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Twitter has lost liability protection in India, government says

181 points by jmsflknr 5y ago

sidjor 5y ago
They should just shut their dev center in India and ask staff to relocate. The government can easily block them, but the optics of that would not look right. So this whole play around law and regulations.
- tormeh 5y ago
  India could prohibit companies doing business in India from doing business (read: advertise) on Twitter. That's the real threat.
  - rishav_sharan 5y ago
    And companies outside India would further think twice before doing any business in india. Its not as if India has a stellar reputation for enabling global countries to invest in India. This is a bigger issue than it appears and both sides can lose big based on the outcome.
- zerop 5y ago
  What it has to do with dev center? Their work is for global twitter platform.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    But if they are within India they would be vulnerable to Indian law enforcement.
    - Dah00n 5y ago
      It makes no difference. They can fine Twitter no matter where they are. If Twitter refuse to pay they can sanction any business using Twitter basically killing Twitter in India. Twitter would do almost anything to make sure this doesn't happen.
- rishav_sharan 5y ago
  AFAIK, there is no India dev center. Just operational centers which oversee the operational and support work done by 3rd party organizations.
- ridiculous_leke 5y ago
  They could blacklist the entire country but they would miss on a good chunk of ad revenue.
zerop 5y ago
>> The move comes as tension escalates between the Indian government and Twitter. Google, Facebook, and several other firms have partially or fully complied with the IT rules, which among other things, requires any significant social media firm (any firm with over 5 million users in India) to appoint a chief compliant officer, a resident grievance officer, and a so-called nodal contact person to address on-ground concerns. FB, Google have appointed the chief compliant officer, but why Twitter doesn’t want to do it?
- joseph5 5y ago
  FB and Google are already overflowing with enough Modi worshiping Brahmins. Anyway who wants the job? Other than the ignorant or crazy no one will apply.
- baybal2 5y ago
  > chief compliant officer A very appropriately worded title
- xfer 5y ago
  Why should they comply with traceability law? Signal/whatsapp are also not compliant. Very weird seeing people supporting these draconian regulations.
  - kumarvvr 5y ago
    Can you explain what the traceability law is?
    - xfer 5y ago
      https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/why-indian-courts-should-reject-traceability-obligations https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/why-indian-courts-shou...
      - kumarvvr 5y ago
        The internet is an oversized megaphone. A couple of 1000 dedicated workers can spread rumours, panic and propaganda. When you have a country of 1.3 billion people, a large portion of whom also have smartphones, who, unfortunately are also uneducated and gullible, you have the perfect environment to cause trouble. Apps like WA and Telegram, enable this megaphone to reach every nook and corner of the country. If tomorrow, there is a coordinated rumour mongering going on, leading to riots and deaths, dont you think those who started the rumour be caught?
throwawayobvs 5y ago
It boggles the mind that companies such as twitter would even own offices in corrupt countries such as india. Its a question of time until the government will want to grab some of the sweet sweet money from them, and such measures are only the beginning: bully them a bit until they "sponsor" the right politicians.
- nomorewords 5y ago
  It's like in China where you have limited ownership of the company. But still, any % of whatever the big country is willing to give you, you take it because it raises the valuation of your company, so and so.
- sriram_malhar 5y ago
  It is true that the corruption at lower levels that is seen in India is orders of magnitude higher than in developed societies. But at the higher echelons, where politics and business and the arms industry meet, India is small potatoes when it comes to corruption. Americans don't have "bribes" ... they have sanitized words like "lobbyists", "power-tips", "pork-barrels" and so on. Rich societies fall over themselves selling arms to all factions in countries riven by war and poverty and starvation, while making pious pronouncements about freedom and right to exist. The giver of the bribe is just as corrupt as the receiver.
naruvimama 5y ago
Twitter is put on par with newspapers, because they do gatekeeping and have accepted bias. Twitter can not have the cake and eat it too. There is nothing sinister just the laws kicking in. You wouldn't want google manipulating search results and then claim to be neutral.
- danso 5y ago
  > You wouldn't want google manipulating search results and then claim to be neutral. But Google does manipulate search results, so ostensibly they should also be put on par with newspapers? examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27477797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27477797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13274753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13274753 edit: Also your comment misleads on what the article reports. Twitter has not lost safe harbor because "they do gatekeeping and have accepted bias", but because they haven't met the staffing requirements imposed by India on large social media companies: > The move comes as tension escalates between the Indian government and Twitter. Google, Facebook, and several other firms have partially or fully complied with the IT rules, which among other things, requires any significant social media firm (any firm with over 5 million users in India) to appoint a chief compliant officer, a resident grievance officer, and a so-called nodal contact person to address on-ground concerns. > Twitter has not complied with any of these requirements, the court filing said. Twitter had no comment on Monday’s filing, but has said in the past that it intends to comply with the IT rules.
  - 6510 5y ago
    how would one even sort search results without bias?
    - wongarsu 5y ago
      I think most would call the original pagerank algorithm unbiased. Sure, any algorithm will have a bias towards a certain content length, or towards pages that contain the search terms at a particular density. But by doing that you don't arrive at algorithms that have an opinion on the holocaust or Tiananmen Square [1]. Of course Twitter somehow managed to implement the worst of both worlds, with a sorting algorithm that promotes controversial content (without bias regarding the actual content), but then does biased moderation on that content. 1: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57367100 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57367100
wtmt 5y ago
