5 ms·

I don't think that the Indian court has legitimacy to block the article to be displayed worldwide. It has no jurisdicition for the citizens of all other countri

I don't think that the Indian court has legitimacy to block the article to be displayed worldwide. It has no jurisdicition for the citizens of all other countries and also no jurisdiction against content that is not hosted in India. But I guess that it was maybe more convenient for the wikimedia foundation to do it like that instead of doing geofencing that they might not have?

stoperaticless 2y ago
You want operate in country X, you must comply with country X laws or be ready to be percecuted. (From notice, to confiscation of servers, to executions; depends on the X and how inconvenient you are)
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  More broadly, if country X has the capacity to enforce its rulings against you, it is risky to assume that they do not apply to you, irrespective of what you think should be the case base on how you operate, where you are located, your citizenship, etc. Many states have a wide variety of provisions applying national law in ways that might be contrary to all kinds of naive assumptions about how their jurisdiction should be limited
  - stoperaticless 2y ago
    Yup. Jurisdiction is like good manners, there is plenty of those, but it is not some kind of fundamental law of nature.
dekhn 2y ago
This is something I've been curious about for a while. GDPR, IIUC, makes an EU law apply to things that happen inside the US (for example, EU person flies to the US and uses Facebook on US-housed servers with data stored in the US, GDPR apparently considers that in-scope for the law).
- jkaplowitz 2y ago
  > This is something I've been curious about for a while. GDPR, IIUC, makes an EU law apply to things that happen inside the US (for example, EU person flies to the US and uses Facebook on US-housed servers with data stored in the US, GDPR apparently considers that in-scope for the law). That's a common myth. The GDPR doesn't follow citizenship, even if a lot of unofficial guidance wrongly says that. US-based businesses that aren't branches of companies established in the EU, not targeting people in the EU, and not profiling or otherwise monitoring the behavior of people in the EU are not subject to the GDPR. And "in the EU" cares about where the person's body is, not who issued their passport. This European Commission summary of GDPR's Article 3 (Territorial scope) is informative: https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/application-regulation/who-does-data-protection-law-apply_en https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/r... Here is Article 3 itself: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/ (unofficial site but generally accurate) And guidelines (PDF) about Article 3 from the European Data Protection Board: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/sites/default/files/files/file1/edpb_guidelines_3_2018_territorial_scope_after_public_consultation_en_1.pdf https://www.edpb.europa.eu/sites/default/files/files/file1/e... However, your scenario may fall in-scope of the GDPR for a simple reason: the Meta Terms of Service specify that the data controller for users (and non-users) living in the EU is Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, which is a company established in the EU. When the data processor or controller activities are through a company or branch established in the EU, the GDPR applies no matter where in the world the person and the data are.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    OK, fair enough, thanks for the clarification.
jltsiren 2y ago
The legitimacy of Indian courts is something only Indian citizens and people living in India can decide. Other people may have opinions, but they are more or less irrelevant. Anyway, the fundamental issue here is that domestic rulings often have international consequences. As a sovereign state, India obviously has the right to ban the Wikimedia Foundation, or any other foreign entity, from doing business within the county. That right is an essential aspect of sovereignty. If they don't like you, they can ban you. But if the Wikimedia Foundation values access to India more than their right to host a particular article, they may choose to comply with the demands of an Indian court, even in matters where the court does not have jurisdiction. And that compliance would technically be voluntary.
- tomrod 2y ago
  > As a sovereign state, India obviously has the right to ban the Wikimedia Foundation, or any other foreign entity, from doing business within the county I fundamentally disagree. The Indian State exists to serve its citizens, which are benefitted unambiguous by a free and unconstrained source like Wikipedia. The sovereignty of any state is subject to the benefit of its citizens, not the other way around. That doesn't mean they won't try anyway, but let us not confuse what is technically or politically feasible with what is moral.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    That's something only Indian citizens and people living in India can decide. Outsiders may have opinions, but they cannot override the will of the people who have a legitimate standing in the matters of the state. And note how I included "people living in India" here. Legitimacy is a fuzzy concept. Citizenship is a legal category, and it should not matter for legitimacy as such. But it is widely accepted that citizens living outside their country still have a legitimate standing in the matters of the country. But beyond that, a legitimate government should serve the interests of the people factually living within the country. India does not have a large non-citizen population, and the distinction is mostly irrelevant with them. But some other countries do. If their governments only serve the interests of their citizens, they are fundamentally illegitimate.
  - 2y ago
tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
The problem is that as long as the court thinks it has legitimacy, and the guys with the guns agree, then it doesn't matter whether it "objectively" or by someone else's opinion has legitimacy. It doesn't matter who is "right", it matters who has which power. Unlike the US, courts from India likely have limited power to affect Wikipedia operations outside of India. However, they can potentially send people to arrest anyone associated with the Wikimedia Foundation within India, and potentially keep them in jail until Wikimedia complies. (They can also have Wikipedia and donations flowing to the foundation blocked in a country representing something like 1/6th of the global population.) Edit to add: Wikimedia on the other hand, has the power to block the article, then lean back with a giant bucket of popcorn knowing that it will achieve the exact opposite of what the court wanted to achieve.

