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I mean this is just absurd. > On Tuesday, the Karnataka High Court directed the Indian government to block Proton Mail, a popular email service known for its e
by crop_rotation 1y ago
I mean this is just absurd.
> On Tuesday, the Karnataka High Court directed the Indian government to block Proton Mail, a popular email service known for its enhanced security, following a legal complaint filed by New Delhi-based M Moser Design Associates. The local firm alleged that its employees had received emails containing obscene and vulgar content sent via Proton Mail.
How does this make any sense. Would the court block gmail if the same happens via gmail?.
India somehow is stuck in the worst of all worlds. There is no freedom like democratic countries and there is no good government like China.
To any westerners commenting, this is not same as think of the children. Government or courts mostly don't even need to give such excuses in India (max they might say to counter traitors). There is obscene amount of corruption in the country at every step from the local to the highest, and it is internalized by the citizens so much that everyone knows and nobody cares.
Edit: good government above means competent government
- umvi 1y ago> there is no good government like China Here "good" means "is competent and calculating" I suppose. China's government wouldn't even blink blocking Proton Mail or any other non-Chinese technology without even giving a reason, though.
- crop_rotation 1y agoYeah that is a good tradeoff (IMHO) if it gives the citizens a tradeoff of infrastructure and social services. Indian government can jump through hoops to do the same thing but somehow can never do all that when it comes to rapid infrastructure development.
- __rito__ 1y ago> "[...] never do all that when it comes to rapid infrastructure development." India is now building 100 km highway per day. It created 24,000+ km in the last 5 years. [0] It has the second-largest road network in the world, second only to the US. [1] [0]: https://pib.gov.in/PressNoteDetails.aspx?NoteId=151963&ModuleId=3®=3&lang=1 https://pib.gov.in/PressNoteDetails.aspx?NoteId=151963&Modul... [1]: https://www.financialexpress.com/business/roadways-indias-road-to-progress-national-highway-network-grown-by-60-rising-from-91287-km-in-2014-to-146195-km-now-says-morth-3711811 https://www.financialexpress.com/business/roadways-indias-ro...
- crop_rotation 1y agoYes the current government is doing some things well and that does include road development which has been extensive.
- luckylion 1y agoIsn't 100km per day their goal while their record is at 37km on a single day? That's impressive by itself, but it's not quite the same (and those 5 year numbers would take them less than one year at that speed).
- IAmBroom 1y agoYes, "completely different from China's government" is really what's meant.
- crop_rotation 1y agoNo, I did mean "competent"
- ivell 1y agoI wouldn't consider ghost cities and wasteful expenditure on infrastructure to just prop up GDP as good governance. As the saying goes not all that glitters is gold. Democracy is messy, but there is some kind of transparency (freedom of press) that brings up issues out in the open. Let's not be impatient with Democracy lest we lose all that we valued without us realizing it. Democracy needs patience and preserverence.
- hmm37 1y agoA lot of the ghost cities news has been debunked as of late. When the news stories were coming out, a lot of the cities were just recently built. A decade+ later, a lot of the areas have been filled in... E.g. this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR4EYQ6JFUI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR4EYQ6JFUI
- scheeseman486 1y ago"A lot" isn't really doing much for your argument that the existance of ghost cities is "debunked", given that it implies there are still ghost cities.
- luotuoshangdui 1y ago> Good government like China This is a bad joke. For starters, China blocked Proton Mail years ago.
- crop_rotation 1y agoI am not claiming China is free or democratic at all, just that Government in turn is able to use it's authoritarianism to do stuff for the country.
- duxup 1y agoEvery government is busy with some form of "do stuff for the country".
- lotsofpulp 1y agoIt seems clear above commenters are referencing that China performs better at accomplishing certain tasks, such as large scale infrastructure development, that isn’t comparable to other countries that “do stuff”.
- duxup 1y agoI’m always skeptical of what I will call the admiration of “despotic efficiency / accomplishments”. I’m not sure how efficient or how long accurate their success / failure rates are. Especially when blocking a service would seem to have no impact on it…
- l33tfr4gg3r 1y agoIf that's what you really believe, then I'd say Chinese government propaganda is working as intended.
- crop_rotation 1y agoHave you ever really visited China? I would just say go to your preferred youtube channel and watch any chinese city and any indian city and then say the same thing as above.
- ilrwbwrkhv 1y agoI agree. The fact that India is so behind China while not being a free country is just horrible. Add to that massive amounts of pollution. People cannot breathe and no clean water.
