[HN Gopher] Facebook 'looking into' hiding of posts calling for ...
___________________________________________________________________
Facebook 'looking into' hiding of posts calling for PM's
resignation in India
Author : asenna
Score : 191 points
Date : 2021-04-28 19:26 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Facebook and other social media platforms (even Google
| manipulating and sacrificing search integrity to prevent
| unearthing alleged misinformation much to the detriment of
| academic research when we need long tail results) are already
| censorship platforms and have been for a while. They even censor
| academic conferences on censorship.
|
| Outcomes like these are to be expected when you also commit
| censorship (including shadow banning, algorithmic downvoting
| etc.) blatantly.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26008217
|
| https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-censorship-conference-ce...
| Arjuna144 wrote:
| Haven't Facebook not already had enough trouble with interfering
| into our democracies?! How dare they?!
| isaacremuant wrote:
| This is what people who defend censorship when it comes to their
| own opinions of Dems Vs Reps support.
|
| You can't pick and choose your censorship and government
| intervention.
|
| I don't expect to convince those who are used to make "rules for
| thee but not for me"
| ta9999 wrote:
| They're unable to handle their child pornography problem but they
| can still find the resources to rig democracies.
|
| Why people let any of their software near their computers is a
| very interesting psychology problem.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I'm not aware of a major child porn problem on Facebook. It is
| a dominant social media platform. You make it sound like it is
| rampantly abused by a bunch of pedos to share images of naked
| kids, when in reality the problem is mostly teens sharing
| photos of themselves with friends or other teens sharing photos
| in message groups. In one statement you mention not letting
| their software near their computers, presumably because of
| privacy issues but in the next you indicate the the only
| solution would be to enact more spying and privacy intrusion.
| manquer wrote:
| Not to defend facebook, but they are hardly the party to blame
| here, any company to operate anywhere has to bow to the local
| government wishes,
|
| Companies should not be expected to make a stand against
| governments.
|
| Indian government has bungled the covid19 response in so many
| ways already, not helping anyone, not allowing ppl to help each
| other either.
| bobthechef wrote:
| American involvement.
| president wrote:
| Whether you think it is good or bad, Facebook is going to abide
| by "local laws and regulations". Why risk getting kicked out of
| the country and lose money? Unfortunate but most of us know that
| corporations value money over morals, despite what their PR
| departments may say.
| tracer4201 wrote:
| I'm disappointed in Facebook and saddened by what's happening in
| India. Modi is slowly erasing secularism in favor of Hindu
| nationalism. People speaking out against him are accused of being
| Pakistani agents. And his governments response to COVID has been
| a disaster.
| robofanatic wrote:
| bet you haven't read the article at all because your comment
| has nothing to do with it.
| tracer4201 wrote:
| > On its website, Facebook said it had hidden posts with
| "ResignModi" hashtag because some of those violated its
| community standards
|
| What did I not read? Please clarify
| naruvimama wrote:
| The democrats tried to stop critical raw materials for vaccine
| production in India. These are raw materials that the US itself
| did not need for its vaccine production.
|
| They only relented after it was pointed out India was supplying
| critical raw materials for Pfizer.
|
| India has been supplying vaccines to the wider world and
| prioritizing those in a crisis. Indian exports made up 80% of UN
| vaccine program for poorer countries.
|
| It was only natural that we would expect the world to offer a
| hand when we are in a crisis.
|
| Perhaps for once you can focus on exporting what we need instead
| of exporting your leftist hypocracy and hollow ideology.
|
| For all the aloofness the US and EU have showed themselves to be
| the pettiest global players, not to mention Xitler the creator of
| the coronavirus.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The willingness of the big social networks and Google to submit
| to authoritarian rulers makes it obvious that any difficulties we
| have in the US with them are a legislative failure, not a Silicon
| Valley one. They're not evil, or twisted, they're sociopathic;
| they'll do whatever they're told, but we refuse to decide what to
| tell them. They'd love to be made into common carriers as long as
| they could still run ads.
| varispeed wrote:
| Their customers are shareholders and consumers are just a
| product. They'll do whatever it takes to provide value for
| their customers. It's like turning capitalism on its head and
| that should be stopped.
| amrrs wrote:
| Indian Government recently made Twitter do similar things.
