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Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

178 points by shivbhatt 5y ago

OzyM 5y ago
"The IT rules, which became effective end-May, are aimed at regulating content on social media and making firms act more swiftly on legal requests to remove posts and sharing details on the originators of messages. They also require the appointment of certain new executives." The article makes this sound like a massive detriment to free speech. Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash tag related to farmer protests against new agricultural reforms") can't be good. That plus forcing the company to hire government-approved executives seems like a slippery slope. Are there any benefits to this regulation I'm overlooking?
- vowelless 5y ago
  The benefit is complying with local laws. Not all countries have “first amendment style free speech”. Note the speech restrictions in the Indian constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_India The farmers protests were allegedly detrimental to the sovereignty and security of India and so it makes sense to ban those kinds of hastags. FWIW, the American government also requests removals from social media sites. Edit: perhaps this comment is unnecessarily controversial / inflammatory. I just wanted to suggest that there are other interpretations of free speech law and that it makes sense for a corporation to comply with those laws if they want to operate in those countries. I personally dont agree with those laws, which is why I fortunately moved to the US.
  - andyjohnson0 5y ago
    > The farmers protests were allegedly detrimental to the sovereignty and security of India and so it makes sense to ban those kinds of hastags. Why? How does a hashtag impact a country's sovereignty or security? Edit: am I missing /s here?
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      The reasoning is that organizing for stuff like the farmers' strike or generally opposing Modi's politics threatens the security of India by... well, being critical of the government's actions.
    - rishav_sharan 5y ago
      It shows our Dear Leader in poor light and is thus something only anti nationals would do. Dissent is the biggest threat to India's sovereignty and free thought to its security.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 5y ago
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  - OzyM 5y ago
    Super interesting Wikipedia article, thanks for the link! Some of the restrictions on free speech make me instinctually uncomfortable (i.e. restrictions for the sake of "decency and morality"), but I recognize these are hardly unique to India and countries such as the U.S. have censored plenty of books, etc. in the past. I'm not sure that I personally am in favor. However, you're clearly right in that it's hardly unprecedented or unique.
    - xxpor 5y ago
      >countries such as the U.S. have censored plenty of books, etc. in the past. The modern interpretation of the 1st amendment as being fairly absolute is only 50-100 years old. Don't forget the federal government had political prisoners for protesting against the US getting involved in WW 1, and the HUAC and McCarthy hearings were blatantly unconstitutional under modern jurisprudence. We don't even need to talk about the Alien and Sedition acts, passed right after the 1st amendment was ratified!
      - pjc50 5y ago
        Or the Comstock acts. At one point it was illegal to distribute information on contraception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws#State_laws_on_birth_control_(contraception),_etc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws#State_laws_on_bi....
      - jbishop156 5y ago
        That's true. It did take the US 200 years to come to the correct interpretation of First Amendment being damn near absolute. Shameful as that delay was, we progressed in the right direction.
  - mullen 5y ago
    > FWIW, the American government also requests removals from social media sites. No, they don't. Any American Government official requesting a removal of anything from social media sites would probably lose their job. That's saying a lot because American Government officials rarely ever lose their jobs.
    - oneplane 5y ago
      Yes they do. Not personally, but they do. The amount of child exploitation that falls through the filters is not zero, and sometimes the government of the US intervenes and asks for the content to be removed.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        Removing that kind of illegal content by the police is 100% different from political officials asking to have content critical of the gov't removed.
        oneplane 5y ago
        Illegal is just whatever the law says is illegal. If you make a law making dissent illegal, then that content is illegal. So now you have to define 'real'-illegal and 'I do not like your opinion'-illegal in the law of some other country.
        alex_smart 5y ago
        The point is that India is a sovereign republic and has its own laws about what is illegal and is not. According to India's laws, spreading false rumours about the police shooting a farmer when there is clear evidence that the person actually died by running his tractor into a barricade is illegal. And when Twitter failed to comply with government's orders to remove these tweets, they didn't have any point of contact from the company they could turn to for accountability. That's why the need for the compliance officer. Also, criticizing the government is not illegal according to Indian laws.
        5y ago
  - rishav_sharan 5y ago
    > The farmers protests were allegedly detrimental to the sovereignty and security of India and so it makes sense to ban those kinds of hastags. Thats a fairly nonsensical claim. Are you planning back it up with more details/sources? Because if we are just making sentences on the fly, IMO, this BJP regime has been allegedly detrimental to the sovereignty and security of India.
    - xNeil 5y ago
      The hashtags insinuated the government was planning a farmer genocide. Source: https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/govt-sends-notice-to-twitter-on-restoring-suspended-accounts/articleshow/80667340.cms https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/govt-se...
      - rishav_sharan 5y ago
        How is that a threat to India's sovereignty or security? Modi is infamous for having caused, by his actions or inactions, the Gujarat riots that killed 2000+ people. Hell, he was even banned from entering the US, till he became the Indian PM. There is blood on his hands and lots of it. And to give some context on this hash tag, I believe it came after the gov't put across barricades and barbed wires to caroll the protesters leading many to believe that the regime was planning a major crackdown. The situation in the first week of Feb was very tense. https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/others/iron-spikes-barbed-wire-and-concrete-walls-at-delhi-farm-protest-sites-101612204708512.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/others/iron-spikes-bar... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55899754 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55899754
        ConcernedCoder 5y ago
        because now it will be harder to do the actual genocide without someone saying "hey, see! I told you so..."
        nsenifty 5y ago
        > The situation in the first week of Feb was very tense. Wasn't it partly due to the genocide misinformation? One protestor died in a tractor accident and Twitter did little to curb the misinformation that he was shot by police.
- dartharva 5y ago
  >However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash tag related to farmer protests against new agricultural reforms") can't be good. That plus forcing the company to hire government-approved executives seems like a slippery slope. Most governments (including India's) already have the power to make Twitter and other sites censor content. The requirement for a local compliance officer comes from the fact that Twitter's India branch has literally no direct control over the content on its platform and is mostly here to sell advertisements and look over marketing.
  - kjs3 5y ago
    The requirement for a local compliance officer comes from the desire to have someone associated directly with the company to lean on/harass/put in jail if the parent company doesn't comply with local government desires. Lots of countries have such a requirement.
- gruez 5y ago
  >They also require the appointment of certain new executives Ah so just like china? >Now a wide range of foreign companies in China, from the cosmetics giant L’Oréal to Walt Disney and Dow Chemicals, all have party committees and display the hammer and sickle on their premises. In 2017, Reuters published an article that quoted executives from one European company saying that party representatives had demanded to be brought into the executive committee and have the business pay their expenses. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/china-business-xi-jinping-communist-party-state-private-enterprise-huawei https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/china-business...
  - jonahx 5y ago
    > L’Oréal to Walt Disney and Dow Chemicals... display the hammer and sickle on their premises. Wow. Quoted just so others don't miss this. It was news to me.
    - syshum 5y ago
      Globalism is a race to the bottom when it comes to Individual freedom. The actions of these companies in these Authoritarian nations proves that despite many claiming otherwise
    - pjc50 5y ago
