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Removing posts by elected officials is running really close to foreign interference in domestic affairs. Given the history of the East India Company, I am sure

Removing posts by elected officials is running really close to foreign interference in domestic affairs. Given the history of the East India Company, I am sure India is especially sensitive to foreign companies trying to influence or curtail the speech of their elected officials.

smt88 6y ago
> Removing posts by elected officials is running really close to foreign interference in domestic affairs. No, it's not. If anything, it's opting out of interfering in domestic affairs. Facebook is not an official channel. The elected official has many other platforms, including the country's media, that will publish their message. They can create a blog if they want. If Facebook is the only viable channel for reaching a large part of the electorate, the core issue is having only that one channel. You solve it by forcing competition, not by stifling Facebook's right to decide what they want to allow on their platform. I deeply loathe Facebook and think they're undermining democracy in every country, but there should never be a way for a government to force a publisher to distribute an ideology that the publisher disagrees with.
- dominotw 6y ago
  > stifling Facebook's right to decide what they want to allow on their platform. Is indian govt really proposing this though? who is stifling their right?
  - smt88 6y ago
    The comment I was responding to seemed to be proposing it. I don't know about India, but in the US, there's been a major debate about whether govt can force platforms to retain posts and several attempted lawsuits over it.
    - dominotw 6y ago
      > The comment I was responding to seemed to be proposing it. I don't think so. comment wasn't merely presenting its take on things not proposing govt should force fb to do something.