing in infrastructure, schools and the like. Even pushing that on other European countries like Greece or Spain, which definitely would need to invest. There are just slow or no plans for meeting climate goals or modernize the automotive sector. Personally I think it has become very quiet around the chancellor, the inertia is almost unbearable sometimes. The government is supposed to stimulate progress and move our Society forward. But as I see it, we are moving very slowly with a captain who doesn’t like to rethink their course.
    - mr_toad 7y ago
      > investing in infrastructure, schools and the like. Borrowing money to pay for schools is making children pay for their schooling.
cscurmudgeon 7y ago
Not everyone who disagrees with you belongs to an IT cell. Remember, BJP’s opponent INC was a client of the notorious Cambridge Analytica. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#India
dwd 7y ago
Star Asia (parent of Star India) was owned by Fox, which was how Disney ended up with it. Any similarities to Fox in the US are likely not coincidental.
cmonnow 7y ago
> Few years back a popular Muslim actor (Aamir Khan) made a mild comment If he made a mild comment against Muslim's cattle theft, illegal beef industry or love-jihad, Muslims would have reacted much worse. Recently, an excellent Indian cricketer (bowler) Mohammad Shami posted a picture of his 5-year old daughter wearing a cute traditional saree, and Muslims on Twitter shamed him for being an apostate - https://www.indiatoday.in/trending-news/story/shami-posts-pic-of-daughter-on-saraswati-puja-islamists-troll-her-internet-calls-him-true-indian-1643145-2020-02-04 https://www.indiatoday.in/trending-news/story/shami-posts-pi...
- function_seven 7y ago
  You can see a difference between "Muslims on Twitter" and the ruling party of the state, right? But that's neither here nor there. However Muslims might react to a theoretical comment on cattle theft has no bearing on what a government actually has done in response to an actual comment. That their reaction could have been worse does not make BJP's actions any better.
  - cmonnow 7y ago
    so.. if a non-ruling party instigates people, it's OK, but if a ruling party does it, then you have a problem ? This entire anti-CAA protests are organized and funded and instigated by Opposition parties to create a Muslim vote bank, because they're upset that the ruling party consolidated the Hindu vote bank.
    - function_seven 7y ago
      > so.. if a non-ruling party instigates people, it's OK, but if a ruling party does it, then you have a problem? No. They’re both a problem. It’s worse when the ruling party does it, because they have more power. > This entire anti-CAA protests are organized and funded and instigated by Opposition parties to create a Muslim vote bank, because they're upset that the ruling party consolidated the Hindu vote bank. That seems like reasonable course of action.
    - nindalf 7y ago
henry_bone 7y ago
"a left leaning university" Is there any other kind? :-)
- username90 7y ago
  STEM universities are usually right leaning. Maybe not in USA but in other parts of the world.
  - eyeundersand 7y ago
    Huh! That's news to me! Do you have any citations supporting your statement?
  - rootkea 7y ago
    In India you can't get more STEM than IITs. 1. "IIT Bombay protests Day 4: Skit raises questions on Modi gov" https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mumbai/other/iit-bombay-protests-day-4-skit-raises-questions-on-modi-governments-policies/articleshow/73177078.cms https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mumbai/other/iit-bombay-... 2. "At IIT-Madras, tough questions from protesting students" https://www.livemint.com/news/india/at-iit-madras-tough-questions-from-protesting-students-11576867394504.html https://www.livemint.com/news/india/at-iit-madras-tough-ques... 3. "3 IITs join chorus against crackdown on Jamia, AMU students" https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/3-iits-join-chorus-against-crackdown-on-jamia-amu-students/articleshow/72746964.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...

ak39 7y ago

This "IT Cell" is pretty active on Twitter. It is vicious and relentless. I suspect it is present on HN platform too. I have posted two submissions (one from NYTimes and another from The Guardian) on issues that highlight the Modi government's continued descent into what writers are calling fascist policies. Both my submissions didn't survive being flagged within minutes. I am not sure if a concentrated group of users can achieve this objective on HN?