      This is darkly funny; of course their loyalty is to money rather than any ideology. They'll be Communists if there's money in it. After all, this enhances shareholder value for the shareholders in the US, and isn't that the one and only thing that matters to a modern company? There's no risk to the bosses and shareholders of being expropriated. Well, unless Dow's local operations get seized ..
      - natoliniak 5y ago
        > Well, unless Dow's local operations get seized I think Lenin once said: The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them. yep.
- msravi 5y ago
  > That plus forcing the company to hire government-approved executives Where did you get that from? Completely untrue. The new IT rules mandate the appointment of persons in certain executive roles, and companies, including Twitter, have the freedom to choose whomsoever they please, as long as he/she is an Indian resident - they don't have to be "government approved" Twitter didn't want to have a responsible officer in India. The managing director of Twitter India said he was only responsible for "marketing" and did not have control over the day-to-day functioning of the company. > controversial hash tag related to farmer protests It wasn't just a controversial hashtag. A farmer sped a tractor into a barricade causing the tractor to overturn and was killed. The whole thing was clearly caught on camera[1][2]. Within minutes there were blatantly false tweets flying around saying that police had fired on the farmers and there was a genocide in progress (with an associated hashtag). Twitter refused to take down such blatantly false and deliberately incendiary tweets. Edit: 1. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/farmers-protest-one-dead-as-tractor-overturns-at-ito-area-in-delhi/videoshow/80467597.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSLaOMEzHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSLaOMEzHY
  - OzyM 5y ago
    I read the government's requirement of certain executive roles + the requirement of it being an Indian citizen as the government having undue control over a private (foreign) company's executive positions. I'm still not familiar with the background on the mandating of these new executive roles, but wanting the person overseeing implementation of your country's laws to be from your country at least makes sense to me. As far as the "controversial hash tag", that was a quote directly from the article. I feel like removing an entire hashtag related to a political position is generally a bad idea and can silence a lot of legitimate free speech, but I don't know enough on the specifics of this situation to apply that here. Thanks for adding more context to clear up some misconceptions.
    - msravi 5y ago
      Just to be clear, the law doesn't require that the role be filled by an Indian citizen. It just requires that the person be a resident of India.
- sudhirj 5y ago
  > forcing the company to hire government-approved executives seems like a slippery slope. Think is this closer to the GDPR requiring the Data Protection Officer role. I don't it needs to be govt-approved. Not in favour of the overreach by the govt here, but it's not quite as bad as that. They want a single point of contact they can put pressure on.
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    They want somebody they can arrest.
    - sudhirj 5y ago
      They can already arrest any employee, like this head of marketing.
      - michaelmrose 5y ago
        It's likely that they can't arrest someone for not doing something that said employees have neither the authority nor the ability to do nor would it help if they did. They wont someone in country with that power that can be held responsible for compliance with the Indian government.
- philliphaydon 5y ago
  > Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash tag related to farmer protests against new agricultural reforms") can't be good. I disagree. Both are bad. When you grow to the size of Facebook, Twitter, etc. Removing content from your own platform allows you to spread propaganda that meets your own agenda. That allows these platforms to promote a politician that maybe trying to reduce corporate tax, and suppress one who is trying to raise it. It’s bad enough these platforms are dictating what’s a conspiracy theory or who we should listen to about Covid.
  - driverdan 5y ago
    Platforms need to moderate content or it will be 90% spam.
    - cheif-lama 5y ago
      This is not moderation, this is Hindutwa nationalism trying to shut everybody down.
  - OzyM 5y ago
    I mean, I disagree with (some of) platforms' content removal, but I don't disagree with their legal right to do so. If Twitter becomes a propaganda machine deleting any tweet it disagrees with, I think that's shitty and if I had an account I'd delete it to avoid participating, but I'm not sold on why the government should make that illegal. People and private organizations currently have the right to propagandize in the U.S. (without explicitly calling for violent uprisings, etc). What's the major difference between Twitter moderating tweets and a privately-owned forum moderating comments?
    - jaywalk 5y ago
      > What's the major difference between Twitter moderating tweets and a privately-owned forum moderating comments? Reach.
- dmingod666 5y ago
  Countries implementing rules in their own countries on business that earn profits from those countries, shocking.
- tw600040 5y ago
  Hypothetically speaking, what if the said company acts with ulterior motives, is blatantly anti national, blatantly trying to interfere in elections, cause riots etc. What should a responsible government do then? Hypothetically.
  - OzyM 5y ago
    Ulterior motives, anti national -> (personally) this seems like free speech. I don't have to like it to think it should be legal. Blatantly trying to interfere with elections -> if you mean by spreading opinions / propaganda, this seems generally under the realm of free speech. The government being able to silence opinions that disagree with it generally seems much more problematic than civilians being able to spread bad opinions Cause riots -> Again, I think opinions should be legal. However, saying "hey y'all let's get guns and actively participate in violence" is not protected under free speech in any country I'm aware of, but is also not really my major concern with this legislation.
- ikilledthecat 5y ago
  As an Indian citizen I'd rather not have a shithead american executive lord over information flow in my country. I trust my govt. way more than I will ever trust a Foreign entity. Twitter should comply with Indian laws if it wants to operate here. It's as simple as that.
  - driverdan 5y ago
    > I trust my govt. way more than I will ever trust a Foreign entity. You trust a government that's trying to censor content they don't like over a company that doesn't want to censor it?
    - ikilledthecat 5y ago
      twitter is not censoring content?? hahaha what world are we living in?
      - notahacker 5y ago
        Twitter wasn't censoring the content the Indian government has introduced new laws to compel them to censor
        ikilledthecat 5y ago
        I don't care what they were or weren't censoring. Twitter and other social media giants are trying to become the arbiters of truth in this world and control much of the flow of information over the internet. A foreign entity with no responsibilities, checks or even connection to the local people should not have such power imo. I look at twitter censoring or promoting pro/anti govt. hashtags/accounts as election meddling. So I'm happy that they're forced to have an accountable local presence.
    - dmingod666 5y ago
      If you take Huawei and TikTok, would you make the same argument? Why trust the govt just in select cases?
- gremloni 5y ago
  I wish the far right hadn’t poisoned the free speech well. I genuinely blame them for people being mostly okay with censorship on this scale.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  This seems pretty much the same as Chinese law which requires publisher verify the sources. I dont know what exactly to make of it. But I think it probably makes sense from the government's perspective.
- 1024core 5y ago
  Take a look at this, and tell me Twitter is not biased. The rules are to prevent such bullshit. https://twitter.com/truth_recipe/status/1411234708814323712 https://twitter.com/truth_recipe/status/1411234708814323712
- cyanydeez 5y ago
  less free range propaganda.
- rammer 5y ago
  Are there any benefits to this regulation I'm overlooking? > Yep lots, A democratically elected government of a state is at least answerable to its constituents who can boot them out if the government doesn't do the right thing. These monopolistic social 'platforms' are not answerable to anyone but the whims of their management and advertisers. They purposely allow lies and misinformation to propogate as it boosts engagement and are a cesspool of disharmony and conflict. Just as well that they'll be now held responsible for the results of their actions. Love it, high time many of them are broken down for having far too much power.
  - billh 5y ago
    > A democratically elected government of a state is at least answerable to its constituents who can boot them out if the government doesn't do the right thing. How can constituents come to any informed opinion if a government appointed executive is summarily striking any public discussion on controversial topics? Seems completely antithetical to any semblance of a functional democracy.
    - inapis 5y ago
