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BBC Modi Documentary Removal
- SpaceManNabs 4y agoWhat happened in Kashmir was disgusting. I had no idea this was going on. Thank you Streisand Effect.
- miohtama 4y agoEarlier discussion why Modi’s government wants to remove this document and all links to it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34512758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34512758 Looks like BBC wants to keep itself in control and not authorise unwarranted copies of the video around Internet.
- webmobdev 4y agoInternet Archive takes down upload of BBC’s Modi documentary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34504085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34504085 Censorship, arrests, power cuts. India scrambles to block BBC documentary. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/25/india-bbc-narendra-modi-documentary/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/25/india-bbc-na...
- goodcanadian 4y agoLooks like BBC wants to keep itself in control and not authorise unwarranted copies of the video around Internet. The BBC produces content and licenses it around the world in exchange for money. Is it really surprising that like other copyright holders, they want to control unauthorised copying?
- zeyihbx 4y agoThis post was #1 on hacker news. Seems it's been censored out.
- sidibe 4y agoI'm sure it was flagged like crazy (pro-Modi demographic is very sensitive and numerous in places like this) and there have been plenty of recent discussion already
- dewan101 4y ago[flagged]
- sieabahlpark 4y ago[dead]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- random314 4y agoI like how the larger thread has been removed by citing a smaller thread focused on Elon musk as a talking point. This thread had 221 upvotes as opposed to the Elon musk focused thread with 72 upvotes and a fraction of the discussion.
- smcl 4y agoStreisand effect - I had no idea about this and now I am curious and will find a torrent of it. I mean, I'm not Indian so I suspect Modi doesn't care about me personally but still.
- webmobdev 4y agoIf you care about your mental health, I would recommend against it - it's a chilling and depressing story of how an indian politician uses communal violence to further his career and promote religious fundamentalist fascist ideology in India.
- eklavya 4y agoYeah, Indian judicial system is only fair and independent when it's time to bash modi for trying to undermine it.
- jamal-kumar 4y agoImagine going into a time machine and telling people that they shouldn't watch a documentary about some contemporary madman murderer such as pol pot or someone like that because it'll be bad for their mental health? Maybe people are meant to face these things straight up and be hard about them
- cmurf 4y agoTrue. But it's also true that cognitive dissonance is a real thing. People actively feel discomfort when confronted with truth that conflicts with established belief, and some people just can't handle the truth - so they seek out more lies, and help to spread them as a coping mechanism. The lies are soothing. The truth is too hard.
- jamal-kumar 4y agoIf your preference to the truth is drinking boxes of lie juice that's on you. People acting like the media is somehow at fault here for telling it is just another box of juice to me. Personally - I'm willing to fight tooth and nail for the truth, and I'm sick of people acting like there's some kind of ambiguity here. The world has enough genocide as is without people being wishy-washy about it while it's happening. If you have a problem with mass murder predicated on bigotry, it's time to take a stand, just saying.
- LinuxBender 4y agoPerhaps I am giving the BBC too much credit but I think this was a brilliant move on their part. Forbidding something will make it more popular and perhaps that was the goal. Now the video will be shared {n} times more than it previously would have.
- shrimp_emoji 4y agoUh... I guess. That just seems like a super charitable 4D chess interpretation of capitulating to despotic censorship.
- sandworm101 4y agoMaybe for a few weeks. But years from now it will be far harder to find because of this removal. the Streisand is aptly named. Celebrities exist in the moment. Politicians like Modi are looking at protecting their reputations five ten or twenty years down the road.
- alex_smart 4y agoYou are perhaps giving the documentary too much more credit than it deserves. There are no new revelations in the documentary as far as I know. The infamous Babu Bajrangi Tehelka sting came out all the way back in 2007. The Indian public knew all about the allegations against Modi in 2014 when he was first elected as PM.
- bjelkeman-again 4y ago
- pessimizer 4y agoOf course. This is a nearly fake story being printed by a bunch of outlets who would also send a DMCA to archive.org for posting a documentary that they did on Modi. The reason I say nearly fake is that Indians were using archive.org to access the documentary, and that was a good thing. But it's copyright that's suppressing information that is unfavorable to India's current administration. Absolutely pointlessly, by the way, as it was ultimately produced by the British license/tax payer. edit: happy there's a fake story being whipped up about BJP, hopefully that means they're feeling real political pressure on some level.