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/26/twitter-under-...
|
| Do you know what's worst? A guy was booked yesterday for Tweeting
| he needed oxygen cylinders which according to a state government
| is spreading fake news. https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-
| police-arfa-khanum-s...
|
| While COVID hasn't been kind to the people of India, The current
| regime's attempts to curb democracy is quite disturbing.
| yangikan wrote:
| I don't know why twitter does this.
|
| From https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/business/india-
| covid19-tw...
|
| One of the tweets removed from view was posted by Moloy Ghatak,
| a labor minister in the opposition-ruled West Bengal state,
| where Mr. Modi's party hopes to make big gains in an ongoing
| election. Mr. Ghatak accused Mr. Modi of "mismanagement" and
| held him directly responsible for the deaths. His tweet
| included images of Mr. Modi and his election rallies beside
| those of the cremations and compared him to Nero, the Roman
| emperor, for choosing to hold political gatherings and
| exporting vaccines during a "health crisis." Another tweet from
| Revanth Reddy, a sitting member of the parliament, used a
| hashtag that blamed Mr. Modi for the "disaster." "India
| recording over 2 lakh cases everyday," it said, using an Indian
| numbering unit that means 200,000 cases. "Shortage of vaccines,
| shortage of medicines, increasing number of deaths.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > I don't know why twitter does this.
|
| A reality of scaring social media companies with regulatory
| threats.
|
| People call for regulation and unsurprisingly their priority
| becomes keeping those who might regulate them happy with
| them.
| nohat wrote:
| I suspect that's the point.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Do you guys still need oxygen there? How is the situation there
| really? I called a few of my contacts, and get very diverging
| pictures. No interruptions in Kochi, to some stress in
| Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, to total apocalypse in Noida.
|
| I see oxygen production being such a basic industrial process,
| that I never could've imagined even a most poorly
| industrialised country having troubles producing it.
|
| Anyways, if anyone really need a really emergency only O2
| source:
|
| 1. Get a 200A-300A DC welding machine, most importantly with as
| much safety features as possible.
|
| 2. Reasonably fine stainless steel mesh, use most pure
| stainless you can find. Carbon felt if possible. Roll up in
| tubes. Weld/braze thick copper conductors the top, make sure
| they can handle the current without melting things. Make sure
| to cover exposed copper with something less electrically
| conductive, in worst case, smoking hot cooking oil. Make sure
| it does not get onto stainless.
|
| 3. Either a U or H shaped vessel from PP or PVC piping,
| available at plumbing supplies. Alternative, a plastic bucket,
| and two drinking water bottles perforated a bit in their lower
| part. Put electrodes into them.
|
| 4. Find something to cap vessels, use original caps from
| bottles. Make holes in them for conductors. Then find hoses you
| can get through those caps. Use reasonably thick plastic hose
| to survive hot O2. A proper oxygen hose would be idea. Drill
| the caps, get hoses through them, and seal any openings with
| hot glue, silicone caulk, or, in worst case, chewing gum. If
| you can't find anything to seal it, use the thickest plastic
| bag you can find, and tape it.
|
| 5. Make some semblance of bubblers. Small plastic beverage
| bottles work well for this.
|
| 6. Fill with _drinking water_ , or settled tap water. Make sure
| there is no chlorine in it. Make sure that water does not reach
| copper parts, even if they are well protected.
|
| 7. Add a table spoon of lye, or soda to water. Mix.
|
| 8. Connect electrodes to welding machine.
|
| 9. Test it starting with smallest current.
|
| 10. If things work, connect hoses to bubblers. Make sure the
| hydrogen hose goes outdoor, to a very, very well ventilated
| place.
|
| 11. Make some semblance of a breathing mask for the apparatus.
| Connect it to oxygen supply through a breathing bag. Make some
| holes in the breathing bag. Eye the calculation so that
| incoming oxygen displaces at least 10 times the volume of
| exhaled CO2.