      Twitter is not the only place for discussion. And people do not vote exclusively based on public discussion. Indians have tight knit communities and how the community votes is a much major influence on the elections than what is being discussed on twitter/facebook or even national TV. Case in point, Indians might elect BJP for the central government but consistently have been booting them out at the state level for the past 3-4 years. BJP has actually lost power in multiple states since 2014. Indian politics is way more nuanced than any discussion on an internet forum would ever allow for.
- wizardofmysore 5y ago
  One thing I can think of is revenge porn, child porn or any videos of sexual nature published without the consent of the participants. This has detrimental social impact. Courts should be able to make companies remove such content.
- lugged 5y ago
  > Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. Please name one time censorship has had good outcomes that did not also lead to more censorship? Because this time clearly doesn't count. Legality, like all things to do with morality, is irrelevant. Legality is downstream from cultures, not morality. E: The mere fact people are downvoting an anti censorship viewpoint is disturbing to me. Y'all are worse than Nazis and you don't even realize it.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  > The article makes this sound like a massive detriment to free speech. Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. Strongly disagree. This is how China does it: they won’t tell companies what exactly to censor, but the companies will be punished if they don’t censor what the government wants to be censored in retrospect. It is much worse than governments forcing censorship explicitly, because otherwise companies are led to guess at government intentions and will be very conservative in what speech they allow.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    This is also how America does it, except it happens more subtly, and few recognize it, let alone call it out. It goes something like this: “Hey tech companies, can you censor that app or these views? We’re soon going to be discussing anti-trust, taxation, privacy, right to repair, gig economy, and other topics in this session of Congress but first let’s discuss what you’re doing about our political adversaries on your platforms.” More on this topic: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-show-of-monopolistic https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-sho... https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hearing-demands https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hea...
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      No, really it’s not. Yes, some American governments have tried that, but they’ve always failed because the courts don’t take a sympathetic stance with the government’s intentions. This is what separates a country with some notion of rule of law and an independent judiciary to one where all power is concentrated centrally.
      - throwawaysea 5y ago
        To me it seems like America is increasingly the land of pushing boundaries and abusing technicalities from a position of power, such that politicians approximate those other countries you’re othering. Can we prove a link between congressional pressure for private companies to censor and the censorship performed by those same private companies? Not very easily. That’s exactly why members of the government shouldn’t even be allowed to suggest it - I view that itself as a violation of the first amendment (at least in spirit). It amounts to government coercion, and we shouldn’t be forced to accept the indefensible murk of not behind able to prove a link. As an example, AOC - as an elected, serving member of the federal government - should absolutely not be permitted to demand that Google and Apple censor Parler.
- naruvimama 5y ago
  "Controversial farm reforms" - nothing controversial about it, it is in the manifesto of every major party. The problem is always with a small but powerful, adamant and ruthless minority that is ready to burn down the country to serve their interests. Ultimately the elected government is the only true representative of the people. Protests can be made to communicate your dissatisfaction and perhaps let the government know there is an alternate viewpoint. However, the farmer protest was an orchestrated and violent bullying not only by those politically connected middlemen who want to maintain the status quo, but also a grand coalition of the corrupt, the compromised and enemies of India, including foreign actors.
  - mrd3v0 5y ago
    The point is, people should be able to talk about it. Governments shouldn't decide for people what they can or can't talk about. Your opinion about the matter is one out of potential billions. They all equally deserve the same treatment by Twitter and the Indian government has no place dictating what kind of speech be posted on social media platforms.
    - naruvimama 5y ago
      In a parallel universe where a Twitter did not ban a Trump, that would be possible. But then in such a parallel universe, we would probably not need nuclear weapons or armies. The problem here is that in the space of global propaganda, you want to disarm democratically elected representatives while heavily arming dictators & tyrants. Mass propaganda should not be the monopoly of few corporations and dictators.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fellellor 5y ago
  Benefits: Videos where a person pisses on the Quran or desecrates the statue of a Hindu god, can be removed. Left alone it might cause a riot where dozens would die, and a lot of private (and public) property would be destroyed. The details of the uploader would be shared with law enforcement. This course of action is primitive in western countries, but understandable in a country where the police to population ratio is around 100 times lower than in the west and only 2% of the working age population pays any taxes. Self regulation as a course of action is a failure. Companies who want to “grow fast and break stuff” don’t care about riots in a country like India. Dangers: Indians’ free speech will get trampled. Parties in power will enforce the law in a biased manner as they always have done. This trade off is acceptable since western companies operating outside their home country only care about profit and don’t operate with any social conscience. It would be utterly foolish to outsource the fight for our rights to them. It is more preferable to have these companies operate within the boundaries of Indian law, no matter what they are.
libtard323 5y ago
Jack Dorsey is a pedophile.
perihelions 5y ago
Buried in the last paragraph: >"Police in two Indian states have named Twitter India boss Manish Maheshwari in complaints. The state of Uttar Pradesh has challenged in the Supreme Court a bar on police action against Maheshwari, after a lower court protected him against arrest over an accusation that the platform was used to spread hate." Really wondering why Twitter is continuing its presence in a country where its employees are criminally prosecuted, merely for being Twitter employees.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dartharva 5y ago
  It's even more ridiculous when you realize Twitter's India unit (and Maheshwari) is only there to sell ads and do marketing. It really has no control over the content you see on Twitter's apps and websites.
- eldaisfish 5y ago
  The answer to your final question is almost always money. The English-speaking upper echelons of Indian society are a significant presence on the internet. What is intriguing is the fact that twitter in India is dominated by the elites or those at the top of the wealth pyramid i.e. the richest 5% of the population. These people have tremendous power in Indian society and hence their current right-wing regime is paranoid about this section being publicly critical of the government via twitter.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Why wouldn't Twitter trade their employees for money? There's no shortage of potential employees in India to replace any that the police might arrest. As long as it's the employees suffering most of the consequences while Twitter receives most of the benefits, they're going to do what all profit first entities would do and let the employees suffer.
- alex_smart 5y ago
  USA has the ability to make Zuckerberg face a panel when they have some problems with the way Facebook has been functioning, India doesn't. I am sure they would have been happier to summon Jack Dorsey instead, but he would probably not feel any obligation to appear before an Indian court/panel.
jatins 5y ago
Filling the Chief Compliance Officer role is going to be extremely tricky. Not just because you are now liable for any content government considers objectionable (and this government is considers _a lot_ objectionable -- they recently arrested people for putting posters questioning government's vaccine export when we had shortage inside the country itself) but also because this puts that person at tremendous mental/physical risk. The government's IT cell will be the first one to trend #BoycottX when they don't agree with any of your decision. Can't imagine someone taking up this role unless they are paid truckload of money.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  India is a big country with many ambitious people. Doubt Twitter will ever have a problem finding someone to fill the role, even if they're little more than a designated patsy.
- sudhirj 5y ago
  Finding a scapegoat has never been a problem in any culture or time in history, as long as the role was compensated properly.
vishnugupta 5y ago