woodrowbarlow 7y ago
it's more likely that your posts were simply deemed off-topic by the community. the guidelines [1] say "most stories about politics" are off-topic. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- prostheticvamp 7y ago
  And yet political discussions are constantly on the front page. How often do we make it a week without a lengthy tangent about real estate policy?
  - nindalf 7y ago
    After reading HN for years I'm basically an expert on housing policy in the Bay Area. I may not know much about anything else but goddamn, I can talk for an hour and ten minutes without a break about the complexities of this one issue.
    - lwf 7y ago
      Write up a "compendium of SF housing policy complexities" article and post it to HN, then :)
    - BrandoElFollito 7y ago
      Some am I, too some extend. And I live in France and mostly skip these articles. In my case it is rather that weird interest in esoteric things about which I read without a reason to be interested (though SF indeed changed a lot between my visit 20 years ago and last year)
- ddevault 7y ago
  I disagree. In truth, the flag functionality on HN is broken, and allows a small number of users to censor otherwise good posts. It happens a lot, and has little to no oversight.
nindalf 7y ago
In my experience, there are many Modi apologists on HN. In a recent thread about people being prosecuted for using VPNs, they were out in full force justifying the effective house arrest of several million people and the suspension of basic human rights like Habeas Corpus. And sure enough, they achieved their goal on that thread too - it was flagged and removed from the front page within hours. We shouldn't allow anything that tarnishes the reputation of our Dear Leader. You don't even have to go find the original thread. The Modi apologists are on this thread too. See if you can spot the person justifying murdering Muslims for the crime of eating beef.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > The Modi apologists are on this thread too. There are those for and against Modi in this thread. It's easy to spot both sides. An easy way to spot one of the sides is their use of words like "Modi apologists", etc. Considering Modi is arguably the most popular politician of a country with 1.3 billion people, why are people shocked when that support translates to support online? Or are only Modi detractors supposed to voice their opinions? Shouldn't Modi supporters have their say too?
- thrwaway69 7y ago
  I flagged this post after reading comments at the bottom and in my experience, the reason why you see less political posts from india on the front page is mostly due to the demography of the site and guidelines. Indian posts always have little activity with or without political element and for few political threads that do get some activity, lot of uninformed opinions posted within a few minutes. People just aren't interested outside of HN too, I don't think the IT cell mob will come in private political forums/guilds. I might also point out indian news sites are horrible with tracking, adverts and UI/UX. A blog post from someone on hn about mac revealed that an average HNer spent very little time on the site compared to other places. So that might skew things further outside of international sites. Secondly, I can see who you might be referring to as modi apologist, I also see similar attack from the opposite spectrum. Either doesn't seem healthy and should be kept somewhere else. 1.34 billion people are a lot. That's 3x the size of US. We have greater inequality and varying standard of living resulting in highly different or counterproductive expectations from the system. A farmer getting by barely with not much need for hyper internet connectivity may not see the implications of laws that deteriorate freedom/privacy online. They are in different hierarchy of human needs than someone living in urban area with a lot of solved problems and some artificially created as a consequences. One want more roads, the other want more greenery. One want availability and affordability, the other want quality. There are highly controversial laws passed such as the act to give less qualified people the same authority of a doctor so they can treat patients and there were some consequences to it of course but it happened because someone wanted it or at least thought it was a good idea than nothing. I have met a couples like that and know personally. Becoming condescending, calling everything propaganda or blindness because you don't agree with it or think it's fine is a good way to cause hurdles in leading to a compromise. What you see online isn't representative of most things. People won't mention about a product/service they don't face any problem with, they mention about things they face problem with or have had a horrible experience most of the time. It's easy to say nothing than a thank you. We ought to do it more but we don't. The specific indian culture I have lived in doesn't encourage that and sometimes even discourage thanking people because it's their job or things should be like that encouraging people to share views in negative light more. This isn't specific to india either but we have a tad bit more pressure to live within segregated communities directly or indirectly. Marrying into the same caste, income bracket or status quo. Interacting with people from the same checks only. I would recommend working for upping the quality of life for everyone and things will stablize on their own but in the meantime, calling people modi apologist will give you a knee jerk reaction from otherwise people who may listen.
delhanty 7y ago
>Both my submissions didn't survive being flagged within minutes. I am not sure if a concentrated group of users can achieve this objective on HN? My subjective impression is that flagging feature on HN is routinely abused by flagging-rings conspiring to suppress submissions and comments on certain topics. I'm super happy that the ability to flag exists, but it would be nice if something could be done to stop its abuse.

cameronh90 7y ago

What is an "IT Cell"? I searched and I'm afraid I don't really understand the context.

celim307 7y ago
Internet terrorism?
ignoramous 7y ago
Straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL2ZYXLW5bU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL2ZYXLW5bU
drimphgol 7y ago
IT Cell or "Information Technology" cell is an Indian English term for an internet brigade. India's ruling party BJP has a ton of such internet trolls employed.

riffraff 7y ago

a decision to silence dissent to avoid upsetting people is still a serious issue, I would say. Understandable, but still not great.

zahreeley 7y ago

Every Hindu is against radical Islam. Are you not? Jai Modi. God bless Modi & Trump.