|
| 12. Top off water as the thing works using something to protect
| yourself from being zapped.
|
| 13. Adjust the current, holes in the breathing bag, lye/soda
| content, and bottle position (if used the bottle version) for
| optimal output.
|
| 14. Replace water if it gets too muddy from dissolving
| impurities from anode, or anything else in the system. It it
| does, thing of finding other materials.
|
| With 200A 220V supply, you can make 1-3 kg of oxygen per hour,
| 4-5 kg in the most ideal scenario.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| You mention "poorly industrialised country" and then go on to
| list at least hundreds of dollars worth of equipment and
| supplies and access to a 200A 220V electrical service. A poor
| household in India has easy access to none of these
| resources.
| jimmydorry wrote:
| The thrust of the comment is helpful though as it's the
| hospitals that have run out of oxygen and facing
| prospective multi-week deficits of oxygen.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Do you guys still need oxygen there? How is the situation
| there really?
|
| India is the largest producer of Oxygen and vaccine in the
| world! Despite this, we are facing a shortage of both.
|
| Then how did we get in to such a situation? The reason is the
| complete apathy of the government in planning and
| preparation.
|
| While we are the largest producers of Oxygen in the world, we
| only have 2000 trucks to transport them. Failure to plan and
| improve the logistics is one of the reason why all are
| hospitals are now facing Oxygen scarcity, even though we have
| a surplus of it! The second reason is failure to upgrade
| existing infrastructure in hospitals.
|
| According to an opposition leader, we exported 60 million
| vaccines between January and March of this year, while we had
| only vaccinated around 30 to 40 million of our own people!
|
| Our vaccine plans also hit a hurdle when a US vaccine by
| Novavax, that has been licensed for production in India, is
| facing hurdles of getting the raw material for the vaccine
| from US (that has obviously prioritized it for its own
| needs).
|
| According to the same opposition leader, we also exported
| around 1.1 million doses of Remdesivir to other countries.
| And our media is showing people desperate to buy Remdesivir
| from anywhere at any price.
|
| In between all this, the government permitted huge gatherings
| of people in election rallies and religious occasions.
|
| _Summary_ : We had all the resources. But apathy and poor
| planning screwed up India's fight against COVID.
| oasisbob wrote:
| > I see oxygen production being such a basic industrial
| process, that I never could've imagined even a most poorly
| industrialised country having troubles producing it.
|
| This article discusses some of the challenges being faced,
| sounds like most of them are around distribution. India has a
| large steel industry which is very capable of generating and
| condensing oxygen.
|
| https://indianexpress.com/article/india/coronavirus-
| second-w...
| baybal2 wrote:
| LO2 reserve in any hospital should've been enough for weeks
| per refill.
|
| And hospital with on-site O2 generation should've never had
| any issue. Any industrial scale O2 production machinery
| would've had many times the capacity reserve.
|
| But they didn't. Double digit of hospital O2 generators
| were out of service, and LO2 tanks were never filled to
| full because hospitals were saving on LO2 service.
|
| Some hospitals with central O2 systems from either tanks,
| or generators simply had them disabled for unfathomable
| reasons, had them broken down years ago without any attempt
| at repair, or simply never ever used them, so they don't
| know how to operate them.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| They don't need bulk oxygen generated ad-hoc. They need
| medical grade oxygen delivered in standard medical equipment
| that they can use in a controlled manner right away.
|
| Chemistry experiments won't solve this.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > They don't need bulk oxygen generated ad-hoc. They need
| medical grade oxygen delivered in standard medical
| equipment that they can use in a controlled manner right
| away.
|
| Right now, I believe from reports on the ground, that they
| need just any oxygen to hold on for 2-3 more weeks.
|
| First hand report I got is that LO2 tankers been all around
| on TV, but despite that all hospitals in the area been
| empty of oxygen for 3-4 weeks without any resupply coming
| in sight, and this is in one of richest cities in India.
|
| > Chemistry experiments won't solve this.