It is worth noting that the IT mister resigned[1] just a day back in a massive cabinet reshuffling (if you could call that). Twitter attracted the ruling government's wrath when it didn't censor/takedown Tweets supporting farmers' protests and those critical of government's handling of COVID's 2nd wave. [1] https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/breaking-ravi-shankar-prasad-resigns-modi-cabinet-expansion-717528 https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/breaking-ravi-shankar...
- invertedreversi 5y ago
  Let's be specific. The Government requested the takedown of the hashtag, #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide This seems reasonable.
  - decadancer 5y ago
    It seems reasonable to silence your political opponents on a 3rd party media with a force of law?
  - alfalfasprout 5y ago
    Is it? I don't know the particulars of India's constitution but suppressing speech like this is generally frowned upon by democracies.
    - portpecos 5y ago
      What's the difference between #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide and #StopTheSteal from a free speech perspective?
      - xNeil 5y ago
        My question exactly - I'd love to hear someone's take on this. Both are misinformation campaigns, and both result in violence. I don't see why Trump should be banned but accounts tweeting that the government is planning a genocide should not (be banned). I'd say both bans were fair.
l0k3ndr 5y ago
I don't like the government, but I hate monopoly of the twitter ever more than I hate the existing government or their opposition or any coalition of them. I hate any single entity owning this much power. So government bending them a little is a good thing at least right now.
- xibalba 5y ago
  By what definition is Twitter a monopoly?
  - netcan 5y ago
    By the commonplace colloquial definition. Economic taxonomy might call it an oligopsony, monopsony or whatnot. To the average person, "really big powerful company that stands above ordinary competition and choice dynamics, influences politics, dominates a business sector or other realm, dictates rules to a market and such." In many parts of the world, if you are a politician, journalist, celebrity or other public figure, twitter is extremely powerful... a determining factor in hundreds of thousands of careers. What trends on twitter trends in society. But no, it doesn't fit neatly into a "cornered the market for turnips" box.
- pcmoney 5y ago
  I am somewhat confused how a middling social network of ~200M (generously) active users with a message limit of 280 chars has a lot of power? Celebrating government strong arming is an interesting take and only nice when its going your way. Always imagine whatever government excess you are ok with in this instance is now going against your position and see if you still like it.
  - portpecos 5y ago
    Perhaps you're confused, but the rest of Europe isn't confused at how Twitter has a lot of power: German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions [of banning Trump], saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private technology companies. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-11/merkel-sees-closing-trump-s-social-media-accounts-problematic https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-11/merkel-se... Emmanuel Macron blasts social media platforms for banning Trump https://www.axios.com/macron-social-media-bans-trump-twitter-facebook-bf8640d0-57d0-4747-affb-e91835f9fb84.html https://www.axios.com/macron-social-media-bans-trump-twitter...
screye 5y ago
Twitter is in an incredibly convoluted ideological war with the Indian Govt. Monetarily and by pure numbers, the Indian right wing benefited from a new megaphone in twitter in 2014. Twitter only took notice of this after what they saw as the victory of a 'fascist' govt. (This is before twitter erupted into complete ideological polarization in 2016) Looking at the readiness of getting blue check marks and twitter's general ideological tilt, twitter employees see themselves as ideological warriors defending the left wing in India. Twitter (either due to malice or incompetence) is known to favor the Indian opposition through its fact checkers, whom it signal boosts and the kind of news that gets marked as 'misleading'. A lot of my rather reasonable right-leaning acquaintances have gotten repeatedly banned off twitter, which to me does point towards a strong ideological bias on the platform. Note that Twitter has only about 20 million Indians registered on the platform. That is a paltry sum given the size of the population. This means that most news about India on twitter is either by a very small set of west aligned Indians or folks who genuinely live outside India. Given that, I will entertain the possibility that the left wing bias of twitter is a consequence of the demographics who occupy it, rather than deliberate action by twitter. However, their actions towards the right wing in the US make me think otherwise. When it comes to the law itself, twitter had been non-compliant for a while. But, the Govt. was stuck in a catch 22. Twitter remained the biggest platform for Modi to reach out to a 'global' population. So, the ruling party still feels like Twitter (despite it's best efforts to the contrary) might still be a useful tool for their politics. This makes it hard to ban twitter, because Modi doesn't want to appear like an authoritarian to the west. (for a counterexample, tiktok was banned due to the lack of these complicating dynamics) Similarly for twitter, the capitalistic push is to expand further into India, which means expanding into a more modi-favoring and right-leaning population. On the other hand, the ideological push seems to be towards playing the martyr and getting banned in grand fashion with prime moral signalling in their favor. Time will tell how this pans out, but Twitter is certainly not acting like a savior of free speech (and probably never has). Similarly, the Govt. while fully lawful, is using the laws in ways that benefits them politically (as almost all political bodies do). From a legal perspective, I am glad to see Twitter comply with India's rules. For a while, it did seem like a foreign capitalistic body that was denying India's sovereignty because it felt it had too much leverage. At the same time, I do hope Rahul Gandhi falls in a ditch soon, so that the politically left bodies in India can elect a half decent leader who can mount a proper opposition instead of twiddling his thumbs on twitter. People forget that Modi is democratically elected and has allowed the democratic electoral process to work under his regime. I disagree with a lot of his policies (social and economic) but the electoral process shall hold him accountable. Our Supreme court is also independent, so any outright violation can be addressed by twitter in the courts. Given that, Indian laws are an entirely internal matter and a foreign body like Twitter should abide by the laws of the land. Last point: Correct me if I am wrong, but the Indian Govt. has yet to ask for any egregious censorship on twitter. Most cases are of removal of misinformation, selective use of fact checks and custom tags. Ofc, I am giving another perspective towards this issue. The rest of the comments do well to cover the rest of the rather valid perspectives.
muhmuhz 5y ago
When are Dick Costolo and Jack Dorsey going to be charged for their pedophile crimes? When I worked at Twitter in 2013 Jack and Dick were always bringing in very very young boys and I felt extremely uncomfortable with it which is why I left. The entire company and diaspora is a cesspool.
fukd 5y ago
As a saying goes here tongue has no bones which means people can and will lie eaily. That being said as son of a farmer i will support the government actions. period. A company's solo responsibity is making money for its shareholders so no thanks corporations, please take your business elsewhere if you dont like our laws.
- cheif-lama 5y ago
  Government is made of people who have the better motives to lie then corporations. Especially in India where a tea seller, with fake degree rises to power based on nationalism and fascism. We been through these motions before, and what is going on in India is not any different than Nazi Germany. Not to mention, far right hindu government is a fan of Nazi Germany. These Hindutwa nationalist are hiding in plane site in west, and most people need to be aware of it, they are the worst racist based on casts and colour of skin, which is funny because to most westerners they all look shades of brown.
fukd 5y ago
Funnily farmers are not on twitter (my father doesnt even know what its) but some elitists are deciding whats good for us farmers on twitter. Do you guys even when the reforms happend last time? nor the main setfacks that we face? These are the same people who go on tv shows and make a scene until govt bans export of produce whenever tomatos/onions hit even 50rs.
bombless 5y ago
Trump was silenced from Twitter a few months ago, so you can say u.s. is not better than India.
cheif-lama 5y ago
There is rise of Hindu nationalism in India and they don't want anybody telling them cow dung, urine and yelling at Crona virus will not make it go away. They have been lynching people and arresting them. Checkout cjwerleman on twitter to get a better context of it, and that is not all. They also love Hitler supposedly and think Hindu race is superior and they invented internet and plastic surgery because they is the only explanation for elephant and monkey god. I know sounds ridiculous, but I am not making that up.
8eye 5y ago
the people of india shouldn’t put up with such tyranny. every person is born free, we are humans first, citizens of our country second. anyone who forgets that has fallen into satans path.