This is an ongoing tussle with the very legality of these rules being questioned. It's too soon to say what "lost liability protection" actually means. Twitter's responses (or lack thereof) have been a pain to deal with for the government. What's not clear to me is who will be held responsible on the part of Twitter for any complaints. Earlier, Twitter had provided a local contact, which was that of a lawyer, as the contact for complaints and grievance redressal. That wasn't sufficient since the lawyer was not an employee of Twitter (as required by the new rules). He also left that position soon after. Twitter India has a managing director (MD), Manish Maheshwari, who claimed recently that he was only managing the marketing side and is not responsible for content moderation or anything else that happens on the platform. He was also granted a stay by the Karnataka High Court (which is where Bengaluru/Bangalore is) from arrest in a case filed in another state in the north (UP, i.e., Uttar Pradesh). [1] I personally don't think Twitter India will find people taking up the positions of Resident Grievance Officer, Nodal Officer and Chief Compliance Officer. These are currently open positions on the Twitter careers page. [2] Whoever takes these up could end up in jail, which could really be bad with a draconian law like UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) that allows people to be (arbitrarily) detained without recourse for very long durations. [3] The new IT rules have also been challenged in court on a few different fronts. "Two of the government’s own legal advisers warned it that the new Information Technology (IT) Rules were beyond the scope of the law and required parliamentary approval." [4] [1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/twitter-india-chief-wins-relief-court-police-probe-case-sources-2021-06-24/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/twitter-india-chief-wins... [2]: https://careers.twitter.com/en/roles.html#location=careers-twitter%3Asr%2Foffice%2Fin%2Fdelhi&sortBy=modified https://careers.twitter.com/en/roles.html#location=careers-t... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Activities_(Prevention)_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Activities_(Preventio... [4]: https://outline.com/hCC7yg https://outline.com/hCC7yg
- coldcode 5y ago
  No one in their right mind would take a position that could get them imprisoned, especially when the government is highly likely to do so.
busymom0 5y ago
> Twitter said at the time that it was “concerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve” I can smell the irony. These tech companies don't care about the liberties of the citizens of the America. Now they want to lecture the government of India and Nigeria (last month) about "freedom of expression"? What a pathetic joke. They took away the speech of mine and many others I know. I hope they suffer.
xony 5y ago
Trump's friend is ruling India ,This guy will finish the Indian IT industry
karterk 5y ago
Important to note that it's only Twitter which seems to have a problem here complying with the regulations. The other social networks have complied.
- mshroyer 5y ago
  "problem" complying with "regulations"
Naushad 5y ago
The article misses some more context. 1. The escalation intensified after tweets by prominent ministers and fucntionaries of the ruling government were marked as "manipulated media" 2. The IT Ministers and opposition partys accounts were locked for copyright infringement. 3. The govt wants twitter to comply on removing content and users critical of govt policies. [1] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/manipulated-media-delhi-polices-visit-what-followed-bjp-and-congress-tussle-over-toolkit-on-covid-7329835/ https://indianexpress.com/article/india/manipulated-media-de... [2] https://www.news18.com/news/india/copyright-infringement-twitter-on-why-it-blocked-ravi-prasad-shashi-tharoors-accounts-3929438.html https://www.news18.com/news/india/copyright-infringement-twi... [3] https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg8pzp/india-wants-more-control-over-social-media-twitter-is-pushing-back https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg8pzp/india-wants-more-cont... https://restofworld.org/2021/how-india-fell-in-then-out-of-love-with-twitter/ https://restofworld.org/2021/how-india-fell-in-then-out-of-l...
- HappyTypist 5y ago
  Can you imagine the Department of Justice declaring Twitter to be no longer protected under section 230, after flagging Trump's tweets? This feels so, so wrong.
  - bronzeage 5y ago
    Yes. It feels pretty right that you can't claim you're not editorializing if you decide to censure the leader of the country because of arbitrary reasons, like claiming coronavirus came from a lab is a conspiracy theory. What happens in India is actually the opposite, it's the government requiring the censuring. I'm always on the side of free speech. It shouldn't be up to Twitter to decide if coronavirus came from the lab, or if "mail in ballot fraud is very rare, as few as 0.001%" (a completely bonkers notion that was also later debunked, but served to prevent any discussion before the election despite it's absurdity).
    - BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
      Near the beginning of the pandemic people were told to sanitize surfaces thoroughly as a way to inhibit the spread of Covid. Many people had doubts about this guidance, but if you tweeted that such measures were ineffective, Twitter would censor you and/or label you as a spreader of misinformation. Months later, a study finally confirmed that the chances of catching covid from a contaminated surface was extremely low. Therefore, sanitizing surfaces was no longer recommended or necessary. But it’s not like Twitter’s trust and safety team is going to go back and unban you in light of this. The key takeaway is, if you are comfortable with Twitter taking such actions with potential ‘misinformation’ then you must also accept that what is considered correct at any point in time is subject to a potential reversal. The staff at Twitter is just as fallible as the rest of us.
2Gkashmiri 5y ago
in india at least there is a saying "you are doing this on your own responsibility". and this relates to an employee going for a job or doing something weird or students applying for college. what this means is, twitter is supposed to be responsible for their inability to cooperate with the crony government and any action they would be taking.
- kumarvvr 5y ago
  Why is a government elected through due process, with free and fair elections a "crony" govt. I can understand ones hate for the policies of a govt, but this is absurd.
  - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
    crony for selling out public infrastructure to capitalists, for waiving loans for billion dollar scammers but farmers resort to suicide when they are unable to pay back their small loans, when "elected governments" act as the nazi party and "image" is worth more than lives of ordinary citizens, when they do as they wish, have people disappear as they like, when journalists are arrested and people killed for speaking against this "Elected government". yeah, that crony elected government. edit; https://theprint.in/india/journalist-activist-jailed-under-nsa-for-45-days-over-cow-posts-in-manipur-its-not-unusual/684133/ https://theprint.in/india/journalist-activist-jailed-under-n... like these journalists. imagine an elected government can arrest anyone over cow posts? either these people have committed such heinous crimes against cows that their incarceration is necessary to protect law and order in cow community or the government has a vendetta against them. I'd go with the latter and with that, your elected government nonsense just flies away
    - kumarvvr 5y ago