|
| Tell this to people about to die. You are so cynical. 1.5-2
| kg of oxygen per hour should be enough to support 2 people.
| 20 at least 10.
|
| The mess, depravity, and despair I heard is such that
| people have already tried just anything.
|
| Zeolite has been sold out across India for a few weeks.
|
| Hydrogen peroxide sold out.
|
| Any chemical which can be used to produce oxygen chemically
| is out of stock.
|
| People are already blowing themselves up, and causing
| blackouts by following Youtube voodoo science trying to
| make completely unsound electrolyzer designs.
|
| You are not getting any "proper" oxygen concentrators
| coming any time soon with all of above.
|
| This design is at least less of a voodoo science than ones
| telling people to breath brown gas.
| pkaye wrote:
| The have sufficient industrial oxygen that can be
| repurposed. The problem is delivery to hospitals. They
| need more tankers and cylinders.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > The problem is delivery to hospitals. They need more
| tankers and cylinders.
|
| If the number of tankers is as much as Indian media show,
| then the situation should've been resolved weeks ago.
|
| Please read my comment below on what's actually
| happening. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26974630
|
| All those sudden oxygen leaks, equipment failures, or
| massive amounts of stored O2 disappearing is all about O2
| infrastructure being in a bad state long before the
| Covid, and it coming to surface now.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Please, give the medical system in India at least a tiny
| bit of respect and stop trying to armchair quarterback
| their solutions with your chemistry knowledge.
|
| They know what they need better than you do. They're not
| going to MacGyver their solution by improvising an
| industrial chemical production process with welding
| equipment and random chemicals.
|
| Being able to make oxygen in a chemistry experiment is
| not equivalent to being able to deliver oxygen to
| patients in a medically appropriate manner using standard
| medical equipment.
| baybal2 wrote:
| You are so sarcastic, and pricky. You will not be getting
| more popular like this.
|
| I advice you to come to India, and tell it to people
| dying on porches of hospitals. Tell it to doctors seeing
| people come, and die.
|
| > give the medical system in India at least a tiny bit of
| respect and stop trying to armchair quarterback
|
| Before demanding respect, one has to learn how to behave
| respectfully himself.
|
| Please stop this.
| TheBill wrote:
| Go to a praxair in the states and ask what the difference
| is: tested to 5x9's and loaded into a vacuum pulled bottle.
| ANY O2 at pressure is suitable to for human consumption at
| the surface because ANY impurities that are actually
| harmful would explode at 200 bar. Anything else (say from a
| PSA nitrox generator) would only be things like Argon.
|
| Ad hoc O2 is better than no O2.
| strategyanalyst wrote:
| There is a lot of criticism of the government on social media
| right now. I'm not saying this government isn't trying to
| control criticism on social media, but these are small drops in
| an ocean of tweets and fb posts on this.
|
| ResignModi has been trending on Twitter for days now. My FB
| feed is full of people angry at the government.
|
| There is no 'censorship' of 99% of such posts. You can't really
| censor stuff in India, its way too big to control narrative
| that way.
| naruvimama wrote:
| Wasn't that because it was part of a political campaign and
| foreign actors to spread panic and create chaos.
|
| It is like toilet paper but for oxygen cylinders.
| innagadadavida wrote:
| Is there some service in India that actually delivers oxygen
| cylinders when you tweet? If you are in dire need to oxygen,
| the last thing you'd be doing is tweeting.
|
| The irony is that elections that were held is the biggest cause
| for this spike and the government did not oppose or stop that.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Wow, you make a lot of assumptions and failed to read the
| article.
|
| The reports are that people's families are having to source
| meds and oxygen for their loved ones. The offending tweet was
| consistent with that and, to paraphrase a bit, consisted of a
| guy basically saying "Hey, does anyone know where I can get a
| tank of oxygen for my grandfather??" It seems the the
| grandfather died by the next day anyway.
| asenna wrote:
| The situation on the ground is actually that bad
| unfortunately that people are resorting to pleading and
| begging for Oxygen anywhere they can.
|
| The number of frantic oxygen requests I've been seeing in my
| building society Whatsapp group (a high end upper-class
| society) in the past few days is very scary. VIPs and people
| with a lot of connection are not able to source Oxygen or
| beds which paints the picture if you know India.
| sidchilling wrote:
| YES! If you're actually in India, you will know how useful
| Twitter has been with this. People are amplifying tweets
| about other people's needs and other folks are sharing
| verified leads. All of this without any incentive to do so.
| Where the government is daily failing, citizens are rising to
| the occasion.