- smoldesu 4y agoBut they aren't suppressing it for copyright reasons. According to the administration, they're removing it because it "reflected a colonial mindset" and supposedly lacks objectivity. If this was just a copyright problem, people wouldn't be getting arrested[0] and having rocks thrown at them[1] for screening legally-obtained copies. [0] https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/students-detained-screen-modi-documentary-jamia-campus-8404652/ https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/students-deta... [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64371327 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64371327
- JeremyBanks 4y agoYou’re conflating two things. The BBC is indeed taking it down for copyright reasons. The Indian government is censoring it for political reasons. This post was about the former.
- college_physics 4y agoA wikipedia entry with some background for those wondering what all this is about [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India:_The_Modi_Question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India:_The_Modi_Question
- miohtama 4y ago> On 23 January 2023, a students' group Fraternity Movement at Hyderabad Central University organised the screening of the documentary inside the campus. On 24 January 2023, the Democratic Youth Federation of India screened it in various parts of Kerala.[19][20] DYFI described its decision to screen the documentary, stating, "Let people see the fascist face of the Sangh Parivar outfits. We will go ahead with the plan and more screenings will be done at other places also in the coming days." The Indian Youth Congress said that it too would screen the documentary in Kerala.[21] The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) also decided to screen the documentary: electricity and internet access to the room where the screening was to take place were cut by university authorities, leading to students streaming the documentary on their cell phones.[4][22] After students at Jamia Millia University planned a screening, at least a dozen students were arrested, and the university entrances blocked. It’s nice to read that the spirit of criticism and science is still alive somewhere
- ck2 4y agoIndia also banned in 2015 from BBC https://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/05/asia/bbc-india-documentary/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/05/asia/bbc-india-documentar... but it is on Amazon Prime search j5oydmf for more info, won't link it in case there is some ignorant law
- fiberhood 4y agoThe (inter)Net Interprets Censorship As Damage and Routes Around It https://www.magnetdl.com/m/modi/ https://www.magnetdl.com/m/modi/
- NelsonMinar 4y agoTwitter's been removing the documentary at Modi's request: https://theintercept.com/2023/01/24/twitter-elon-musk-modi-india-bbc/ https://theintercept.com/2023/01/24/twitter-elon-musk-modi-i...
- galoisscobi 4y agoThat’s just free speech absolutism!
- miohtama 4y agoIt’s free speech only if your country is not part of Tesla supply chain.
- flak48 4y agoNot sure how Tesla or even Twitter is exposed to India for Musk wanting to please the Indian government. As big as India is, it keeps being considered as the ‘next billion’ revenue generators for tech companies - but not sure when that day will actually arrive. Teslas aren’t for sale in India, not that many will be afford it (besides the few virtue signaling billionaires / millionaires who might buy it after acquiring their dream Ferrari or whatever). Nor does India contribute to the supply chain AFAIK. Pretty sure Indians don’t contribute to significant % of ad or subscription revenue for Twitter or other tech companies either (compared to USA or Europe - outliers being websites like Quora) given the low purchasing power. I recall New York and London together making more $$$ in a day for Uber than the whole of India So not sure why tech companies are afraid of taking on India, especially Musk. Or maybe just doing what the India govt wants instead of fighting is another way of signaling that they don’t care what happens in India anymore
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Spooky23 4y agoModi’s people are free to ask for whatever they want.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoWow. Ok then, I NEED to see this documentary. Anything that is not illegal on its face that the government wants to remove from the internet is something we should ALL take a very close look at.
- Laaas 4y agoThis is why we need a decentralised censorship-free protocol for archiving the internet.
- intunderflow 4y agoStill available (for now) in the UK via https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dkb2kx/india-the-modi-question-series-1-episode-2 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dkb2kx/india-the-mod...
- phatfish 4y agoHopefully it will be available for streaming on iPlayer for the "11 months" stated on the page, unless there is something very badly wrong in the UK. There is a trade deal pending with India that is supposed to help undo the damage done by Brexit (it won't), but even the Conservatives wouldn't bend over that far to try and save face.
- deathtrader666 4y agoyt-dlp can grab the .mp4 from that easily.
- reactspa 4y ago[flagged]
- Throwawayjan 4y ago[flagged]
- cjbgkagh 4y agoIn the UK Pakistani Muslims are Asian. So are Indians and Sri Lankans. The US ‘Asian’ refers to what the UK would term Far East Asian. I do agree that it does seem to be a broad brush.
