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Indian Government recently made Twitter do similar things. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/26/twitter-under-fire-over-deletion-of-critical-covid-twee

• rodgerd 6y ago
  COVID is a catastrophe in India because the government's core is religious extremism and other forms of bigotry, and those have driven its response, including cabinet members promoting folk remedies above vaccines and encouraging large religious gatherings (including an upcoming one).
  • encryptluks2 6y ago
    I guess in America there is a lot of the same with some groups of people believing they can pray the virus away or that it simply doesn't exist and is part of some satanic cults agenda.
    • lindy2021 6y ago
      Or those that won't trust the science and insist on masks and distancing even after vaccination.
    • bobthechef 6y ago
      Seems like a very caricaturish characterization of what people actually believe. That sort of broad contempt and unwillingness to understand the range of perspectives on the issues besides the "official" (read: oligarchic) narrative is unfortunate.
      • crooked-v 6y ago
        No, people actually do believe that - even people who are literally being treated for COVID-19 at the time they make those claims. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/a-wave-of-covid-patients-who-dont-believe-its-real https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/a-wave-of-covid-pati... > He mentions hating “fake news”. He says, “I don’t think covids is really more than a flu.“ I clarified, “Now you think differently though?” > He replies, “No the same. I should just take vitamins for my immune system. They (news) are making it a big deal.” > I’m at a loss for words. Here I am basically wrapped in tarp, here he is in a Covid ICU. How can you deny the validity of covid? How is this possible?
        • moduspol 6y ago
          Some people believe flat earth theories. It's still unreasonable to paint that as a widely held belief of those who disagree with you.
          • CamperBob2 6y ago
            Fact is, the theories are widely held. And in a democracy, that goes a long way.
            • moduspol 6y ago
              What theories? And how widely? Huge groups of people are being generalized as equivalent to people who genuinely believe COVID-19 isn't real. It makes reasoned discourse impossible. Though I don't think I'm letting the cat out of the bag here.
              • CamperBob2 6y ago
                Essentially half of the surveyed Republican voters say they'll refuse the vaccine: https://www.wpr.org/gop-men-are-most-likely-say-theyll-refuse-covid-19-vaccine https://www.wpr.org/gop-men-are-most-likely-say-theyll-refus... That's enough to elect a President and change the direction of the entire Federal government. The time when these people could be ignored, laughed at, or otherwise dismissed is unfortunately over.
    • deleted 6y ago
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  • bobthechef 6y ago
    What is "religious extremism"? That term always struck me as odd. Either the truth claims of a religion are true, somewhat true, or false. If they're true (read: have sufficiently good reasons to believe them), then it's not extreme to live in accordance with them. In fact, it is arguably insane not to live in accordance with them. Imagine if someone said "Oh, I believe things fall to the ground when dropped, but I'm not an extremist about it". What does that mean?? That you only sort of believe that they fall to the ground? That you only sometimes avoid jumping off of bridges? If they're somewhat true, then they need refinement and correction because they contain error. If they're false, then it would be an error to follow them in any way. So really, if what's being done is evil or wrong, it should maybe be called religious error, or just error.
    • SirYandi 6y ago
      I think it has something to do with one's tolerance of other people's version of truth.
      • eloff 6y ago
        There are no versions of truth. Those are called opinions if there can be more than one.
        • rxhernandez 6y ago
          There are very much different versions of the truth; even at a fundamental level. Do you know what a reference frame in Physics is?
          • akiselev 6y ago
            What you are alluding to are different observations of the truth. The concept of reference frames depends on the universality of the laws of physics, which by definition means that there can only be one version of the truth. By the time your reference frame catches up to another, the observations converge.
  • deleted 6y ago
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  • known 6y ago
    What else can we expect when 50% Ministers in Modi Cabinet are Brahmin who are less than 5% in India https://archive.ph/h3TBP https://archive.ph/h3TBP
• innagadadavida 6y ago
  Is there some service in India that actually delivers oxygen cylinders when you tweet? If you are in dire need to oxygen, the last thing you’d be doing is tweeting. The irony is that elections that were held is the biggest cause for this spike and the government did not oppose or stop that.