178 points by shivbhatt 5y ago

OzyM 5y ago

"The IT rules, which became effective end-May, are aimed at regulating content on social media and making firms act more swiftly on legal requests to remove posts and sharing details on the originators of messages. They also require the appointment of certain new executives." The article makes this sound like a massive detriment to free speech. Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash tag related to farmer protests against new agricultural reforms") can't be good. That plus forcing the company to hire government-approved executives seems like a slippery slope. Are there any benefits to this regulation I'm overlooking?

vowelless 5y ago
The benefit is complying with local laws. Not all countries have “first amendment style free speech”. Note the speech restrictions in the Indian constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_India The farmers protests were allegedly detrimental to the sovereignty and security of India and so it makes sense to ban those kinds of hastags. FWIW, the American government also requests removals from social media sites. Edit: perhaps this comment is unnecessarily controversial / inflammatory. I just wanted to suggest that there are other interpretations of free speech law and that it makes sense for a corporation to comply with those laws if they want to operate in those countries. I personally dont agree with those laws, which is why I fortunately moved to the US.
- andyjohnson0 5y ago
  > The farmers protests were allegedly detrimental to the sovereignty and security of India and so it makes sense to ban those kinds of hastags. Why? How does a hashtag impact a country's sovereignty or security? Edit: am I missing /s here?
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    The reasoning is that organizing for stuff like the farmers' strike or generally opposing Modi's politics threatens the security of India by... well, being critical of the government's actions.
  - rishav_sharan 5y ago
    It shows our Dear Leader in poor light and is thus something only anti nationals would do. Dissent is the biggest threat to India's sovereignty and free thought to its security.
  - deleted 5y ago
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- OzyM 5y ago
  Super interesting Wikipedia article, thanks for the link! Some of the restrictions on free speech make me instinctually uncomfortable (i.e. restrictions for the sake of "decency and morality"), but I recognize these are hardly unique to India and countries such as the U.S. have censored plenty of books, etc. in the past. I'm not sure that I personally am in favor. However, you're clearly right in that it's hardly unprecedented or unique.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    >countries such as the U.S. have censored plenty of books, etc. in the past. The modern interpretation of the 1st amendment as being fairly absolute is only 50-100 years old. Don't forget the federal government had political prisoners for protesting against the US getting involved in WW 1, and the HUAC and McCarthy hearings were blatantly unconstitutional under modern jurisprudence. We don't even need to talk about the Alien and Sedition acts, passed right after the 1st amendment was ratified!
    - pjc50 5y ago
      Or the Comstock acts. At one point it was illegal to distribute information on contraception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws#State_laws_on_birth_control_(contraception),_etc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws#State_laws_on_bi....
    - jbishop156 5y ago
      That's true. It did take the US 200 years to come to the correct interpretation of First Amendment being damn near absolute. Shameful as that delay was, we progressed in the right direction.
- mullen 5y ago
  > FWIW, the American government also requests removals from social media sites. No, they don't. Any American Government official requesting a removal of anything from social media sites would probably lose their job. That's saying a lot because American Government officials rarely ever lose their jobs.
  - oneplane 5y ago
    Yes they do. Not personally, but they do. The amount of child exploitation that falls through the filters is not zero, and sometimes the government of the US intervenes and asks for the content to be removed.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      Removing that kind of illegal content by the police is 100% different from political officials asking to have content critical of the gov't removed.
      - oneplane 5y ago
        Illegal is just whatever the law says is illegal. If you make a law making dissent illegal, then that content is illegal. So now you have to define 'real'-illegal and 'I do not like your opinion'-illegal in the law of some other country.
      - alex_smart 5y ago
        The point is that India is a sovereign republic and has its own laws about what is illegal and is not. According to India's laws, spreading false rumours about the police shooting a farmer when there is clear evidence that the person actually died by running his tractor into a barricade is illegal. And when Twitter failed to comply with government's orders to remove these tweets, they didn't have any point of contact from the company they could turn to for accountability. That's why the need for the compliance officer. Also, criticizing the government is not illegal according to Indian laws.
        5y ago
- rishav_sharan 5y ago
  > The farmers protests were allegedly detrimental to the sovereignty and security of India and so it makes sense to ban those kinds of hastags. Thats a fairly nonsensical claim. Are you planning back it up with more details/sources? Because if we are just making sentences on the fly, IMO, this BJP regime has been allegedly detrimental to the sovereignty and security of India.
  - xNeil 5y ago
    The hashtags insinuated the government was planning a farmer genocide. Source: https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/govt-sends-notice-to-twitter-on-restoring-suspended-accounts/articleshow/80667340.cms https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/govt-se...
    - rishav_sharan 5y ago
      How is that a threat to India's sovereignty or security? Modi is infamous for having caused, by his actions or inactions, the Gujarat riots that killed 2000+ people. Hell, he was even banned from entering the US, till he became the Indian PM. There is blood on his hands and lots of it. And to give some context on this hash tag, I believe it came after the gov't put across barricades and barbed wires to caroll the protesters leading many to believe that the regime was planning a major crackdown. The situation in the first week of Feb was very tense. https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/others/iron-spikes-barbed-wire-and-concrete-walls-at-delhi-farm-protest-sites-101612204708512.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/others/iron-spikes-bar... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55899754 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55899754
      - ConcernedCoder 5y ago
        because now it will be harder to do the actual genocide without someone saying "hey, see! I told you so..."
      - nsenifty 5y ago
        > The situation in the first week of Feb was very tense. Wasn't it partly due to the genocide misinformation? One protestor died in a tractor accident and Twitter did little to curb the misinformation that he was shot by police.
dartharva 5y ago
>However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash tag related to farmer protests against new agricultural reforms") can't be good. That plus forcing the company to hire government-approved executives seems like a slippery slope. Most governments (including India's) already have the power to make Twitter and other sites censor content. The requirement for a local compliance officer comes from the fact that Twitter's India branch has literally no direct control over the content on its platform and is mostly here to sell advertisements and look over marketing.
- kjs3 5y ago
  The requirement for a local compliance officer comes from the desire to have someone associated directly with the company to lean on/harass/put in jail if the parent company doesn't comply with local government desires. Lots of countries have such a requirement.
gruez 5y ago
>They also require the appointment of certain new executives Ah so just like china? >Now a wide range of foreign companies in China, from the cosmetics giant L’Oréal to Walt Disney and Dow Chemicals, all have party committees and display the hammer and sickle on their premises. In 2017, Reuters published an article that quoted executives from one European company saying that party representatives had demanded to be brought into the executive committee and have the business pay their expenses. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/china-business-xi-jinping-communist-party-state-private-enterprise-huawei https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/25/china-business...
- jonahx 5y ago
  > L’Oréal to Walt Disney and Dow Chemicals... display the hammer and sickle on their premises. Wow. Quoted just so others don't miss this. It was news to me.
  - syshum 5y ago
    Globalism is a race to the bottom when it comes to Individual freedom. The actions of these companies in these Authoritarian nations proves that despite many claiming otherwise
  - pjc50 5y ago
    This is darkly funny; of course their loyalty is to money rather than any ideology. They'll be Communists if there's money in it. After all, this enhances shareholder value for the shareholders in the US, and isn't that the one and only thing that matters to a modern company? There's no risk to the bosses and shareholders of being expropriated. Well, unless Dow's local operations get seized ..
    - natoliniak 5y ago
      > Well, unless Dow's local operations get seized I think Lenin once said: The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them. yep.
msravi 5y ago
> That plus forcing the company to hire government-approved executives Where did you get that from? Completely untrue. The new IT rules mandate the appointment of persons in certain executive roles, and companies, including Twitter, have the freedom to choose whomsoever they please, as long as he/she is an Indian resident - they don't have to be "government approved" Twitter didn't want to have a responsible officer in India. The managing director of Twitter India said he was only responsible for "marketing" and did not have control over the day-to-day functioning of the company. > controversial hash tag related to farmer protests It wasn't just a controversial hashtag. A farmer sped a tractor into a barricade causing the tractor to overturn and was killed. The whole thing was clearly caught on camera[1][2]. Within minutes there were blatantly false tweets flying around saying that police had fired on the farmers and there was a genocide in progress (with an associated hashtag). Twitter refused to take down such blatantly false and deliberately incendiary tweets. Edit: 1. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/farmers-protest-one-dead-as-tractor-overturns-at-ito-area-in-delhi/videoshow/80467597.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSLaOMEzHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSLaOMEzHY
- OzyM 5y ago
  I read the government's requirement of certain executive roles + the requirement of it being an Indian citizen as the government having undue control over a private (foreign) company's executive positions. I'm still not familiar with the background on the mandating of these new executive roles, but wanting the person overseeing implementation of your country's laws to be from your country at least makes sense to me. As far as the "controversial hash tag", that was a quote directly from the article. I feel like removing an entire hashtag related to a political position is generally a bad idea and can silence a lot of legitimate free speech, but I don't know enough on the specifics of this situation to apply that here. Thanks for adding more context to clear up some misconceptions.
  - msravi 5y ago
    Just to be clear, the law doesn't require that the role be filled by an Indian citizen. It just requires that the person be a resident of India.
sudhirj 5y ago
> forcing the company to hire government-approved executives seems like a slippery slope. Think is this closer to the GDPR requiring the Data Protection Officer role. I don't it needs to be govt-approved. Not in favour of the overreach by the govt here, but it's not quite as bad as that. They want a single point of contact they can put pressure on.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  They want somebody they can arrest.
  - sudhirj 5y ago