      > selling out public infrastructure to capitalists Not sure what you mean. If there are any specific scandals you can point out to, I'd be really happy to know more. Are you suggesting govt. should not contract out infrastructure projects? > for waiving loans for billion dollar scammers More than 80% of property/money of such defaulters has been taken back by the government. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/banks-cheated-by-mallya-modi-and-choksi-get-rs-9-371-crore-from-ed-101624428568557.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/banks-cheated-by-m... > farmers resort to suicide when they are unable to pay back their small loans The govt. pays a lot of money to farmers. 21% of farm income is from govt. subsidies. (Subsidies that the US and other developed nations have been fighting to stop, so that they can compete in Indian markets). https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/economic-policy/farm-subsidies-account-for-21-farm-income-per-hectare-with-continuing-patronage-of-governments/ https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/economic-policy/fa... Farmer suicides have been more or less constant for many decades now. Its a sad situation and the causes of suicides are many and varied. The current govt. has brought in a lot of technology driven improvements to distribution of subsidies, eliminating middlemen, etc. The current farmer protests are mostly by rich farmer middlemen from Punjab, who will see their commissions reduces significantly if farmers start selling in markets with real competition. > when "elected governments" act as the nazi party and "image" is worth more than lives of ordinary citizens This could potentially mean very many things. It would help if you could be specific. Just shouting Nazi and lives of ordinary citizens means nothing. > have people disappear as they like Not very knowledgeable on this subject. Would love to hear more. > when journalists are arrested and people killed for speaking against this "Elected government" Most incidents I have seen are for deliberate instances of mis-information and shoddy journalism, leading to tense situations. I would be glad to hear of any instances where journalists have been wrongfully arrested. The example you cite is for a journalist who was arrested based on a complaint from a Woman's Union, and that was for his posts of FB rather. I never support suppression of free speech and news media, but the North Eastern states of India have a unique situation because China is fomenting a lot of separatism within the states and it is internationally knows that it claims Arunachal Pradesh as its own.
potamic 5y ago
I don't know if many people realize, but this is a pivotal moment for freedom of speech in India. The archaic IT act and National Security Act are already being severely abused to arrest journalists and activists, and the new 2021 rules take this to a completely new level. What they are essentially going for is unrestricted authority on content takedown and traceability of originator of content which will force companies to verify individuals. This will spell the end of anonymous access to social media heralding a new era of China-like levels of censorship. Today, saying that cow dung does not cure covid, can land you in jail because it goes against the government's narrative. I can't even imagine of the things to come. https://theprint.in/india/journalist-activist-jailed-under-nsa-for-45-days-over-cow-posts-in-manipur-its-not-unusual/ https://theprint.in/india/journalist-activist-jailed-under-n...
- alex_smart 5y ago
  >Today, saying that cow dung does not cure covid, can land you in jail because it goes against the government's narrative. I overall agree with the point that many indian authorities have been using laws to punish dissent, but that is a little disingenuous. The specific context in that case was that those comments were made about the death of a BJP leader. So, those people were jailed for mocking the death of a politician, not for merely saying that cowdung does not cure covid. I mean, the reality is bad enough as it is. There is no need to exaggerate.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > those people were jailed for mocking the death of a politician, not for merely saying that cowdung does not cure covid. > I mean, the reality is bad enough as it is. There is no need to exaggerate. You reminded me of how American commentary seems determined to push the obviously false claim that Uyghurs in China are being oppressed because of their religion, when it would be so much easier to defend the claim that they're being oppressed because of their race. (Even easier would be that they're being oppressed due to dissidence.) Most people are just repeating something they've heard, and couldn't analyze the merits of a claim if they wanted to.
mshroyer 5y ago
I would much prefer Twitter to ignore the Indian government. American companies should never cave to authoritarians.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  Then what should they do when the authoritarian is in the US? Where is the line?
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  They'll cave to whatever gets them more money. Which is why you see them bow down to China while pushing left wing ideology in the US. They're openly hypocritical and people still think they're altruistic for some reason.
specialist 5y ago
The best take down of Twitter comes from Jack Dorsey in this interview with Lex Fridman [2020/04/24]. History of machine learning at Square 13:09: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60KJz1BVTyU&t=789s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60KJz1BVTyU&t=789s https://podcastnotes.org/artificial-intelligence-podcast/jack-dorsey-square-crypto-ai/ https://podcastnotes.org/artificial-intelligence-podcast/jac... Square is the anti-Twitter. Square profits from doing good, Twitter from doing bad. Square uses AI for verification, authentication, fighting fraud. Twitter uses AI to signal boost lies. I always wondered if Twitter was clueless, oblivious, incompetent, or what. Jack knew. He always knew. Imagine if Twitter had been run like Square. Imagine that world.
dharmach 5y ago
Social media are global sovereign entities and above the governments of individual nations so they do not need to comply with the local laws.
alex_smart 5y ago
I do not necessarily have a problem with social media websites setting their own moderation policies, but for a long time it has been clear that twitter's actions in India are far from politically neutral. I also find it funny that Americans who have raised so much noise over last few years about Russians "hacking" their elections consider another country's government trying to limit or regulate an American company's attempts to influence domestic politics as an authoritarian attack on free speech.
- dtwest 5y ago
  It is important to point out that the Americans concerned about Russian hacking are often not the same Americans concerned with protecting free speech.
  - alex_smart 5y ago
    But I am sure there will be a big intersection between the Americans concerned about Russian hacking (liberals) and the people who will see this as an authorian government attacking free speech (also liberals).
thoughty 5y ago
I wanted to give a little context on how laws in India work. It has to be passed in the lower house (Lok Sabha) and the upper house (Rajya Sabha). While the ruling party (BJP) has majority in Lok Sabha is does not have so in Rajya Sabha. Also note that the members of the 2 houses are elected independently in different elections are at different times. For a Bill to become an Act, it has to pass in both houses and then be ratified by the President. The President and refuse and ask for re-evaluation if he disagrees. So for any bill to become an Act a lot of people across both the aisles (across parties) have to agree. I mention this because inevitably I expect someone to post that this is authoritarian policy (which it is not). While some may disagree a majority agree (including me). edit: fixed typos.
- square_usual 5y ago
  The Government and its allies have a simple majority in the Rajya Sabha.
- wtmt 5y ago