  • Enginerrrd 6y ago
    Wow, you make a lot of assumptions and failed to read the article. The reports are that people's families are having to source meds and oxygen for their loved ones. The offending tweet was consistent with that and, to paraphrase a bit, consisted of a guy basically saying "Hey, does anyone know where I can get a tank of oxygen for my grandfather??" It seems the the grandfather died by the next day anyway.
  • asenna 6y ago
    The situation on the ground is actually that bad unfortunately that people are resorting to pleading and begging for Oxygen anywhere they can. The number of frantic oxygen requests I've been seeing in my building society Whatsapp group (a high end upper-class society) in the past few days is very scary. VIPs and people with a lot of connection are not able to source Oxygen or beds which paints the picture if you know India.
  • sidchilling 6y ago
    YES! If you’re actually in India, you will know how useful Twitter has been with this. People are amplifying tweets about other people’s needs and other folks are sharing verified leads. All of this without any incentive to do so. Where the government is daily failing, citizens are rising to the occasion.
    • Bang2Bay 6y ago
      Well, government did not fail in this case. at least anecdotal evidence of where the government failed would be good. A union cabinet minister of the country tried to personally reach out and failed. sent cops to help who now suspect foul play.
• Bang2Bay 6y ago
  Anybody who read the article in its entirety and supporting scenario would agree with what the police is doing.
  • crooked-v 6y ago
    Why? The man involved did nothing wrong. He didn't even mention COVID-19 in his request for oxygen cylinders.
• yangikan 6y ago
  I don't know why twitter does this. From https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/business/india-covid19-twitter-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/business/india-covid19-tw... One of the tweets removed from view was posted by Moloy Ghatak, a labor minister in the opposition-ruled West Bengal state, where Mr. Modi’s party hopes to make big gains in an ongoing election. Mr. Ghatak accused Mr. Modi of “mismanagement” and held him directly responsible for the deaths. His tweet included images of Mr. Modi and his election rallies beside those of the cremations and compared him to Nero, the Roman emperor, for choosing to hold political gatherings and exporting vaccines during a “health crisis.” Another tweet from Revanth Reddy, a sitting member of the parliament, used a hashtag that blamed Mr. Modi for the “disaster.” “India recording over 2 lakh cases everyday,” it said, using an Indian numbering unit that means 200,000 cases. “Shortage of vaccines, shortage of medicines, increasing number of deaths.
  • baybal2 6y ago
    O People, tell me, what material is Modi G's approval rating made of? That would be a material science breakthrough. It seems as if his approval rating is just glued to the 60%-70% mark no matter what, even today. If it keeps above 60% even with the current royal mess happening, I don't know what else Modi can do to loose the election. Are people sick, and tired of INC so much that they still prefer Modi over an alternative of INC coming back to power?
  • MattGaiser 6y ago
    > I don't know why twitter does this. A reality of scaring social media companies with regulatory threats. People call for regulation and unsurprisingly their priority becomes keeping those who might regulate them happy with them.
    • nohat 6y ago
      I suspect that's the point.
    • dalbasal 6y ago
      >>unsurprisingly their priority becomes keeping those who might regulate them happy. Unsurprising, and not necessarily unwanted. IDK if you mean people or politicians by "they," but (in a democracy) they're the ones who make rules. Whether it's mandating access, limiting access, moderating, censoring, allowing freedom of speech or just mandating that stated policies are followed consistently... I think social media is unquestionably a "public concern" currently. That doesn't mean that I support Twitter censoring on behalf of Modi. But, it does demonstrate on how broken the new media is. Zuck and Dorsey have no sense of responsibility, and no idea how to take responsibility even if they did have the sense. It goes without saying that Zuck and Dorsey have no journalistic ethic. They're not journalism, they just ate journalism. No counterpart to a journalistic ethic, or even a lip-service to one. So... they control the important chunk of media worldwide, and they truly don't know what an ethical approach would even be. Makes Murdoch look like a saint. A big part of the problem here, ironically, is that Twitter and FB can get away with absolute arbitrariness. It makes it easy for thuggish political types to get their way.