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| Well, government did not fail in this case. at least
| anecdotal evidence of where the government failed would be
| good.
|
| A union cabinet minister of the country tried to personally
| reach out and failed. sent cops to help who now suspect
| foul play.
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| Anybody who read the article in its entirety and supporting
| scenario would agree with what the police is doing.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Why? The man involved did nothing wrong. He didn't even
| mention COVID-19 in his request for oxygen cylinders.
| 1024core wrote:
| Did you read that article? The guy's grandpa did not need
| oxygen, but died of a heart attack instead.
|
| During this time of crisis, it's common for governments to
| crack down on speech. You've heard of the "shouting 'FIRE' in a
| crowded movie hall" analogy, right?
| ravenstine wrote:
| That principle was never intended as a reason for censorship.
| People shouting fire in a crowded theater should receive a
| trial. Facebook and Twitter aren't known for having a formal
| appeals process, and you're lucky if they even give you any
| attention.
| isatty wrote:
| I seriously hope that I won't have to resort to name calling
| here on HN but are you for real? Oxygen and advanced life
| support is not unique to COVID and his tweets don't say so
| either.
|
| How the hell is this equivalent to shouting "FIRE" in a
| crowded place?
| dagmx wrote:
| Did you read that the statement of it being a heart attack
| came from the police (that are being used to intimidate
| people) and not medical professionals.
| omegaworks wrote:
| Oxygen is typically necessary for people with heart
| conditions. Any pressure on the supply will have impact all
| across the board.
| rodgerd wrote:
| COVID is a catastrophe in India _because_ the government 's
| core is religious extremism and other forms of bigotry, and
| those have driven its response, including cabinet members
| promoting folk remedies above vaccines and encouraging large
| religious gatherings (including an upcoming one).
| bobthechef wrote:
| What is "religious extremism"? That term always struck me as
| odd. Either the truth claims of a religion are true, somewhat
| true, or false.
|
| If they're true (read: have sufficiently good reasons to
| believe them), then it's not extreme to live in accordance
| with them. In fact, it is arguably insane _not_ to live in
| accordance with them. Imagine if someone said "Oh, I believe
| things fall to the ground when dropped, but I'm not an
| _extremist_ about it ". What does that mean?? That you only
| _sort of_ believe that they fall to the ground? That you only
| _sometimes_ avoid jumping off of bridges?
|
| If they're somewhat true, then they need refinement and
| correction because they contain error.
|
| If they're false, then it would be an error to follow them in
| any way.
|
| So really, if what's being done is evil or wrong, it should
| maybe be called religious error, or just error.
| eloff wrote:
| Most people say they believe some of the ideas in their
| religion, but often act like they don't.
|
| Extremists believe many of the ideas of their religion with
| certainty, and act in accordance which can lead to
| behaviour that is illogical from an outside perspective or
| ethically unhinged. Extremists are the ones who take their
| religion too seriously.
|
| You can be an extremist about other ideas too. Like a raw
| vegan. Arguably regular vegans too - there's no health
| reason to be 100% vegan vs 95% - probably the contrary.
| tobr wrote:
| I don't think extremism is about whether the claim is true
| or not. It's about what the claim _is_. If you're a gravity
| extremist, it would suggest that your views on gravity are
| very different from what's considered mainstream.
| SirYandi wrote:
| I think it has something to do with one's tolerance of
| other people's version of truth.
| eloff wrote:
| There are no versions of truth. Those are called opinions
| if there can be more than one.
| SirYandi wrote:
| Agreed. Although that doesn't stop people having their
| own perceived truth which is what I was referring to.
| eloff wrote:
| Yeah. Their opinions which they believe to be true.
| rxhernandez wrote:
| There are very much different versions of the truth; even
| at a fundamental level. Do you know what a reference
| frame in Physics is?
| akiselev wrote:
| What you are alluding to are different _observations_ of
| the truth. The concept of reference frames depends on the
| universality of the laws of physics, which by definition
| means that there can only be one version of the truth. By
| the time your reference frame catches up to another, the
| observations converge.
| gowld wrote:
| By relativity and quantum mechanics, some frames can
| _never_ catch up with some others.