stoperaticless 2y ago

You want operate in country X, you must comply with country X laws or be ready to be percecuted. (From notice, to confiscation of servers, to executions; depends on the X and how inconvenient you are)

dragonwriter 2y ago
More broadly, if country X has the capacity to enforce its rulings against you, it is risky to assume that they do not apply to you, irrespective of what you think should be the case base on how you operate, where you are located, your citizenship, etc. Many states have a wide variety of provisions applying national law in ways that might be contrary to all kinds of naive assumptions about how their jurisdiction should be limited
- stoperaticless 2y ago
  Yup. Jurisdiction is like good manners, there is plenty of those, but it is not some kind of fundamental law of nature.

dekhn 2y ago

This is something I've been curious about for a while. GDPR, IIUC, makes an EU law apply to things that happen inside the US (for example, EU person flies to the US and uses Facebook on US-housed servers with data stored in the US, GDPR apparently considers that in-scope for the law).

jkaplowitz 2y ago
> This is something I've been curious about for a while. GDPR, IIUC, makes an EU law apply to things that happen inside the US (for example, EU person flies to the US and uses Facebook on US-housed servers with data stored in the US, GDPR apparently considers that in-scope for the law). That's a common myth. The GDPR doesn't follow citizenship, even if a lot of unofficial guidance wrongly says that. US-based businesses that aren't branches of companies established in the EU, not targeting people in the EU, and not profiling or otherwise monitoring the behavior of people in the EU are not subject to the GDPR. And "in the EU" cares about where the person's body is, not who issued their passport. This European Commission summary of GDPR's Article 3 (Territorial scope) is informative: https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/application-regulation/who-does-data-protection-law-apply_en https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/r... Here is Article 3 itself: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/ (unofficial site but generally accurate) And guidelines (PDF) about Article 3 from the European Data Protection Board: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/sites/default/files/files/file1/edpb_guidelines_3_2018_territorial_scope_after_public_consultation_en_1.pdf https://www.edpb.europa.eu/sites/default/files/files/file1/e... However, your scenario may fall in-scope of the GDPR for a simple reason: the Meta Terms of Service specify that the data controller for users (and non-users) living in the EU is Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, which is a company established in the EU. When the data processor or controller activities are through a company or branch established in the EU, the GDPR applies no matter where in the world the person and the data are.
- dekhn 2y ago
  OK, fair enough, thanks for the clarification.

jltsiren 2y ago

The legitimacy of Indian courts is something only Indian citizens and people living in India can decide. Other people may have opinions, but they are more or less irrelevant. Anyway, the fundamental issue here is that domestic rulings often have international consequences. As a sovereign state, India obviously has the right to ban the Wikimedia Foundation, or any other foreign entity, from doing business within the county. That right is an essential aspect of sovereignty. If they don't like you, they can ban you. But if the Wikimedia Foundation values access to India more than their right to host a particular article, they may choose to comply with the demands of an Indian court, even in matters where the court does not have jurisdiction. And that compliance would technically be voluntary.

tomrod 2y ago
> As a sovereign state, India obviously has the right to ban the Wikimedia Foundation, or any other foreign entity, from doing business within the county I fundamentally disagree. The Indian State exists to serve its citizens, which are benefitted unambiguous by a free and unconstrained source like Wikipedia. The sovereignty of any state is subject to the benefit of its citizens, not the other way around. That doesn't mean they won't try anyway, but let us not confuse what is technically or politically feasible with what is moral.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  That's something only Indian citizens and people living in India can decide. Outsiders may have opinions, but they cannot override the will of the people who have a legitimate standing in the matters of the state. And note how I included "people living in India" here. Legitimacy is a fuzzy concept. Citizenship is a legal category, and it should not matter for legitimacy as such. But it is widely accepted that citizens living outside their country still have a legitimate standing in the matters of the country. But beyond that, a legitimate government should serve the interests of the people factually living within the country. India does not have a large non-citizen population, and the distinction is mostly irrelevant with them. But some other countries do. If their governments only serve the interests of their citizens, they are fundamentally illegitimate.
- 2y ago

tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago

The problem is that as long as the court thinks it has legitimacy, and the guys with the guns agree, then it doesn't matter whether it "objectively" or by someone else's opinion has legitimacy. It doesn't matter who is "right", it matters who has which power. Unlike the US, courts from India likely have limited power to affect Wikipedia operations outside of India. However, they can potentially send people to arrest anyone associated with the Wikimedia Foundation within India, and potentially keep them in jail until Wikimedia complies. (They can also have Wikipedia and donations flowing to the foundation blocked in a country representing something like 1/6th of the global population.) Edit to add: Wikimedia on the other hand, has the power to block the article, then lean back with a giant bucket of popcorn knowing that it will achieve the exact opposite of what the court wanted to achieve.