3 ms·
As an Indian, you cannot understand the despair this makes me feel. ANI is a bit like privatised Pravda operating in service to the government, yet, still prete
by instagraham 2y ago
As an Indian, you cannot understand the despair this makes me feel.
ANI is a bit like privatised Pravda operating in service to the government, yet, still pretending to be independent journalism. Wherever there is a critic of the government, ANI exists to slander such critics as a service.
As a discerning reader, you learn to avoid mainstream media that quotes ANI (don't even consider watching a TV channel). You seek out alternate information sources. As the entity aligns closer with the ruling party and the mega-corporations like Adani that are aligned with it, you basically witness an octopus take over all information communication in India.
Then you get harsher and harsher laws regulating social media. You get no new laws protecting your speech. You witness a general fatalism set in on the few Indian comment sections that still think this stuff is wrong. But one day you see it on HN and realise everyone is basically powerless here.
Foolish maybe, but I genuinely hoped the open and open-sourced side of the internet would transcend borders. There must exist an information ecosystem that is above government. But Linux bans Russian devs, wikipedia is blocked worldwide because they wouldn't reveal an editor's biodata to India, social media platforms regulating information appoint information officers to enforce dictatorial government orders.
Where is the technology that can challenge this? At what point can the principle of "code is law" support free human expression instead of serving the whims of the latest oppressive regime?
I would implore any devs making open-source censorship-proof tools to consider the Indian context as ground zero.
- blue_pants 2y ago> Linux bans Russian devs The devs weren't banned, they were removed from the maintainers list https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/10/russian-coders-removed-from-linux-maintainers-list-due-to-sanction-concerns https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/10/russi...
- idle_zealot 2y agoWhat you're talking about, trancending government orders, is inherently illegal. Any tech that enables it must be distributed, untrackable, and private. You're basically describing the darknet.
- pas 2y ago"Code is law" is a meme. Law is a social concept, it has many parts, the statutes, that serve as mementos for past power struggles, the active part which consist of the courts, prosecutors' discretion, enforcement, and of course society itself, as the workings of these reified components reflect society itself. Code can of course model some of these, be part of law, and even it can try to complement or supplant certain roles and/or functions from the aforementioned ones, but as long as there are humans in the loop code will not be itself law. Sure, soon we'll probably end up with RoboCops patrolling the streets, and maybe even AI writing much of the statutes, and eventually even AI making most of the law, but even then code won't be law.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 2y ago"Code is law" is a phrase that has pervaded in smart contracts and crypto. That is the technology that can challenge this.
- DirkH 2y agoNever understood how. Law is messy. There is no algorithm that can properly capture it.