- briandear 1y ago> no good government like China // good government means competent government As someone that lived in China for 5 years, competent is the last adjective I’d use. Sichuan Earthquake —> https://circa.art/ai-weiwei-recapturing-the-tragedy/ https://circa.art/ai-weiwei-recapturing-the-tragedy/ The Shanghai Lockdown —> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59890533.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59890533.amp Local Chinese government corruption —> https://thediplomat.com/2025/03/how-local-corruption-evolved-in-china-under-xi-jinping/ https://thediplomat.com/2025/03/how-local-corruption-evolved... Tai Lake pollution —> https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/taihu-green-wash-or-green-clean https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/taihu-green-wash-or... Land seizures —> https://rightsandresources.org/blog/the-guardian-chinese-villagers-clash-with-police-in-land-grab-protests/ https://rightsandresources.org/blog/the-guardian-chinese-vil... Xinjiang —> https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims-repression-genocide-human-rights https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-musl... One could call China’s government competent the same way one could say Stalin was a competent administrator. Nazis were also very “competent” and efficient. In no universe should that be considered “good government.”
- musicale 1y agoFor a moment I thought you might be the Brian Dear who wrote The Friendly Orange Glow (a fascinating history of the PLATO system).
- sashank_1509 1y agoIt really is between 2 choices: 1. An authoritarian government that can actually do things but also mess up and be harsh against anyone opposing it - China 2. A democratic government that can’t get anything done, citizens can’t rely on police for any crimes, courts for any justice, politicians for any development, where the politics of the nation just constantly seeks to divide on basis of caste, religion, language etc, and the nation as a whole wallows in mediocrity.
- scheeseman486 1y agoThis is such a deeply simplistic and childish way of looking at the world.
- noxs 1y agoPeople often underestimate how much impact the education of certain aspect (Infrastructure in China and Democracy in Westerner countries) has made to their values to a government, and meanwhile the education is controlled by the government to certain degree.
- ricardo81 1y agoInteresting. As a Brit, I imagine (possibly ideally) by the time I'm an old man in 20-30 years that India will be a beacon of democracy and freedom in the East, given its historical Western ties and a large English speaking population. But your argument against their ruling speaks for itself, IMO. There will come a point where India has to lead on this kind of thing.
- alephnerd 1y agoIndia's legal system is based on the paternalistic British judicial system from the mid-19th to mid-20th century. India, Malaysia, and Singapore all share the same common judicial origins because they were forked off in the 1940s to 1960s, and never saw the reforms that the UK, Canada, Australia, and NZ saw in the 1980s-90s. Furthermore, civil libertarianism is more of an American judicial innovation, and even European countries are aligned with the primacy of the state over platforms.
- ricardo81 1y agoA pretty good starting point considering the USA constitution was based much off Scotland's enlightenment 200 years prior.
- alephnerd 1y agoThe Scottish Enlightenment never took hold in much of the UK though. That's why America was so "revolutionary" for the 18th and 19th century. The British system remained paternalistic for a long time (eg. universal male suffrage only happened in 1918, collective bargaining was only legalized in 1945)
- ricardo81 1y agoIt definitely took hold. It was an act of political union, albeit the democratic vote was heavily biased towards a larger English population, but the Scottish influence is imprinted in UK law, US law and any ex-colony. The works of Adam Smith and David Hume arguably shaped the modern capitalist world which India is part of and branched off from. Maybe there are nuanced arguments why it's less of a democracy, but I'm fairly sure nowadays every democracy has similar arguments.
- m4rtink 1y agoYeah, that would be like the football lobby forcing the blocking of Cloudflare just because someone used it for unauthorized football streaming!
- sangeeth96 1y ago> Would the court block gmail if the same happens via gmail?. I mean, G will happily cough up the data and so will other big corps. Proton doesn’t… unless they go through the Swiss relationship route? But this decision is stupid and harmful regardless.
- DesiLurker 1y agopeople will get stuck on 'good govt china..' but I get what you mean. moving on to core message. Indian courts are some of the dumbest, red-tape laden, corrupt entities out there. for westerners, its common for basic things like property disputes or even divorces to run for decades (yes -s plural). In India the legal process is itself a punishment. plus there is no consistency in case law or precedent. people often perjure themselves and walk around like its nothing. it really is free for all with Indian judiciary so I am not surprised at-all that they will do something stupid like this.
- agnishom 1y ago> The local firm alleged that its employees had received emails containing obscene and vulgar content sent via Proton Mail. How bad is the 'vulgar content' that it warrants banning of the service? This seems like extreme snowflake behavior
- throwaway2037 1y agoCan someone please explain how the Karnataka High Court can order New Delhi (nat'l gov't) to ban a website? I'm not doubting their authority to issue the command, rather I am confused how a regional high court can issue a national ban. Does this ban only apply in the state of Karnataka?
- wtmt 1y agoThat’s not how the law works in India. Any ruling by an Indian court on matters applicable to the entire country will apply to the entire country. There’s only one Supreme Court in India, and it cannot (and in many cases will not) handle all the cases relevant to national interest.
- throwaway2037 1y agoVery helpful! That sounds like this court is similar to the United States district court. Can I ask: If someone wishes to challenge this decision from a regional High Court, do they petition the India Supreme Court?
- wtmt 1y agoLate reply: yes, if someone wishes to challenge a High Court order, they’d typically appeal in the Supreme Court. There are avenues for “review petitions”, but those don’t work well. The backlog of cases across all the courts is really huge.