• baybal2 6y ago
  Do you guys still need oxygen there? How is the situation there really? I called a few of my contacts, and get very diverging pictures. No interruptions in Kochi, to some stress in Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, to total apocalypse in Noida. I see oxygen production being such a basic industrial process, that I never could've imagined even a most poorly industrialised country having troubles producing it. It's tragic seeing the lack of something so seemingly trivial costing so many people's lives. Anyways, if anyone really need a really emergency only O2 source: 1. Get a 200A-300A DC welding machine, most importantly with as much safety features as possible. 2. Reasonably fine stainless steel mesh, use most pure stainless you can find. Carbon felt if possible. Roll up in tubes. Weld/braze thick copper conductors the top, make sure they can handle the current without melting things. Make sure to cover exposed copper with something less electrically conductive, in worst case, smoking hot cooking oil. Make sure it does not get onto stainless. 3. Either a U or H shaped vessel from PP or PVC piping, available at plumbing supplies. Alternative, a plastic bucket, and two drinking water bottles perforated a bit in their lower part. Put electrodes into them. 4. Find something to cap vessels, use original caps from bottles. Make holes in them for conductors. Then find hoses you can get through those caps. Use reasonably thick plastic hose to survive hot O2. A proper oxygen hose would be idea. Drill the caps, get hoses through them, and seal any openings with hot glue, silicone caulk, or, in worst case, chewing gum. If you can't find anything to seal it, use the thickest plastic bag you can find, and tape it. 5. Make some semblance of bubblers. Small plastic beverage bottles work well for this. 6. Fill with drinking water, or settled tap water. Make sure there is no chlorine in it. Make sure that water does not reach copper parts, even if they are well protected. 7. Add a table spoon of lye, or soda to water. Mix. 8. Connect electrodes to welding machine. 9. Test it starting with smallest current. 10. If things work, connect hoses to bubblers. Make sure the hydrogen hose goes outdoor, to a very, very well ventilated place. 11. Make some semblance of a breathing mask for the apparatus. Connect it to oxygen supply through a breathing bag. Make some holes in the breathing bag. Eye the calculation so that incoming oxygen displaces at least 10 times the volume of exhaled CO2. 12. Top off water as the thing works using something to protect yourself from being zapped. 13. Adjust the current, holes in the breathing bag, lye/soda content, and bottle position (if used the bottle version) for optimal output. 14. Replace water if it gets too muddy from dissolving impurities from anode, or anything else in the system. It it does, think of finding other materials. With 200A 220V supply, you can make 1-3 kg of oxygen per hour, 4-5 kg in the most ideal scenario.
• naruvimama 6y ago
  Wasn't that because it was part of a political campaign and foreign actors to spread panic and create chaos. It is like toilet paper but for oxygen cylinders.
• strategyanalyst 6y ago
  There is a lot of criticism of the government on social media right now. I'm not saying this government isn't trying to control criticism on social media, but these are small drops in an ocean of tweets and fb posts on this. ResignModi has been trending on Twitter for days now. My FB feed is full of people angry at the government. There is no 'censorship' of 99% of such posts. You can't really censor stuff in India, its way too big to control narrative that way.
• 1024core 6y ago
  Did you read that article? The guy's grandpa did not need oxygen, but died of a heart attack instead. During this time of crisis, it's common for governments to crack down on speech. You've heard of the "shouting 'FIRE' in a crowded movie hall" analogy, right?
  • ravenstine 6y ago
    That principle was never intended as a reason for censorship. People shouting fire in a crowded theater should receive a trial. Facebook and Twitter aren't known for having a formal appeals process, and you're lucky if they even give you any attention.
  • isatty 6y ago
    I seriously hope that I won’t have to resort to name calling here on HN but are you for real? Oxygen and advanced life support is not unique to COVID and his tweets don’t say so either. How the hell is this equivalent to shouting “FIRE” in a crowded place?
    • sanmon3186 6y ago
      To be fair, anyone looking for oxygen in the current situation would assume it is for Covid. Not saying 88 old grandpa of his cousin did not deserve attention, but the guy got called from cabinet ministry, thrice.
  • dagmx 6y ago
    Did you read that the statement of it being a heart attack came from the police (that are being used to intimidate people) and not medical professionals.
  • omegaworks 6y ago
    Oxygen is typically necessary for people with heart conditions. Any pressure on the supply will have impact all across the board.
• OmegaPG 6y ago
  TheWire is biased and not reliable source. I don't want to make this post political by mentioning names but this post has good information on the founders and their political background https://www.quora.com/Is-Thewire-in-biased https://www.quora.com/Is-Thewire-in-biased
  • deleted 6y ago
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