  Have to disagree with your claims. It’s a gross oversimplification of how laws can be passed or enacted in India. Not all laws require both houses to pass them (the infamous Aadhaar Act was passed as a money bill, a case that’s still pending hearing in the Supreme Court — money bills passed by the Lok Sabha are out of the ambit of the Rajya Sabha to do anything impactful). In this particular case, these are IT Rules that fall under an existing Act (the IT Act). It’s not a new law, which is a problem because these rules fall afoul of what’s allowed in the parent law.
- lovelearning 5y ago
  This is either misinformation or disinformation. This set of new rules did not undergo legislative scrutiny at all. In fact, this is the main objection of multiple legal petitions about its constitutionality. Search for "IT rules 2021 ultra vires". Two departments specifically advised the government that a new law was necessary. They were ignored. https://themorningcontext.com/chaos/did-pmo-get-its-way-on-indias-controversial-new-it-rules https://themorningcontext.com/chaos/did-pmo-get-its-way-on-i...
- news_user 5y ago
worker_thread 5y ago
There is definitely something going on with Indian Govt and Twitter. When the farmer's protest was on its peak, on my timeline I saw Jack Dorsey's activity liking tweets critical and mocking the current govt. I was totally shocked by Jack Dorsey's passive behaviour - you need to model and exhibit non neutral stance especially when you are the messenger of the information. Needless to say, with great power comes great responsibility. Jack Dorsey should stop acting like he is the sole flag bearer of the free speech in the entire world. Blocking Trump because he made calls for violence makes total sense, but passively liking and expressing your political likings and stance as CEO of twitter is is not cool & ethical. If you are publicly expressing your ideologies, god knows what goes behind the scenes at Twitter. I am just wondering what I will do as an employee of Twitter, if I doesn't agree with with the ideologies of my CEO and expressing otherwise. I am not sure ideologies is the right word, but I hope I get my point across. I always give benefit of doubt where it's due, but Twitter has definitely something sinister going with their Indian Operations. If Indian companies goes abroad they are expected to follow local laws, and if Twitter wants to operate in India it must give way to the law of the land. Additional Context: Twitter user of 12 years, NRI with no political leanings at all. One of Twitters recent mishaps: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-drops-removes-incorrect-map-career-page-showing-jammu-kashmir-ladakh-outside-india-1820456-2021-06-28 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-drops-removes-... EDIT for clarity
- mlnj 5y ago
  >I saw Jack Dorsey's activity liking tweets critical and mocking the current govt. >but passively liking and expressing your political likings and stance as CEO of twitter is is not cool & ethical. Let's flip the script for a second here. Is a CEO allowed to like a positive story about the Indian leader? Can he retweet a cause he might care about (which many others might not)? Does this mean that CEOs abstain from taking part in public discourse or be called as not 'neutral'? >Jack Dorsey should stop acting like he is the sole flag bearer of the free speech in the entire world. Can this argument not be pointed to anybody who argues for free speech? Who is allowed to be a flag bearer for free speech?
  - worker_thread 5y ago
vedharish 5y ago
How can I, as an Indian citizen, "resist" or "protest" these changes? Today the government wants backdoors in social networks, tomorrow they may turn to other aspects. Also, I would like to point out that the laws should be very different for peer-to-peer encrypted tools like WhatsApp and Signal vs laws for "content-discovery" platforms like twitter and google search. While the government should not concern itself what we speak to each other about as in the former case, for the latter there should be some moderation, just that the government should have some form of moderation along with the actual companies. Anyways I don't care much for the latter group as what I see / discover is already being manipulated by someone. We all want an unaltered version of the news / content but I believe it's an impossible problem to solve.
- srean 5y ago
  > How can I, as an Indian citizen, "resist" Vote and encourage others to do the same, call out fake narratives in discussions with friends and family
astatine 5y ago
As much as I don't want to defend the role of the government in this mess, twitter has done a terrible job in the optics dept. They have chosen to ignore steps like appointing people for certain mandatory roles, blocking the handle of the minister responsible for the new law and so on. It is almost like they wanted this to be a public fight. Is that a good strategy? Fighting the govt is rarely productive, but they probably know something to do this crazy in-your-face stuff.
- KingOfCoders 5y ago
  Twitter probably can't appoint people to mandatory roles in every country of the world if the country demands it. It is different though, when they have a physical presence in India.
- kapuasuite 5y ago
  >Fighting the govt is rarely productive, but they probably know something to do this crazy in-your-face stuff. Depends on your definition of productive, I suppose.
pelorat 5y ago
Fire the Indian employees and close your office there, problem solved. The beauty of the Internet is that you don't have to have an office in every country where your service is available.
- ridiculous_leke 5y ago
  Not worth when your revenue increases by millions of dollars every quarter.
  - throwawayobvs 5y ago
    Peanuts. I am actually angry at companies like twitter and such doing business there while neglecting the plight of the dalit and the raging corruption going on. But like china and uighurs not much we can do about india and its dalit discrimination. Cheap labour and cheap products plus a strategic ally in the region trump human rights.
naruvimama 5y ago
Ignoring the title This podcast is a nice observation of how different India is from a developed western country. https://youtu.be/bGaztD29pe0 https://youtu.be/bGaztD29pe0 A must watch especially if you are looking for an alternative view
naruvimama 5y ago
There is nothing lost here. If Twitter decides to manipulate/cancel/promote content in an unethical way it can be taken to the court. If the government makes unreasonable take down requests, Twitter can take it to court. That way the pros and cons of censorship by either party is transparent and available for public scrutiny.
justshowpost 5y ago
Twitter censors and then gets censored. The circle of life.
trdus 5y ago
Twitter has likely been subjected to FISA warrants and may have committed to those while remaining silent as the law requires. Apple complied to investigating Members of Congress when asked by the Justice Department. When you provide your services in a country you are governed by the laws of the country, e.g. DMCA is applicable in US but not recognised in other countries. If certain set of laws in a country are incompatible with the principles of your company, you may fall on the sword not offer your services in that particular country. I feel certain that Twitter withdrawing from India will do more good as it may bring increased focus on these amendments and expedite the judicial scrutiny. Twitter is straddling the fence, trying to malign the government but more often than not governments don’t blink against corporations.
news_user 5y ago
Related: India PM Narendra Modi named 'predator of press freedom' - BBC News https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Jm05y2PVn8k https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Jm05y2PVn8k
- ridiculous_lol 5y ago
  It's been ages since India has strong hate speech laws that have been used to target journalists(read: defamation). Not sure where were these people till now.

