This is another episode after Twitter offices in Delhi were raided by Delhi Police (that's in the control of Central Ruling Government) after Twitter labelled some of its (ruling party's) Tweets as "Manipulative" - <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/24/22451271/police-india-raid-twitter-tweets-government-manipulated-media" rel="nofollow">https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/24/22451271/police-india-rai...</a><p>IMO, This is more like a signal to threaten foreign companies (who anyways die to capture Indian market due to its startphone penetration and population) to comply with Government.
I wonder if this is actually more significant than the equivalent bans in China. AFAIK none of these companies actually had a business presence in China prior to being banned. So noncompliance didn't risk any of their local workforce - they could just say no, we're not censoring anything, and get blocked by the Great Firewall. Twitter doesn't have to block anything on their end because the censorship is all on the China side. You'll notice on any sort of politically sensitive social media content (e.g, Taiwan) that Chinese are perfectly able to access and troll these sites via VPN. Twitter can also slap the "state media" tag on CGTN and they can't do anything about it.<p>But FB has a huge presence in India and they can't just piss off that government without putting their employees at risk, as well as the sunk cost of their existing business. They'll actually have to block things on their end. You'll wind up with the same censorship-due-to-business-interests controversy that the NBA and other business operating in China have experienced over the past year.
How does this work with the global nature of a website like Facebook?<p>>requiring them to remove any content flagged by authorities within 36 hours<p>Does this apply to content posted from an IP address located in India? Does it apply to content posted by a profile whose info states that they live in India regardless of where they connect from? If you don't want to be censored can you simply make a profile that lives elsewhere or connect via a vpn but friend all the same people?<p>Is content expected to actually removed or is it merely not shown to users who either live in or appear to connect from a location where it has been "removed".<p>Eg Bob in foo who doesn't believe in censoring sees a feed like<p>1. My friend had a great dinner out what a nice time<p>2. government of foo stinks they ought to take a long walk off a short pier<p>3. bar sucks too<p>James in bar sees<p>1. My friend had a great dinner out what a nice time<p>2. government of foo stinks they ought to take a long walk off a short pier<p>Sam in baz which wants to maintain a favorable relationship with foo and bar sees<p>1. My friend had a great dinner out what a nice time
It's interesting they might be banned not for allowing controversial content but rather selective censorship. It worked for these sites in the US, may not be tolerated elsewhere. Those using the f-word to describe the government, should know that the government wants full free speech, not the California controlled version of it.
Oh boi, this article is so horrible to read. So many grammar mistakes, it's hard to unsee them.<p>Is this an autotranslated article? What is a lakh or crore as a unit?
India's sudden fascist pivot is pretty troubling to see, and I only wonder how long it will be until the rest of the world starts to intervene.<p>The only tragedy here is going to be the rights of the Indian citizen. I can't even begin to fathom how radical of a shift this would be for the global market, and I also don't really understand how the worlds most populated country will be okay with being cut off from uncensored information...
No sane country can allow their public discourse to be controlled by the peculiar moral pieties of the American elite class. True, important information, e.g. that covid-19 may have originated in a Chinese lab, is actively suppressed by these platforms as part of an internal American struggle for control of information and ideas. Any people that value their own self-determination must reduce the influence of these manipulative platforms on their domestic market.
Remember Twitter proactively banned the Hunter Biden story? The story URL and the NYPost account? The big techs have no shame in influencing U.S. politics.<p>Of course government censorship is bad. I just have no sympathy to big techs who censor others.
Good. American technology companies have enjoyed a rules-free ride through economies and societies, both foreign and domestic. The power they hold, to control speech and influence people, is far too great. If they don't want to comply with the local law and government, then they can leave the market and let a local technology firm take their place. I see the advent of smaller local technology companies as a necessary move for other societies to retain their sovereignty and culture. Otherwise, the opinion shaping practiced by US tech companies is going to lead to cultural erasure as they impose their political values on the world.<p>As for examples of how social media companies in particular shape public opinion, consider how Twitter banned Zero Hedge for many months for alleging the virus may have leaked from a lab. Now this hypothesis is mainstream, potentially only because it no longer a political tool in an intense election year. A more recent example of opinion shaping/propaganda is Facebook classifying and limiting visibility of comments that express hesitancy about vaccines (<a href="https://www.projectveritas.com/news/breaking-facebook-whistleblowers-expose-leaked-internal-docs-detailing-new/" rel="nofollow">https://www.projectveritas.com/news/breaking-facebook-whistl...</a>). The plain reality is that these companies have government-like power in censoring and shaping public opinion, but are only accountable to themselves. That should be unacceptable to Americans, and doubly so to other nations.
Facebook has 5 offices in India, these could still be left operational.
It would be nice to see a government clamp down on them, in the US this will never happen.