    They can already arrest any employee, like this head of marketing.
    - michaelmrose 5y ago
      It's likely that they can't arrest someone for not doing something that said employees have neither the authority nor the ability to do nor would it help if they did. They wont someone in country with that power that can be held responsible for compliance with the Indian government.
philliphaydon 5y ago
> Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, governments being able to force the removal of content (such as a "controversial hash tag related to farmer protests against new agricultural reforms") can't be good. I disagree. Both are bad. When you grow to the size of Facebook, Twitter, etc. Removing content from your own platform allows you to spread propaganda that meets your own agenda. That allows these platforms to promote a politician that maybe trying to reduce corporate tax, and suppress one who is trying to raise it. It’s bad enough these platforms are dictating what’s a conspiracy theory or who we should listen to about Covid.
- driverdan 5y ago
  Platforms need to moderate content or it will be 90% spam.
  - cheif-lama 5y ago
    This is not moderation, this is Hindutwa nationalism trying to shut everybody down.
- OzyM 5y ago
  I mean, I disagree with (some of) platforms' content removal, but I don't disagree with their legal right to do so. If Twitter becomes a propaganda machine deleting any tweet it disagrees with, I think that's shitty and if I had an account I'd delete it to avoid participating, but I'm not sold on why the government should make that illegal. People and private organizations currently have the right to propagandize in the U.S. (without explicitly calling for violent uprisings, etc). What's the major difference between Twitter moderating tweets and a privately-owned forum moderating comments?
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    > What's the major difference between Twitter moderating tweets and a privately-owned forum moderating comments? Reach.
dmingod666 5y ago
Countries implementing rules in their own countries on business that earn profits from those countries, shocking.
tw600040 5y ago
Hypothetically speaking, what if the said company acts with ulterior motives, is blatantly anti national, blatantly trying to interfere in elections, cause riots etc. What should a responsible government do then? Hypothetically.
- OzyM 5y ago
  Ulterior motives, anti national -> (personally) this seems like free speech. I don't have to like it to think it should be legal. Blatantly trying to interfere with elections -> if you mean by spreading opinions / propaganda, this seems generally under the realm of free speech. The government being able to silence opinions that disagree with it generally seems much more problematic than civilians being able to spread bad opinions Cause riots -> Again, I think opinions should be legal. However, saying "hey y'all let's get guns and actively participate in violence" is not protected under free speech in any country I'm aware of, but is also not really my major concern with this legislation.
ikilledthecat 5y ago
As an Indian citizen I'd rather not have a shithead american executive lord over information flow in my country. I trust my govt. way more than I will ever trust a Foreign entity. Twitter should comply with Indian laws if it wants to operate here. It's as simple as that.
- driverdan 5y ago
  > I trust my govt. way more than I will ever trust a Foreign entity. You trust a government that's trying to censor content they don't like over a company that doesn't want to censor it?
  - ikilledthecat 5y ago
    twitter is not censoring content?? hahaha what world are we living in?
    - notahacker 5y ago
      Twitter wasn't censoring the content the Indian government has introduced new laws to compel them to censor
      - ikilledthecat 5y ago
        I don't care what they were or weren't censoring. Twitter and other social media giants are trying to become the arbiters of truth in this world and control much of the flow of information over the internet. A foreign entity with no responsibilities, checks or even connection to the local people should not have such power imo. I look at twitter censoring or promoting pro/anti govt. hashtags/accounts as election meddling. So I'm happy that they're forced to have an accountable local presence.
  - dmingod666 5y ago
    If you take Huawei and TikTok, would you make the same argument? Why trust the govt just in select cases?
gremloni 5y ago
I wish the far right hadn’t poisoned the free speech well. I genuinely blame them for people being mostly okay with censorship on this scale.
justicezyx 5y ago
This seems pretty much the same as Chinese law which requires publisher verify the sources. I dont know what exactly to make of it. But I think it probably makes sense from the government's perspective.
1024core 5y ago
Take a look at this, and tell me Twitter is not biased. The rules are to prevent such bullshit. https://twitter.com/truth_recipe/status/1411234708814323712 https://twitter.com/truth_recipe/status/1411234708814323712
cyanydeez 5y ago
less free range propaganda.
rammer 5y ago
Are there any benefits to this regulation I'm overlooking? > Yep lots, A democratically elected government of a state is at least answerable to its constituents who can boot them out if the government doesn't do the right thing. These monopolistic social 'platforms' are not answerable to anyone but the whims of their management and advertisers. They purposely allow lies and misinformation to propogate as it boosts engagement and are a cesspool of disharmony and conflict. Just as well that they'll be now held responsible for the results of their actions. Love it, high time many of them are broken down for having far too much power.
- billh 5y ago
  > A democratically elected government of a state is at least answerable to its constituents who can boot them out if the government doesn't do the right thing. How can constituents come to any informed opinion if a government appointed executive is summarily striking any public discussion on controversial topics? Seems completely antithetical to any semblance of a functional democracy.
  - inapis 5y ago
    Twitter is not the only place for discussion. And people do not vote exclusively based on public discussion. Indians have tight knit communities and how the community votes is a much major influence on the elections than what is being discussed on twitter/facebook or even national TV. Case in point, Indians might elect BJP for the central government but consistently have been booting them out at the state level for the past 3-4 years. BJP has actually lost power in multiple states since 2014. Indian politics is way more nuanced than any discussion on an internet forum would ever allow for.
wizardofmysore 5y ago
One thing I can think of is revenge porn, child porn or any videos of sexual nature published without the consent of the participants. This has detrimental social impact. Courts should be able to make companies remove such content.
lugged 5y ago
> Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. Please name one time censorship has had good outcomes that did not also lead to more censorship? Because this time clearly doesn't count. Legality, like all things to do with morality, is irrelevant. Legality is downstream from cultures, not morality. E: The mere fact people are downvoting an anti censorship viewpoint is disturbing to me. Y'all are worse than Nazis and you don't even realize it.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
> The article makes this sound like a massive detriment to free speech. Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. Strongly disagree. This is how China does it: they won’t tell companies what exactly to censor, but the companies will be punished if they don’t censor what the government wants to be censored in retrospect. It is much worse than governments forcing censorship explicitly, because otherwise companies are led to guess at government intentions and will be very conservative in what speech they allow.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  This is also how America does it, except it happens more subtly, and few recognize it, let alone call it out. It goes something like this: “Hey tech companies, can you censor that app or these views? We’re soon going to be discussing anti-trust, taxation, privacy, right to repair, gig economy, and other topics in this session of Congress but first let’s discuss what you’re doing about our political adversaries on your platforms.” More on this topic: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-show-of-monopolistic https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-sho... https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hearing-demands https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hea...
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    No, really it’s not. Yes, some American governments have tried that, but they’ve always failed because the courts don’t take a sympathetic stance with the government’s intentions. This is what separates a country with some notion of rule of law and an independent judiciary to one where all power is concentrated centrally.
    - throwawaysea 5y ago
      To me it seems like America is increasingly the land of pushing boundaries and abusing technicalities from a position of power, such that politicians approximate those other countries you’re othering. Can we prove a link between congressional pressure for private companies to censor and the censorship performed by those same private companies? Not very easily. That’s exactly why members of the government shouldn’t even be allowed to suggest it - I view that itself as a violation of the first amendment (at least in spirit). It amounts to government coercion, and we shouldn’t be forced to accept the indefensible murk of not behind able to prove a link. As an example, AOC - as an elected, serving member of the federal government - should absolutely not be permitted to demand that Google and Apple censor Parler.
naruvimama 5y ago
"Controversial farm reforms" - nothing controversial about it, it is in the manifesto of every major party. The problem is always with a small but powerful, adamant and ruthless minority that is ready to burn down the country to serve their interests. Ultimately the elected government is the only true representative of the people. Protests can be made to communicate your dissatisfaction and perhaps let the government know there is an alternate viewpoint. However, the farmer protest was an orchestrated and violent bullying not only by those politically connected middlemen who want to maintain the status quo, but also a grand coalition of the corrupt, the compromised and enemies of India, including foreign actors.
- mrd3v0 5y ago
  The point is, people should be able to talk about it. Governments shouldn't decide for people what they can or can't talk about. Your opinion about the matter is one out of potential billions. They all equally deserve the same treatment by Twitter and the Indian government has no place dictating what kind of speech be posted on social media platforms.
  - naruvimama 5y ago
    In a parallel universe where a Twitter did not ban a Trump, that would be possible. But then in such a parallel universe, we would probably not need nuclear weapons or armies. The problem here is that in the space of global propaganda, you want to disarm democratically elected representatives while heavily arming dictators & tyrants. Mass propaganda should not be the monopoly of few corporations and dictators.
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fellellor 5y ago
Benefits: Videos where a person pisses on the Quran or desecrates the statue of a Hindu god, can be removed. Left alone it might cause a riot where dozens would die, and a lot of private (and public) property would be destroyed. The details of the uploader would be shared with law enforcement. This course of action is primitive in western countries, but understandable in a country where the police to population ratio is around 100 times lower than in the west and only 2% of the working age population pays any taxes. Self regulation as a course of action is a failure. Companies who want to “grow fast and break stuff” don’t care about riots in a country like India. Dangers: Indians’ free speech will get trampled. Parties in power will enforce the law in a biased manner as they always have done. This trade off is acceptable since western companies operating outside their home country only care about profit and don’t operate with any social conscience. It would be utterly foolish to outsource the fight for our rights to them. It is more preferable to have these companies operate within the boundaries of Indian law, no matter what they are.