181 points by jmsflknr 5y ago

They should just shut their dev center in India and ask staff to relocate. The government can easily block them, but the optics of that would not look right. So this whole play around law and regulations.

tormeh 5y ago
India could prohibit companies doing business in India from doing business (read: advertise) on Twitter. That's the real threat.
- rishav_sharan 5y ago
  And companies outside India would further think twice before doing any business in india. Its not as if India has a stellar reputation for enabling global countries to invest in India. This is a bigger issue than it appears and both sides can lose big based on the outcome.
zerop 5y ago
What it has to do with dev center? Their work is for global twitter platform.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  But if they are within India they would be vulnerable to Indian law enforcement.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    It makes no difference. They can fine Twitter no matter where they are. If Twitter refuse to pay they can sanction any business using Twitter basically killing Twitter in India. Twitter would do almost anything to make sure this doesn't happen.
rishav_sharan 5y ago
AFAIK, there is no India dev center. Just operational centers which oversee the operational and support work done by 3rd party organizations.
ridiculous_leke 5y ago
They could blacklist the entire country but they would miss on a good chunk of ad revenue.

zerop 5y ago

>> The move comes as tension escalates between the Indian government and Twitter. Google, Facebook, and several other firms have partially or fully complied with the IT rules, which among other things, requires any significant social media firm (any firm with over 5 million users in India) to appoint a chief compliant officer, a resident grievance officer, and a so-called nodal contact person to address on-ground concerns. FB, Google have appointed the chief compliant officer, but why Twitter doesn’t want to do it?

joseph5 5y ago
FB and Google are already overflowing with enough Modi worshiping Brahmins. Anyway who wants the job? Other than the ignorant or crazy no one will apply.
baybal2 5y ago
> chief compliant officer A very appropriately worded title
xfer 5y ago
Why should they comply with traceability law? Signal/whatsapp are also not compliant. Very weird seeing people supporting these draconian regulations.
- kumarvvr 5y ago
  Can you explain what the traceability law is?
  - xfer 5y ago
    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/why-indian-courts-should-reject-traceability-obligations https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/why-indian-courts-shou...
    - kumarvvr 5y ago
      The internet is an oversized megaphone. A couple of 1000 dedicated workers can spread rumours, panic and propaganda. When you have a country of 1.3 billion people, a large portion of whom also have smartphones, who, unfortunately are also uneducated and gullible, you have the perfect environment to cause trouble. Apps like WA and Telegram, enable this megaphone to reach every nook and corner of the country. If tomorrow, there is a coordinated rumour mongering going on, leading to riots and deaths, dont you think those who started the rumour be caught?

throwawayobvs 5y ago

It boggles the mind that companies such as twitter would even own offices in corrupt countries such as india. Its a question of time until the government will want to grab some of the sweet sweet money from them, and such measures are only the beginning: bully them a bit until they "sponsor" the right politicians.

nomorewords 5y ago
It's like in China where you have limited ownership of the company. But still, any % of whatever the big country is willing to give you, you take it because it raises the valuation of your company, so and so.
sriram_malhar 5y ago
It is true that the corruption at lower levels that is seen in India is orders of magnitude higher than in developed societies. But at the higher echelons, where politics and business and the arms industry meet, India is small potatoes when it comes to corruption. Americans don't have "bribes" ... they have sanitized words like "lobbyists", "power-tips", "pork-barrels" and so on. Rich societies fall over themselves selling arms to all factions in countries riven by war and poverty and starvation, while making pious pronouncements about freedom and right to exist. The giver of the bribe is just as corrupt as the receiver.

naruvimama 5y ago

Twitter is put on par with newspapers, because they do gatekeeping and have accepted bias. Twitter can not have the cake and eat it too. There is nothing sinister just the laws kicking in. You wouldn't want google manipulating search results and then claim to be neutral.

danso 5y ago
> You wouldn't want google manipulating search results and then claim to be neutral. But Google does manipulate search results, so ostensibly they should also be put on par with newspapers? examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27477797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27477797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13274753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13274753 edit: Also your comment misleads on what the article reports. Twitter has not lost safe harbor because "they do gatekeeping and have accepted bias", but because they haven't met the staffing requirements imposed by India on large social media companies: > The move comes as tension escalates between the Indian government and Twitter. Google, Facebook, and several other firms have partially or fully complied with the IT rules, which among other things, requires any significant social media firm (any firm with over 5 million users in India) to appoint a chief compliant officer, a resident grievance officer, and a so-called nodal contact person to address on-ground concerns. > Twitter has not complied with any of these requirements, the court filing said. Twitter had no comment on Monday’s filing, but has said in the past that it intends to comply with the IT rules.
- 6510 5y ago
  how would one even sort search results without bias?
  - wongarsu 5y ago
    I think most would call the original pagerank algorithm unbiased. Sure, any algorithm will have a bias towards a certain content length, or towards pages that contain the search terms at a particular density. But by doing that you don't arrive at algorithms that have an opinion on the holocaust or Tiananmen Square [1]. Of course Twitter somehow managed to implement the worst of both worlds, with a sorting algorithm that promotes controversial content (without bias regarding the actual content), but then does biased moderation on that content. 1: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57367100 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57367100

