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I see this as a propaganda piece. The unique problem with India is that, a decade ago, it had a small but highly educated, privileged urban population, spread
by kumarvvr 5y ago
I see this as a propaganda piece.
The unique problem with India is that, a decade ago, it had a small but highly educated, privileged urban population, spread across a handful of cities, who are the most vocal in national media and social media. This was the situation when SV companies made inroads to India.
Then came the mobile revolution and the availability of smartphones coupled with dead cheap internet. The rural population jumped on the bandwagon. Then social media saw a lot of voices being raised against perceived in-sensitivity of liberals (I too agree that there is a disproportionate bias in news, towards one political leaning) or portrayal of India in international arena.
This is when SV started complaining.
And when the population speaks against SM, the elected representatives will act.
Take the most recent case of raids against Twitter. Twitter did a major mistake by labeling a piece of content "mis-information", while there was an active investigation was underway by the highest investigative authority in India on the same content. That is blatantly illegal. It should have said something like "these facts are being investigated" or something like that.
When an investigation is going on, media is not supposed to pass judgements. Twitter fumbled and India govt. took the opportunity.
Now you have Twitter agreeing, in writing, that it will follow the law of the land.
Silicon Valley is pushing limits. India, as a developing country with a mass of gullible rural population and culturally sensitive to perceived dominance of foreign culture, has ample number of politicians who will make use of every opportunity to gather followers.
- rsj_hn 5y ago> I see this as a propaganda piece. I tend to agree. I've worked in SV a long time, and a majority of non-US-born coworkers remain Indian. I see no evidence of this changing, so I find it implausible that slate has it's finger on the pulse of tech and is detecting a weakening of the role of Indian programmers, nor have I observed any decline in the quality or usefulness of Indian programmers, which is ultimately what matters.
- ummonk 5y agoI think the piece is about India the country, not Indian expats though?
- rsj_hn 5y agoI take the "influence" of India to be the pipeline of labor to SV. Those can be work-visa holders or those working in Indian offices, to me these two categories go hand-in-hand.
- valarauko 5y agoThe article does make a reference to casteism in SV perpetuated by indian expats, unrelated to the rest of the piece.
- naruvimama 5y ago> Twitter did a major mistake by labeling .... They did not, Twitter has brandished its political leaning. They pay very little to no taxes, it might be flexing or testing the waters to prevent a global tax as proposed in the G7. Twitter in particular has double standards dealing with India vis-a-vis EU.
- exporectomy 5y agoI suddenly realized it was propaganda too when I go up to this gem of journalistic objectivity: "His “Digital India” campaign (whose website, incidentally, has pretty horrid design) [...]"
- naruvimama 5y agoPerhaps ironically the only thing I can agree with in that article.
- statguy 5y agoHe isn't exactly incorrect, judge for yourself :) https://www.digitalindia.gov.in/ https://www.digitalindia.gov.in/
- ieutf 5y agoModi and his fan club have spent so much time and energy pissing off so many people that the moment they show weakness there will be major repercussions. So its a trap. All this "taming" SV narrative is their only move. The more control they have, the more people they piss off, the deeper the hole they dig themselves into gets. Sooner or later no one will help them out of the hole. And they can stay there and chant about their delusions of control. Given the incompetence they have displayed its fascinating how anyone can have faith that such a govt can "tame", leave alone control SV.