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| seer and seen are described from the vedic times. there
| is a third element called the enabler.
|
| person, box, light all are required for the person to
| declare there is a box. I dont see a box is an
| observation which is correct for a visually challenged
| person or person in the dark. they dont become truth.
| lindy2021 wrote:
| The original meaning of "religion" in Arabic ("Din") is
| law. What you call "religious error" is tantamount to
| "illegal behaviour" to others.
| OJFord wrote:
| That made me naively curious about 'Aladdin'; yep: https:
| //en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D...
|
| Seems unrelated to Hindi (via Sanskrit) din 'din' meaning
| 'day' though. (Not that I expected it because 'day' and
| 'religious' are similar in meaning, just curious because
| there is overlap, and borrowed terms (well, with Persian,
| but those in turn often derived or cognate with Arabic,
| at least in my idly curious Wiktionaring experience
| anyway).)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| That din has a short i. The one in Alaa'adin, (despite
| how Disney would have you say it) is a long i.
| OJFord wrote:
| Ah! Ok, din, turns out it is borrowed into Hindi (diin)
| with the same faith/religious meaning, I just wasn't
| aware of thag so didn't twig, and yes, thought 'Aladdin'
| had a short 'i'. (I suspect that predates Disney.)
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I would expect that most of the window of peoples'
| perspectives in most religions fall in the "mostly true,
| but we don't know which bits, so we'll be tolerant of
| people who disagree about which bits". Extremists are the
| people who say "Absolutely true, thus anyone who disagrees
| on any of it is a *"
|
| As an example, I believe that things usually fall to the
| ground when dropped, but I've seen a number of counter-
| examples, and I'm aware of some disagreement at the margins
| over _exactly_ how quickly those things fall. An extremist
| would say "Anyone who disagrees that things fall with an
| acceleration of 9.8m/s^2 is a transgressor".
|
| edit: format
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I guess in America there is a lot of the same with some
| groups of people believing they can pray the virus away or
| that it simply doesn't exist and is part of some satanic
| cults agenda.
| bobthechef wrote:
| Seems like a very caricaturish characterization of what
| people actually believe. That sort of broad contempt and
| unwillingness to understand the range of perspectives on
| the issues besides the "official" (read: oligarchic)
| narrative is unfortunate.
| crooked-v wrote:
| No, people actually do believe that - even people who are
| literally being treated for COVID-19 at the time they
| make those claims.
|
| https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/a-wave-of-covid-
| pati...
|
| > He mentions hating "fake news". He says, "I don't think
| covids is really more than a flu." I clarified, "Now you
| think differently though?"
|
| > He replies, "No the same. I should just take vitamins
| for my immune system. They (news) are making it a big
| deal."
|
| > I'm at a loss for words. Here I am basically wrapped in
| tarp, here he is in a Covid ICU. How can you deny the
| validity of covid? How is this possible?
| moduspol wrote:
| Some people believe flat earth theories. It's still
| unreasonable to paint that as a widely held belief of
| those who disagree with you.
| hn8788 wrote:
| Some people definitely believe stuff like that, and it's
| not even only uneducated people. My mother-in-law went to
| the doctor for an annual checkup, and the doctor told her
| that it's pointless to get the vaccine because covid is
| man-made, and whoever created it will just release a new
| variant that is immune to the vaccine. Luckily my wife
| convinced her otherwise.
| lindy2021 wrote:
| Or those that won't trust the science and insist on masks
| and distancing even after vaccination.