wtmt 5y ago

This is an ongoing tussle with the very legality of these rules being questioned. It's too soon to say what "lost liability protection" actually means. Twitter's responses (or lack thereof) have been a pain to deal with for the government. What's not clear to me is who will be held responsible on the part of Twitter for any complaints. Earlier, Twitter had provided a local contact, which was that of a lawyer, as the contact for complaints and grievance redressal. That wasn't sufficient since the lawyer was not an employee of Twitter (as required by the new rules). He also left that position soon after. Twitter India has a managing director (MD), Manish Maheshwari, who claimed recently that he was only managing the marketing side and is not responsible for content moderation or anything else that happens on the platform. He was also granted a stay by the Karnataka High Court (which is where Bengaluru/Bangalore is) from arrest in a case filed in another state in the north (UP, i.e., Uttar Pradesh). [1] I personally don't think Twitter India will find people taking up the positions of Resident Grievance Officer, Nodal Officer and Chief Compliance Officer. These are currently open positions on the Twitter careers page. [2] Whoever takes these up could end up in jail, which could really be bad with a draconian law like UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) that allows people to be (arbitrarily) detained without recourse for very long durations. [3] The new IT rules have also been challenged in court on a few different fronts. "Two of the government’s own legal advisers warned it that the new Information Technology (IT) Rules were beyond the scope of the law and required parliamentary approval." [4] [1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/twitter-india-chief-wins-relief-court-police-probe-case-sources-2021-06-24/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/twitter-india-chief-wins... [2]: https://careers.twitter.com/en/roles.html#location=careers-twitter%3Asr%2Foffice%2Fin%2Fdelhi&sortBy=modified https://careers.twitter.com/en/roles.html#location=careers-t... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Activities_(Prevention)_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Activities_(Preventio... [4]: https://outline.com/hCC7yg https://outline.com/hCC7yg

coldcode 5y ago
No one in their right mind would take a position that could get them imprisoned, especially when the government is highly likely to do so.

busymom0 5y ago

> Twitter said at the time that it was “concerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve” I can smell the irony. These tech companies don't care about the liberties of the citizens of the America. Now they want to lecture the government of India and Nigeria (last month) about "freedom of expression"? What a pathetic joke. They took away the speech of mine and many others I know. I hope they suffer.

xony 5y ago

Trump's friend is ruling India ,This guy will finish the Indian IT industry

karterk 5y ago

Important to note that it's only Twitter which seems to have a problem here complying with the regulations. The other social networks have complied.

mshroyer 5y ago
"problem" complying with "regulations"

Naushad 5y ago

The article misses some more context. 1. The escalation intensified after tweets by prominent ministers and fucntionaries of the ruling government were marked as "manipulated media" 2. The IT Ministers and opposition partys accounts were locked for copyright infringement. 3. The govt wants twitter to comply on removing content and users critical of govt policies. [1] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/manipulated-media-delhi-polices-visit-what-followed-bjp-and-congress-tussle-over-toolkit-on-covid-7329835/ https://indianexpress.com/article/india/manipulated-media-de... [2] https://www.news18.com/news/india/copyright-infringement-twitter-on-why-it-blocked-ravi-prasad-shashi-tharoors-accounts-3929438.html https://www.news18.com/news/india/copyright-infringement-twi... [3] https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg8pzp/india-wants-more-control-over-social-media-twitter-is-pushing-back https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg8pzp/india-wants-more-cont... https://restofworld.org/2021/how-india-fell-in-then-out-of-love-with-twitter/ https://restofworld.org/2021/how-india-fell-in-then-out-of-l...

HappyTypist 5y ago
Can you imagine the Department of Justice declaring Twitter to be no longer protected under section 230, after flagging Trump's tweets? This feels so, so wrong.
- bronzeage 5y ago
  Yes. It feels pretty right that you can't claim you're not editorializing if you decide to censure the leader of the country because of arbitrary reasons, like claiming coronavirus came from a lab is a conspiracy theory. What happens in India is actually the opposite, it's the government requiring the censuring. I'm always on the side of free speech. It shouldn't be up to Twitter to decide if coronavirus came from the lab, or if "mail in ballot fraud is very rare, as few as 0.001%" (a completely bonkers notion that was also later debunked, but served to prevent any discussion before the election despite it's absurdity).
  - BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
    Near the beginning of the pandemic people were told to sanitize surfaces thoroughly as a way to inhibit the spread of Covid. Many people had doubts about this guidance, but if you tweeted that such measures were ineffective, Twitter would censor you and/or label you as a spreader of misinformation. Months later, a study finally confirmed that the chances of catching covid from a contaminated surface was extremely low. Therefore, sanitizing surfaces was no longer recommended or necessary. But it’s not like Twitter’s trust and safety team is going to go back and unban you in light of this. The key takeaway is, if you are comfortable with Twitter taking such actions with potential ‘misinformation’ then you must also accept that what is considered correct at any point in time is subject to a potential reversal. The staff at Twitter is just as fallible as the rest of us.

2Gkashmiri 5y ago

in india at least there is a saying "you are doing this on your own responsibility". and this relates to an employee going for a job or doing something weird or students applying for college. what this means is, twitter is supposed to be responsible for their inability to cooperate with the crony government and any action they would be taking.

kumarvvr 5y ago
Why is a government elected through due process, with free and fair elections a "crony" govt. I can understand ones hate for the policies of a govt, but this is absurd.
- 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
  crony for selling out public infrastructure to capitalists, for waiving loans for billion dollar scammers but farmers resort to suicide when they are unable to pay back their small loans, when "elected governments" act as the nazi party and "image" is worth more than lives of ordinary citizens, when they do as they wish, have people disappear as they like, when journalists are arrested and people killed for speaking against this "Elected government". yeah, that crony elected government. edit; https://theprint.in/india/journalist-activist-jailed-under-nsa-for-45-days-over-cow-posts-in-manipur-its-not-unusual/684133/ https://theprint.in/india/journalist-activist-jailed-under-n... like these journalists. imagine an elected government can arrest anyone over cow posts? either these people have committed such heinous crimes against cows that their incarceration is necessary to protect law and order in cow community or the government has a vendetta against them. I'd go with the latter and with that, your elected government nonsense just flies away
  - kumarvvr 5y ago
    > selling out public infrastructure to capitalists Not sure what you mean. If there are any specific scandals you can point out to, I'd be really happy to know more. Are you suggesting govt. should not contract out infrastructure projects? > for waiving loans for billion dollar scammers More than 80% of property/money of such defaulters has been taken back by the government. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/banks-cheated-by-mallya-modi-and-choksi-get-rs-9-371-crore-from-ed-101624428568557.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/banks-cheated-by-m... > farmers resort to suicide when they are unable to pay back their small loans The govt. pays a lot of money to farmers. 21% of farm income is from govt. subsidies. (Subsidies that the US and other developed nations have been fighting to stop, so that they can compete in Indian markets). https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/economic-policy/farm-subsidies-account-for-21-farm-income-per-hectare-with-continuing-patronage-of-governments/ https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/economic-policy/fa... Farmer suicides have been more or less constant for many decades now. Its a sad situation and the causes of suicides are many and varied. The current govt. has brought in a lot of technology driven improvements to distribution of subsidies, eliminating middlemen, etc. The current farmer protests are mostly by rich farmer middlemen from Punjab, who will see their commissions reduces significantly if farmers start selling in markets with real competition. > when "elected governments" act as the nazi party and "image" is worth more than lives of ordinary citizens This could potentially mean very many things. It would help if you could be specific. Just shouting Nazi and lives of ordinary citizens means nothing. > have people disappear as they like Not very knowledgeable on this subject. Would love to hear more. > when journalists are arrested and people killed for speaking against this "Elected government" Most incidents I have seen are for deliberate instances of mis-information and shoddy journalism, leading to tense situations. I would be glad to hear of any instances where journalists have been wrongfully arrested. The example you cite is for a journalist who was arrested based on a complaint from a Woman's Union, and that was for his posts of FB rather. I never support suppression of free speech and news media, but the North Eastern states of India have a unique situation because China is fomenting a lot of separatism within the states and it is internationally knows that it claims Arunachal Pradesh as its own.