libtard323 5y ago

Jack Dorsey is a pedophile.

perihelions 5y ago

Buried in the last paragraph: >"Police in two Indian states have named Twitter India boss Manish Maheshwari in complaints. The state of Uttar Pradesh has challenged in the Supreme Court a bar on police action against Maheshwari, after a lower court protected him against arrest over an accusation that the platform was used to spread hate." Really wondering why Twitter is continuing its presence in a country where its employees are criminally prosecuted, merely for being Twitter employees.

deleted 5y ago
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dartharva 5y ago
It's even more ridiculous when you realize Twitter's India unit (and Maheshwari) is only there to sell ads and do marketing. It really has no control over the content you see on Twitter's apps and websites.
eldaisfish 5y ago
The answer to your final question is almost always money. The English-speaking upper echelons of Indian society are a significant presence on the internet. What is intriguing is the fact that twitter in India is dominated by the elites or those at the top of the wealth pyramid i.e. the richest 5% of the population. These people have tremendous power in Indian society and hence their current right-wing regime is paranoid about this section being publicly critical of the government via twitter.
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Why wouldn't Twitter trade their employees for money? There's no shortage of potential employees in India to replace any that the police might arrest. As long as it's the employees suffering most of the consequences while Twitter receives most of the benefits, they're going to do what all profit first entities would do and let the employees suffer.
alex_smart 5y ago
USA has the ability to make Zuckerberg face a panel when they have some problems with the way Facebook has been functioning, India doesn't. I am sure they would have been happier to summon Jack Dorsey instead, but he would probably not feel any obligation to appear before an Indian court/panel.

jatins 5y ago

Filling the Chief Compliance Officer role is going to be extremely tricky. Not just because you are now liable for any content government considers objectionable (and this government is considers _a lot_ objectionable -- they recently arrested people for putting posters questioning government's vaccine export when we had shortage inside the country itself) but also because this puts that person at tremendous mental/physical risk. The government's IT cell will be the first one to trend #BoycottX when they don't agree with any of your decision. Can't imagine someone taking up this role unless they are paid truckload of money.