| [deleted]
| asenna wrote:
| The media control and censorship here in India is definitely
| getting our of hand!
|
| Setting aside the absolute criminal mismanagement and planning of
| the Covid situation in the past few months, the fact that the
| people in power are still applying their brains and might into
| figuring out how to manipulate the narrative and how to squash
| dissent in this moment when the country is going through an
| unimaginable disaster.
|
| Just today, a guy was slapped with some serious charges (which
| could lead to Jail time) because he tweeted that he needed Oxygen
| for his Grandfather. [1][2]
|
| I know this is sounding alarmist but I've seen the change in the
| past 8 years and the country is heading in the direction of China
| at breakneck speed right now (not in the good way).
|
| [1] https://thewire.in/government/amethi-up-police-arfa-
| khanum-s...
|
| [2]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/mzx3zb/youth_sought_...
| twoclicksnorth wrote:
| Well a little more context will do. The man tweeted he needed
| oxygen to a famous celebrity. A union minister herself called
| him twice to help. As he was not answering she asked district
| magistrate to help. They found that man's grandfather is not
| suffering from covid and not admitted to any hospital and under
| private care. So the man just fired a tweet thus police has
| questioned him and let him go.
| yinyang_in wrote:
| First the wire is known to be very alt-left but even then the
| patient didn't had any requirement for oxygen, his grandfather
| died of heart-attack. Not sure which part of article or twitter
| thread says a normal guy got screwed up ?
| iliekcomputers wrote:
| He has charges against him for trying to find oxygen for his
| sick grandfather. What part of that does not involve the guy
| getting screwed?
|
| Also, instead of criticizing the source, criticize the
| content.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-
| con...
|
| > Often a person who is having a heart attack is given
| oxygen, which also helps heart tissue damage to be less.
|
| COVID isn't the only disease that requires oxygen.
| ben_w wrote:
| So far as I can see, "alt left" is a recent neologism to
| denigrate anyone who opposed Trump. What do _you_ mean when
| you describe them thusly?
| asenna wrote:
| Here's the tweet:
|
| https://twitter.com/khanumarfa/status/1386757457393770496?s=.
| ..
|
| It's in the article as well. The text message was tweeted
| out.
|
| I understand the wire can be considered left-leaning but does
| that automatically make everything they report on as false?
|
| You can ignore their "alt-left" opinion but screenshots of
| texts and tweets are actual facts that happened.
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| the correct tweet is the one where the local elected leader
| was targeted[1]. the leader made police run around to help
| the person. cops found foul play.[2] What am I missing?
|
| [1]https://twitter.com/elsamariedsilva/status/1386760030481
| 8954... [2] https://twitter.com/amethipolice/status/1386982
| 878328758273?...
| xxxtentachyon wrote:
| I'm not sure why we should be inclined to trust the
| police in an environment where the government is clearly
| making an effort to play down the seriousness of the
| crisis and their hand in it. It's also a bit hard to
| believe that someone would both be trolling hard enough
| to lie about their grandfather needing oxygen during an
| oxygen shortage AND give enough information for the
| authorities to show up and realize he was trolling.
| petre wrote:
| Alarming but otherwise China and to a lesser extent Pakistan
| take control of the narrative to their own advantage. At least
| the Modi government doesn't lock people in reeducation camps.
| India should remain a secular state though.
| lindy2021 wrote:
| The entire world is heading in the direction of China at
| breakneck speed. The capitol of the free world is surrounded by
| steel mesh fencing with some 2,250 armed National Guard troops
| on duty.
|
| We can't expect developing countries to uphold democracy as it
| dies in the west.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think that says less about democracy and more about the US'
| former president.
| lindy2021 wrote:
| This is on Biden's watch.
|
| Trump was berated for even contemplating deploying the
| National Guard as American cities burnt last summer.
| hkt wrote:
| A comparison between BLM protests and precautions against
| the storming of the federal legislature by people who
| sincerely believed the election was "stolen" is infantile
| and skewed in the extreme.