potamic 5y ago

I don't know if many people realize, but this is a pivotal moment for freedom of speech in India. The archaic IT act and National Security Act are already being severely abused to arrest journalists and activists, and the new 2021 rules take this to a completely new level. What they are essentially going for is unrestricted authority on content takedown and traceability of originator of content which will force companies to verify individuals. This will spell the end of anonymous access to social media heralding a new era of China-like levels of censorship. Today, saying that cow dung does not cure covid, can land you in jail because it goes against the government's narrative. I can't even imagine of the things to come. https://theprint.in/india/journalist-activist-jailed-under-nsa-for-45-days-over-cow-posts-in-manipur-its-not-unusual/ https://theprint.in/india/journalist-activist-jailed-under-n...

alex_smart 5y ago
>Today, saying that cow dung does not cure covid, can land you in jail because it goes against the government's narrative. I overall agree with the point that many indian authorities have been using laws to punish dissent, but that is a little disingenuous. The specific context in that case was that those comments were made about the death of a BJP leader. So, those people were jailed for mocking the death of a politician, not for merely saying that cowdung does not cure covid. I mean, the reality is bad enough as it is. There is no need to exaggerate.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > those people were jailed for mocking the death of a politician, not for merely saying that cowdung does not cure covid. > I mean, the reality is bad enough as it is. There is no need to exaggerate. You reminded me of how American commentary seems determined to push the obviously false claim that Uyghurs in China are being oppressed because of their religion, when it would be so much easier to defend the claim that they're being oppressed because of their race. (Even easier would be that they're being oppressed due to dissidence.) Most people are just repeating something they've heard, and couldn't analyze the merits of a claim if they wanted to.

mshroyer 5y ago

I would much prefer Twitter to ignore the Indian government. American companies should never cave to authoritarians.

Dah00n 5y ago
Then what should they do when the authoritarian is in the US? Where is the line?
CountDrewku 5y ago
They'll cave to whatever gets them more money. Which is why you see them bow down to China while pushing left wing ideology in the US. They're openly hypocritical and people still think they're altruistic for some reason.

specialist 5y ago

The best take down of Twitter comes from Jack Dorsey in this interview with Lex Fridman [2020/04/24]. History of machine learning at Square 13:09: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60KJz1BVTyU&t=789s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60KJz1BVTyU&t=789s https://podcastnotes.org/artificial-intelligence-podcast/jack-dorsey-square-crypto-ai/ https://podcastnotes.org/artificial-intelligence-podcast/jac... Square is the anti-Twitter. Square profits from doing good, Twitter from doing bad. Square uses AI for verification, authentication, fighting fraud. Twitter uses AI to signal boost lies. I always wondered if Twitter was clueless, oblivious, incompetent, or what. Jack knew. He always knew. Imagine if Twitter had been run like Square. Imagine that world.

dharmach 5y ago

Social media are global sovereign entities and above the governments of individual nations so they do not need to comply with the local laws.

alex_smart 5y ago

I do not necessarily have a problem with social media websites setting their own moderation policies, but for a long time it has been clear that twitter's actions in India are far from politically neutral. I also find it funny that Americans who have raised so much noise over last few years about Russians "hacking" their elections consider another country's government trying to limit or regulate an American company's attempts to influence domestic politics as an authoritarian attack on free speech.

dtwest 5y ago
It is important to point out that the Americans concerned about Russian hacking are often not the same Americans concerned with protecting free speech.
- alex_smart 5y ago
  But I am sure there will be a big intersection between the Americans concerned about Russian hacking (liberals) and the people who will see this as an authorian government attacking free speech (also liberals).

thoughty 5y ago

I wanted to give a little context on how laws in India work. It has to be passed in the lower house (Lok Sabha) and the upper house (Rajya Sabha). While the ruling party (BJP) has majority in Lok Sabha is does not have so in Rajya Sabha. Also note that the members of the 2 houses are elected independently in different elections are at different times. For a Bill to become an Act, it has to pass in both houses and then be ratified by the President. The President and refuse and ask for re-evaluation if he disagrees. So for any bill to become an Act a lot of people across both the aisles (across parties) have to agree. I mention this because inevitably I expect someone to post that this is authoritarian policy (which it is not). While some may disagree a majority agree (including me). edit: fixed typos.