- dazc 4y agoSome are also British of Asian/Pakistani descent.
- Symbiote 4y agohttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rgd5n https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rgd5n https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cdts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cdts https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c347nd992zkt https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c347nd992zkt
- Throwawayjan 4y agoLocal counsil, Polics and media blamed the victims for 10+ years before covering this but you chose not to mention that report. BBC covered very lately. Better than never tho
- dp-hackernews 4y agoSeems to be true only for selective free speech, ie. when it either aids the self or hinders the other, but apparently not for actual free speech.
- 4y ago
- 2Gkashmiri 4y agohttps://peertube.su/w/f15x5ghHXocFUL1bJk21Af https://peertube.su/w/f15x5ghHXocFUL1bJk21Af part 1 on peertube. lets see stupid DMCA take this one down
- nsriv 4y agoThamk you for sharing this!
- JeremyBanks 4y ago[dead]
- dp-hackernews 4y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
- cscurmudgeon 4y agohttps://www.firstpost.com/world/pack-of-lies-bbcs-hitjob-on-pm-modi-relies-on-jack-straws-words-but-hes-known-to-have-been-a-liar-himself-12035022.html/amp https://www.firstpost.com/world/pack-of-lies-bbcs-hitjob-on-... The documentary relies on Jack Straw who lied about WMDs in Iraq. I am sure he is correct now /s Also compare and contrast with censorship and removal of stories on Hunter Biden.
- tibbydudeza 4y agoWhataboutism - the BJP and their ties to the RSS is well documented and known.
- cscurmudgeon 4y agoNobody said otherwise. BBC and their racism and racist roots are well known.
- noarchy 4y agoYou’re merely doubling down on the whataboutism.
- 1024core 4y agoYou keep using that word, "whataboutism". It doesn't mean what you think it means. Pointing out BBC's racist bias is not "whataboutism". Western countries have no problems with banning entire channels like RT and Al Jazeera, but God forbid that a biased piece of shit "documentary" be banned from a propaganda outlet; then the heaven is falling!!
- LarryMullins 4y agoPlease remember that the BBC isn't state media because [semantics].
- 4y ago
- 0xbeefeed 4y agoI torrented it. Problem solved.
- tibbydudeza 4y agoFound a copy on bittorrent already - why did they bother.
- sidibe 4y agoIt's amazing Modi was able to fly so low under the radar internationally when he is such an illiberal nationalist, then suddenly he gets 2 big hits in 2 weeks with this and Adani. I know this won't make him any less popular in India but nice to see at least people outside recognize how problematic he is for once.
- pohuing 4y agoLast Week Tonight had a couple pieces on him as well a couple years ago.
- KRAKRISMOTT 4y agoSimple, because they have a big neighbor. Modi would be hailed as a great man and the future leader of Asia regardless of his competence and political views. It is the same reason why Vietnam is now suddenly the most favored country for outsourcing manufacturing despite having the exact same policies and politics as their neighbor.
- kelipso 4y agoYou probably weren't reading the news back in 2014 but he has had hit pieces from the Economist and Time and many other western outlets from before he was first elected. It has been a steady flow ever since then but this is probably the biggest jump from 8-9 years ago.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- AmIDev 4y agoModi was banned from traveling to US and UK due to his involvement in the 2002 riots. Once he became the PM, the bans were uplifted. If anything, the documentary should make him more popular in India. The modi supporters support him because of his role in the riots, not despite it. The documentary might help him become popular amongst the youth who might not be aware of his past. I am surprised that the govt even tried to ban it in India. This documentary is not even aimed at the Indian population, it's meant for the western population. Banning it in India only creates streisand effect for the rest of the world through posts like this one.
- har_ry 4y agoI watched both parts. Would highly recommend. I never understood how terrifying the riots in 2018 were (listening on the bbc world service) until the British Muslim gentlemen in the doc. describe the checkpoint incident in gujarat. Frankly terrifying
- I-love-india 4y agoThe torrent file we are looking for is https://archive.org/download/narendra-modi-bbc-documentary/narendra-modi-bbc-documentary_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/narendra-modi-bbc-documentary/n... the mp4 is https://archive.org/download/narendra-modi-bbc-documentary/RPReplay_Final1673992902.mp4 https://archive.org/download/narendra-modi-bbc-documentary/R...