ignoramous 7y ago

Disney's Indian subsidiary might not stream it on Hotstar but their International counterparts aren't geo-censoring it on YouTube (at least not yet): https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qVIXUhZ2AWs https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qVIXUhZ2AWs It'd be interesting to keep an eye on the video's viewership count [0]-- at 4,606,963; at the time of writing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

justaguyhere 7y ago

The fastest way to get depressed is to read the news. I can't name a single decent leader of a major country/party/region today. Everywhere we look, there are politicians stroking differences. We desperately need good leaders and thoughtful/responsible voters.

jedberg 7y ago
Merkel seems to be doing a good job unifying her country. But I'm not German so I don't really know.
- prostheticvamp 7y ago
  Highlights of the 20th and 21st centuries: German unity.
- leipert 7y ago
  Well in the last few years, we have seen an uproar of the right wing party „AfD“. Some attribute that to Merkel‘s Party moving away from the conservative side of things. After Fukushima, Merkel pushed for immediately closing out all nuclear power plants, which some say also say is in conflict with our plans of becoming carbon neutral. Massive financial support for solar and wind energy has been stopped as well, which devasted at least the local solar industry. We had waves of right wing terrorism, her party is pushing something like a „black 0“ (no new debt) instead of investing in infrastructure, schools and the like. Even pushing that on other European countries like Greece or Spain, which definitely would need to invest. There are just slow or no plans for meeting climate goals or modernize the automotive sector. Personally I think it has become very quiet around the chancellor, the inertia is almost unbearable sometimes. The government is supposed to stimulate progress and move our Society forward. But as I see it, we are moving very slowly with a captain who doesn’t like to rethink their course.
  - mr_toad 7y ago
    > investing in infrastructure, schools and the like. Borrowing money to pay for schools is making children pay for their schooling.

cscurmudgeon 7y ago

Not everyone who disagrees with you belongs to an IT cell. Remember, BJP’s opponent INC was a client of the notorious Cambridge Analytica. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#India

dwd 7y ago

Star Asia (parent of Star India) was owned by Fox, which was how Disney ended up with it. Any similarities to Fox in the US are likely not coincidental.

cmonnow 7y ago

> Few years back a popular Muslim actor (Aamir Khan) made a mild comment If he made a mild comment against Muslim's cattle theft, illegal beef industry or love-jihad, Muslims would have reacted much worse. Recently, an excellent Indian cricketer (bowler) Mohammad Shami posted a picture of his 5-year old daughter wearing a cute traditional saree, and Muslims on Twitter shamed him for being an apostate - https://www.indiatoday.in/trending-news/story/shami-posts-pic-of-daughter-on-saraswati-puja-islamists-troll-her-internet-calls-him-true-indian-1643145-2020-02-04 https://www.indiatoday.in/trending-news/story/shami-posts-pi...

function_seven 7y ago
You can see a difference between "Muslims on Twitter" and the ruling party of the state, right? But that's neither here nor there. However Muslims might react to a theoretical comment on cattle theft has no bearing on what a government actually has done in response to an actual comment. That their reaction could have been worse does not make BJP's actions any better.
- cmonnow 7y ago
  so.. if a non-ruling party instigates people, it's OK, but if a ruling party does it, then you have a problem ? This entire anti-CAA protests are organized and funded and instigated by Opposition parties to create a Muslim vote bank, because they're upset that the ruling party consolidated the Hindu vote bank.
  - function_seven 7y ago
    > so.. if a non-ruling party instigates people, it's OK, but if a ruling party does it, then you have a problem? No. They’re both a problem. It’s worse when the ruling party does it, because they have more power. > This entire anti-CAA protests are organized and funded and instigated by Opposition parties to create a Muslim vote bank, because they're upset that the ruling party consolidated the Hindu vote bank. That seems like reasonable course of action.
  - nindalf 7y ago

henry_bone 7y ago

"a left leaning university" Is there any other kind? :-)

username90 7y ago
STEM universities are usually right leaning. Maybe not in USA but in other parts of the world.
- eyeundersand 7y ago
  Huh! That's news to me! Do you have any citations supporting your statement?
- rootkea 7y ago
  In India you can't get more STEM than IITs. 1. "IIT Bombay protests Day 4: Skit raises questions on Modi gov" https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mumbai/other/iit-bombay-protests-day-4-skit-raises-questions-on-modi-governments-policies/articleshow/73177078.cms https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mumbai/other/iit-bombay-... 2. "At IIT-Madras, tough questions from protesting students" https://www.livemint.com/news/india/at-iit-madras-tough-questions-from-protesting-students-11576867394504.html https://www.livemint.com/news/india/at-iit-madras-tough-ques... 3. "3 IITs join chorus against crackdown on Jamia, AMU students" https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/3-iits-join-chorus-against-crackdown-on-jamia-amu-students/articleshow/72746964.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...