square_usual 5y ago
The Government and its allies have a simple majority in the Rajya Sabha.
wtmt 5y ago
Have to disagree with your claims. It’s a gross oversimplification of how laws can be passed or enacted in India. Not all laws require both houses to pass them (the infamous Aadhaar Act was passed as a money bill, a case that’s still pending hearing in the Supreme Court — money bills passed by the Lok Sabha are out of the ambit of the Rajya Sabha to do anything impactful). In this particular case, these are IT Rules that fall under an existing Act (the IT Act). It’s not a new law, which is a problem because these rules fall afoul of what’s allowed in the parent law.
lovelearning 5y ago
This is either misinformation or disinformation. This set of new rules did not undergo legislative scrutiny at all. In fact, this is the main objection of multiple legal petitions about its constitutionality. Search for "IT rules 2021 ultra vires". Two departments specifically advised the government that a new law was necessary. They were ignored. https://themorningcontext.com/chaos/did-pmo-get-its-way-on-indias-controversial-new-it-rules https://themorningcontext.com/chaos/did-pmo-get-its-way-on-i...
news_user 5y ago

worker_thread 5y ago

There is definitely something going on with Indian Govt and Twitter. When the farmer's protest was on its peak, on my timeline I saw Jack Dorsey's activity liking tweets critical and mocking the current govt. I was totally shocked by Jack Dorsey's passive behaviour - you need to model and exhibit non neutral stance especially when you are the messenger of the information. Needless to say, with great power comes great responsibility. Jack Dorsey should stop acting like he is the sole flag bearer of the free speech in the entire world. Blocking Trump because he made calls for violence makes total sense, but passively liking and expressing your political likings and stance as CEO of twitter is is not cool & ethical. If you are publicly expressing your ideologies, god knows what goes behind the scenes at Twitter. I am just wondering what I will do as an employee of Twitter, if I doesn't agree with with the ideologies of my CEO and expressing otherwise. I am not sure ideologies is the right word, but I hope I get my point across. I always give benefit of doubt where it's due, but Twitter has definitely something sinister going with their Indian Operations. If Indian companies goes abroad they are expected to follow local laws, and if Twitter wants to operate in India it must give way to the law of the land. Additional Context: Twitter user of 12 years, NRI with no political leanings at all. One of Twitters recent mishaps: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-drops-removes-incorrect-map-career-page-showing-jammu-kashmir-ladakh-outside-india-1820456-2021-06-28 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-drops-removes-... EDIT for clarity

mlnj 5y ago
>I saw Jack Dorsey's activity liking tweets critical and mocking the current govt. >but passively liking and expressing your political likings and stance as CEO of twitter is is not cool & ethical. Let's flip the script for a second here. Is a CEO allowed to like a positive story about the Indian leader? Can he retweet a cause he might care about (which many others might not)? Does this mean that CEOs abstain from taking part in public discourse or be called as not 'neutral'? >Jack Dorsey should stop acting like he is the sole flag bearer of the free speech in the entire world. Can this argument not be pointed to anybody who argues for free speech? Who is allowed to be a flag bearer for free speech?
- worker_thread 5y ago

vedharish 5y ago

How can I, as an Indian citizen, "resist" or "protest" these changes? Today the government wants backdoors in social networks, tomorrow they may turn to other aspects. Also, I would like to point out that the laws should be very different for peer-to-peer encrypted tools like WhatsApp and Signal vs laws for "content-discovery" platforms like twitter and google search. While the government should not concern itself what we speak to each other about as in the former case, for the latter there should be some moderation, just that the government should have some form of moderation along with the actual companies. Anyways I don't care much for the latter group as what I see / discover is already being manipulated by someone. We all want an unaltered version of the news / content but I believe it's an impossible problem to solve.

srean 5y ago
> How can I, as an Indian citizen, "resist" Vote and encourage others to do the same, call out fake narratives in discussions with friends and family

astatine 5y ago

As much as I don't want to defend the role of the government in this mess, twitter has done a terrible job in the optics dept. They have chosen to ignore steps like appointing people for certain mandatory roles, blocking the handle of the minister responsible for the new law and so on. It is almost like they wanted this to be a public fight. Is that a good strategy? Fighting the govt is rarely productive, but they probably know something to do this crazy in-your-face stuff.

KingOfCoders 5y ago
Twitter probably can't appoint people to mandatory roles in every country of the world if the country demands it. It is different though, when they have a physical presence in India.
kapuasuite 5y ago
>Fighting the govt is rarely productive, but they probably know something to do this crazy in-your-face stuff. Depends on your definition of productive, I suppose.

pelorat 5y ago

Fire the Indian employees and close your office there, problem solved. The beauty of the Internet is that you don't have to have an office in every country where your service is available.

ridiculous_leke 5y ago
Not worth when your revenue increases by millions of dollars every quarter.
- throwawayobvs 5y ago
  Peanuts. I am actually angry at companies like twitter and such doing business there while neglecting the plight of the dalit and the raging corruption going on. But like china and uighurs not much we can do about india and its dalit discrimination. Cheap labour and cheap products plus a strategic ally in the region trump human rights.

naruvimama 5y ago

Ignoring the title This podcast is a nice observation of how different India is from a developed western country. https://youtu.be/bGaztD29pe0 https://youtu.be/bGaztD29pe0 A must watch especially if you are looking for an alternative view

naruvimama 5y ago

There is nothing lost here. If Twitter decides to manipulate/cancel/promote content in an unethical way it can be taken to the court. If the government makes unreasonable take down requests, Twitter can take it to court. That way the pros and cons of censorship by either party is transparent and available for public scrutiny.

justshowpost 5y ago

Twitter censors and then gets censored. The circle of life.

trdus 5y ago

Twitter has likely been subjected to FISA warrants and may have committed to those while remaining silent as the law requires. Apple complied to investigating Members of Congress when asked by the Justice Department. When you provide your services in a country you are governed by the laws of the country, e.g. DMCA is applicable in US but not recognised in other countries. If certain set of laws in a country are incompatible with the principles of your company, you may fall on the sword not offer your services in that particular country. I feel certain that Twitter withdrawing from India will do more good as it may bring increased focus on these amendments and expedite the judicial scrutiny. Twitter is straddling the fence, trying to malign the government but more often than not governments don’t blink against corporations.

news_user 5y ago

Related: India PM Narendra Modi named 'predator of press freedom' - BBC News https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Jm05y2PVn8k https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Jm05y2PVn8k

ridiculous_lol 5y ago
It's been ages since India has strong hate speech laws that have been used to target journalists(read: defamation). Not sure where were these people till now.