- nine_zeros 4y agoGood. Fuck censorship. Pretty sure savy VPN users in India have already torrented this and spread it everywhere.
- prhrb 4y agoUnfortunately majority of people in India are not that tech savvy and not aware of it
- wkat4242 4y agoSo not pressure from India but from the BBC. I thought their content was free to broadcast as it was paid for by taxes?
- _Wintermute 4y agoI don't think it's too much of a leap to imagine the DMCA takedown requests might be coming from the Indian government rather than the BBC.
- sidibe 4y agoI think it's weird that BBC is so defensive about this, but DMCA takedown requests are only supposed to come from the copyright holder or someone they authorize
- wkat4242 4y agoBut they specifically say it comes from the BBC. I don't think archive.org would lie about this. And yes like the other reply says it must come from the copyright holder. It's a bit strange though because DMCA doesn't even apply to the UK or India.
- flumpcakes 4y agoIt is “free” to watch for UK citizens paying for the BBC via an optional TV licence. I don’t watch live TV and don’t pay for a TV licence so I cannot watch BBC programming broadcast live (or any live TV, including non-BBC) or on iPlayer (the BBC catch-up/streaming service for UK). The BBC also licenses their content for audiences in different countries, and streaming services. The BBC own the copyright to the programming they produce and sell the rights to it. bbc.com is the commercial arm of the BBC.
- beej71 4y agoIANAL. It seems strange to me that the DMCA can be used to get a link to offending material removed. The copyright holder has zero right to the link, and I should be free to say, sing, or write it, and distribute that work. Says little ol' me. What about a link to a link to copyrighted material? Is tinyurl legally responsible?
- bjt 4y agoYes, unless they comply with the takedown/safe harbor provisions in the DMCA. https://copyrightalliance.org/education/copyright-law-explained/the-digital-millennium-copyright-act-dmca/dmca-safe-harbor/ https://copyrightalliance.org/education/copyright-law-explai...
- beej71 4y agoGotta love that they can get something removed that's not copyrightable. I did have this happen to me once when I linked to a non-infringing page that had a link to an infringing page. It was a black mark on my record and I guess it was my fault for not verifying that none of the pages linked to from the page I linked to had any infringing content. What about a page that links to a page that links to a page with infringing content? :)
- Zetobal 4y agoIt's getting used because it's the only thing you can do to force a platform to comply. No matter if right or wrong a DCMA will make it go away in the short term.
- O__________O 4y agoTextual explanation of what’s going on: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/23/indias-blocking-bbc-documentary-reflects-broader-crackdown https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/23/indias-blocking-bbc-docu...
- squarefoot 4y agoStreisand effect. https://magnetdl.unblockit.ink/i/india-the-modi-question/se/desc/ https://magnetdl.unblockit.ink/i/india-the-modi-question/se/... Proxy link needed for people behind ISPs blocking certain sites, like the bar I'm writing this from.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoI would have never even known about this documentary if I hadn’t heard about all the efforts to censor it. Streisand Effect in full display.
- wnevets 4y agoHere is another example of Elon's love for free speech. [1] [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-leaked-internal-message-suggests-musk-ordered-leftwing-account-freeze-2023-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-leaked-internal-mess...
- pvelagal 4y agoI am not a fan of Modi and I don’t want him to get re-elected. He is an autocrat and favors a select few. His party is as corrupt as any other party. But I suspect the timing of this ? Why now, when this happened so long ago. ( before he got elected twice in a row ?) Also, How many know that Modi was conferred the highest civilian award by Saudi Arabia ! Even UAE and Bahrain gave their highest civilian awards !
- miohtama 4y agoWhy now might be as simple as there was no high profile director interested in the topic before. Because Modi has been massing more power for himself and BJP, their history has become more interesting for journalists, or “how we ended up here.”
- hgsgm 4y agoA movie takes time to produce? A documentary needs space to find obbjective evidence? Cumulative impact increases importance? Allying with authoritarian dictators raises new alarm?
- ridiculous_leke 4y agoGoing by the feedback in this thread, there's nothing new in the documentary. Gulf states are probably just playing diplomacy given the fact that Modi was never convicted by any court.