Mountain_Skies 5y ago
India is a big country with many ambitious people. Doubt Twitter will ever have a problem finding someone to fill the role, even if they're little more than a designated patsy.
sudhirj 5y ago
Finding a scapegoat has never been a problem in any culture or time in history, as long as the role was compensated properly.

vishnugupta 5y ago

It is worth noting that the IT mister resigned[1] just a day back in a massive cabinet reshuffling (if you could call that). Twitter attracted the ruling government's wrath when it didn't censor/takedown Tweets supporting farmers' protests and those critical of government's handling of COVID's 2nd wave. [1] https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/breaking-ravi-shankar-prasad-resigns-modi-cabinet-expansion-717528 https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/breaking-ravi-shankar...

invertedreversi 5y ago
Let's be specific. The Government requested the takedown of the hashtag, #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide This seems reasonable.
- decadancer 5y ago
  It seems reasonable to silence your political opponents on a 3rd party media with a force of law?
- alfalfasprout 5y ago
  Is it? I don't know the particulars of India's constitution but suppressing speech like this is generally frowned upon by democracies.
  - portpecos 5y ago
    What's the difference between #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide and #StopTheSteal from a free speech perspective?
    - xNeil 5y ago
      My question exactly - I'd love to hear someone's take on this. Both are misinformation campaigns, and both result in violence. I don't see why Trump should be banned but accounts tweeting that the government is planning a genocide should not (be banned). I'd say both bans were fair.

l0k3ndr 5y ago

I don't like the government, but I hate monopoly of the twitter ever more than I hate the existing government or their opposition or any coalition of them. I hate any single entity owning this much power. So government bending them a little is a good thing at least right now.

xibalba 5y ago
By what definition is Twitter a monopoly?
- netcan 5y ago
  By the commonplace colloquial definition. Economic taxonomy might call it an oligopsony, monopsony or whatnot. To the average person, "really big powerful company that stands above ordinary competition and choice dynamics, influences politics, dominates a business sector or other realm, dictates rules to a market and such." In many parts of the world, if you are a politician, journalist, celebrity or other public figure, twitter is extremely powerful... a determining factor in hundreds of thousands of careers. What trends on twitter trends in society. But no, it doesn't fit neatly into a "cornered the market for turnips" box.
pcmoney 5y ago
I am somewhat confused how a middling social network of ~200M (generously) active users with a message limit of 280 chars has a lot of power? Celebrating government strong arming is an interesting take and only nice when its going your way. Always imagine whatever government excess you are ok with in this instance is now going against your position and see if you still like it.
- portpecos 5y ago
  Perhaps you're confused, but the rest of Europe isn't confused at how Twitter has a lot of power: German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions [of banning Trump], saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private technology companies. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-11/merkel-sees-closing-trump-s-social-media-accounts-problematic https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-11/merkel-se... Emmanuel Macron blasts social media platforms for banning Trump https://www.axios.com/macron-social-media-bans-trump-twitter-facebook-bf8640d0-57d0-4747-affb-e91835f9fb84.html https://www.axios.com/macron-social-media-bans-trump-twitter...

screye 5y ago

Twitter is in an incredibly convoluted ideological war with the Indian Govt. Monetarily and by pure numbers, the Indian right wing benefited from a new megaphone in twitter in 2014. Twitter only took notice of this after what they saw as the victory of a 'fascist' govt. (This is before twitter erupted into complete ideological polarization in 2016) Looking at the readiness of getting blue check marks and twitter's general ideological tilt, twitter employees see themselves as ideological warriors defending the left wing in India. Twitter (either due to malice or incompetence) is known to favor the Indian opposition through its fact checkers, whom it signal boosts and the kind of news that gets marked as 'misleading'. A lot of my rather reasonable right-leaning acquaintances have gotten repeatedly banned off twitter, which to me does point towards a strong ideological bias on the platform. Note that Twitter has only about 20 million Indians registered on the platform. That is a paltry sum given the size of the population. This means that most news about India on twitter is either by a very small set of west aligned Indians or folks who genuinely live outside India. Given that, I will entertain the possibility that the left wing bias of twitter is a consequence of the demographics who occupy it, rather than deliberate action by twitter. However, their actions towards the right wing in the US make me think otherwise. When it comes to the law itself, twitter had been non-compliant for a while. But, the Govt. was stuck in a catch 22. Twitter remained the biggest platform for Modi to reach out to a 'global' population. So, the ruling party still feels like Twitter (despite it's best efforts to the contrary) might still be a useful tool for their politics. This makes it hard to ban twitter, because Modi doesn't want to appear like an authoritarian to the west. (for a counterexample, tiktok was banned due to the lack of these complicating dynamics) Similarly for twitter, the capitalistic push is to expand further into India, which means expanding into a more modi-favoring and right-leaning population. On the other hand, the ideological push seems to be towards playing the martyr and getting banned in grand fashion with prime moral signalling in their favor. Time will tell how this pans out, but Twitter is certainly not acting like a savior of free speech (and probably never has). Similarly, the Govt. while fully lawful, is using the laws in ways that benefits them politically (as almost all political bodies do). From a legal perspective, I am glad to see Twitter comply with India's rules. For a while, it did seem like a foreign capitalistic body that was denying India's sovereignty because it felt it had too much leverage. At the same time, I do hope Rahul Gandhi falls in a ditch soon, so that the politically left bodies in India can elect a half decent leader who can mount a proper opposition instead of twiddling his thumbs on twitter. People forget that Modi is democratically elected and has allowed the democratic electoral process to work under his regime. I disagree with a lot of his policies (social and economic) but the electoral process shall hold him accountable. Our Supreme court is also independent, so any outright violation can be addressed by twitter in the courts. Given that, Indian laws are an entirely internal matter and a foreign body like Twitter should abide by the laws of the land. Last point: Correct me if I am wrong, but the Indian Govt. has yet to ask for any egregious censorship on twitter. Most cases are of removal of misinformation, selective use of fact checks and custom tags. Ofc, I am giving another perspective towards this issue. The rest of the comments do well to cover the rest of the rather valid perspectives.

muhmuhz 5y ago

When are Dick Costolo and Jack Dorsey going to be charged for their pedophile crimes? When I worked at Twitter in 2013 Jack and Dick were always bringing in very very young boys and I felt extremely uncomfortable with it which is why I left. The entire company and diaspora is a cesspool.

fukd 5y ago

As a saying goes here tongue has no bones which means people can and will lie eaily. That being said as son of a farmer i will support the government actions. period. A company's solo responsibity is making money for its shareholders so no thanks corporations, please take your business elsewhere if you dont like our laws.

cheif-lama 5y ago
Government is made of people who have the better motives to lie then corporations. Especially in India where a tea seller, with fake degree rises to power based on nationalism and fascism. We been through these motions before, and what is going on in India is not any different than Nazi Germany. Not to mention, far right hindu government is a fan of Nazi Germany. These Hindutwa nationalist are hiding in plane site in west, and most people need to be aware of it, they are the worst racist based on casts and colour of skin, which is funny because to most westerners they all look shades of brown.

fukd 5y ago

Funnily farmers are not on twitter (my father doesnt even know what its) but some elitists are deciding whats good for us farmers on twitter. Do you guys even when the reforms happend last time? nor the main setfacks that we face? These are the same people who go on tv shows and make a scene until govt bans export of produce whenever tomatos/onions hit even 50rs.

bombless 5y ago

Trump was silenced from Twitter a few months ago, so you can say u.s. is not better than India.

cheif-lama 5y ago

There is rise of Hindu nationalism in India and they don't want anybody telling them cow dung, urine and yelling at Crona virus will not make it go away. They have been lynching people and arresting them. Checkout cjwerleman on twitter to get a better context of it, and that is not all. They also love Hitler supposedly and think Hindu race is superior and they invented internet and plastic surgery because they is the only explanation for elephant and monkey god. I know sounds ridiculous, but I am not making that up.

8eye 5y ago

the people of india shouldn’t put up with such tyranny. every person is born free, we are humans first, citizens of our country second. anyone who forgets that has fallen into satans path.