- whoevercares 4y agoAlso available in Bilibili: - https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2041149094 https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2041149094 it’s funny how Bilibili who listed on NASDAQ has so many copyrighted video…
- O__________O 4y agoMight be wrong, but if you combine India’s population with the percentage of the population that’s culturally intolerant, they’re ranked the highest in the world: https://www.indiatoday.in/world/asia/story/india-among-world-most-racist-countries-britian-tolerant-survey-163396-2013-05-16 https://www.indiatoday.in/world/asia/story/india-among-world... https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population#Sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_population https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencie...
- hindsightbias 4y ago“Forty-nine percent of Indian Americans favorably rate Modi’s performance thus far (35 percent strongly approve and 13 percent approve). On the opposite end of the spectrum, 22 percent strongly disapprove of Modi’s performance and 9 percent disapprove.” https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/02/09/how-do-indian-americans-view-india-results-from-2020-indian-american-attitudes-survey-pub-83800 https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/02/09/how-do-indian-ameri...
- ShredKazoo 4y agoPew says among Hindus in the US, Democrats outnumber Republicans almost 5 to 1: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/hindu/party-affiliation/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-stu... It's interesting how people can compartmentalize their right-wing nationalism
- LarryMullins 4y agoThere's no such thing as nationalism without compartmentalization; by definition somebody who is a nationalist considers one nation's interests above another. When a nationalist from India comes to America for economic reasons, why would they fall in with American nationalists? They're an Indian nationalist, not an American nationalist. American nationalism is contrary to the interests of an Indian nationalist living in America. I think the mistake that might make this surprising is if you assume somebody votes Democratic because they oppose nationalism categorically. But it's easy for an Indian nationalist to oppose American nationalism specifically and not nationalism generally.
- hgsgm 4y agoWhy would you assume that Indians who emigrated are nationalists at all? And "hating Muslims" is surely something Hindu nationalists and Christian nationalists agree on. Finally "American Nationalists" doesn't even make sense, it's a tautology since 1789 or the War of 1812. The US right wing is (partly) Christian Nationalisy. Nationalism means excluding someone from a nation based on religious, ethnic, or other basis. It's trying to make the nation for Hindus or Christians or the local population or whatever. "Indian nationalism" mean separating from the British. Muslims and Hindus are both Indians.
- dang 4y agoInternet Archive takes down upload of BBC’s Modi documentary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34504085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34504085 - Jan 2023 (66 comments) India invokes emergency laws to ban BBC Modi documentary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34511831 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34511831 - Jan 2023 (31 comments)
- counttheforks 4y ago@dang why did this get demoted off the front page? You claim it's a dupe, but this is a lie. No other posts discussing this are on the front page.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- whatyesaid 4y agoVery strange use of "dupe". I think the link provided is notable just due to the fact that the BBC overextended themselves and wasted taxpayer dollars on using DMCA against the Internet Archive - something outside of their responsibility (why is the BBC going above and beyond for censorship?), and possibly not even violated any copyright 'DMCA'. This link provides clarity that the request actually came from the BBC, for whatever reason, not the Indian government. And that's probably why this discussion in the short time it was up generated more comments than the others all combined from a few days ago...
- host-modi-video 4y ago[dead]
- ShredKazoo 4y agoFor people who prefer reading articles to watching documentaries, here's a Wired article from 2020: "The Rise of a Hindu Vigilante in the Age of WhatsApp and Modi" https://www.wired.com/story/indias-frightening-descent-social-media-terror/ https://www.wired.com/story/indias-frightening-descent-socia... I assume the topic is fairly similar (I haven't watched the documentary)
- elmomle 4y ago@dang have you had a chance to review the dupe flag? This was on the top of the front page then got flagged, and given the subject matter it smells of intentional obfuscation.
- O__________O 4y agoReally wish if HN flags a link as duplicate the top comment would be an automatic comment that cites what the duplicate was. As is, I see no duplicates: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=BBC%20Modi%20Documentary%20Removal&type=story&dateRange=all&sort=byDate&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=BBC%20Modi%20Documentary%20Rem...
- account42 4y agoSo why is this a blog post instead of the IA proactively publishing all DMCA requests?
- throwawayxx123 4y agoI am from India. Though I am not a fan (or hater) of Modi, he has been scrutinized on these accusations by the Supreme Court of India. As far as I am concerned that settles the matter. I should also add that Modi was given a clean chit years before he became Prime Minister of India. I would rather trust the Supreme court of India than the agenda of media produced by anyone, especially foreign media.