| ttt0 wrote:
| Indeed it is. I don't care about lying politicians
| getting uncomfortable for a brief moment. Those peaceful
| protests on the other hand got normal day-to-day people
| hurt and killed.
| lindy2021 wrote:
| You're right, BLM protests resulted in the murder of
| dozens of civilians, several police officers, and
| billions in damage.
|
| The "insurrection" only resulted in the murder of a Trump
| supporter.
|
| Not to mention we've even seen BLM protesters storm a
| capitol last week:
|
| https://twitter.com/tylertalley22/status/1384972821714161
| 667
|
| https://kfor.com/news/local/protesters-gather-at-
| oklahoma-ca...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| To the extent they were both damaging public property,
| where they were, it seems a fair comparison.
|
| To the extent one has a well-documented history of
| grievance, and the other has conspiracy theories, it does
| does not.
| bobthechef wrote:
| Both the Left and the Right engage in conspiratorial
| nonsense. The difference is that the Left has academic
| and state backing.
|
| Also, BLM is a Marxist organization (this is not a
| conspiracy, they are quite frank about their sympathies).
| QAnon doesn't even compare and has no institutional
| muscle or backing unlikes critical race theory, gender
| ideology, etc. So to construe them as the greater
| threat...
| [deleted]
| smt88 wrote:
| I live in one of the "cities that burned" that right-wing
| media (and you) are always raving about.
|
| The city didn't burn. There was some property damage.
| Nothing major or life-disrupting.
| lindy2021 wrote:
| You're hand waving 25 deaths and >$2B damage as nothing
| major or life-disrupting.
|
| Knowingly disingenuous or indoctrination? I can't tell.
| nawgz wrote:
| Well, it kinda died in developing countries because of the
| west too. There was a sweet spot in human history where
| communication was strong enough and technology limited enough
| where some many groups managed to find themselves on the
| brink of democracy, and the USA and other powerful bully
| nations replaced those regimes to keep the exploitative world
| order.
|
| It's no surprise with a house of cards like that that it all
| eventually collapsed. Extremely depressing though.
| yinyang_in wrote:
| This I find is true, globalisation is eventually failing as
| imo it was always about cheap labour never anything elss and
| nationalism is on rise. Every country protects rights,
| America being leader of free world have those patriotic acts
| where they stopped raw material in name of America first(full
| blown nationalism), that too when leader is from by democrat
| party(left)
|
| Nationalism is on rise even Germany's chancellor gave some
| taste of it(on parma industry comment), but still democracy
| is all good in india as I see, where to do you see democracy
| falling in india?
|
| P.s. pardon my english, still learning.
| bobthechef wrote:
| > it was always about cheap labour
|
| Oh yes.
|
| Globalism is not a healthy arrangement. It violates the
| principle of subsidiary. Global oligarchs are freaking out
| and hence the frantic uptick in fear mongering. They fear
| their loss of power. Deflection is key. Stirring up
| manufactured conflicts among the plebes and bogging people
| down in bad, self-destructive habits (like drugs and porn)
| and an endless series of diversions is the classic way you
| stifle uprisings and pacify the populace. Anyone with a
| basic understanding of history knows this. The surveillance
| state and rampant censorship are attempts to neutralize
| threats (the private sector can skirt constitutional
| obstacles because, hey, it's private, right?). It is
| troublesome if you can't use knowledge of history to read
| the signs in our day. It's one of the reasons we learn
| history: to understand our present conditions and learn
| from the past.
|
| The merger of state capitalism and state socialism has been
| under way and crossing a new threshold, now represented by
| the convenient phrase "the Great Reset".
| hkt wrote:
| The US just had a pretty good election. Democracy is alive
| and well.
| krapp wrote:
| The US should consider itself lucky that its well armed
| neo-nazi lunatic fringe and the Orange Man were better at
| racist shitposting than pulling off a coup d'etat.
|
| "Pretty good" sounds like a B, but I'd give this last
| election a C- at best.
| smt88 wrote:
| Stealing two Supreme Court seats and meddling with the
| census were essentially a coup. GOP will remain the
| minority that runs the country for the foreseeable
| future.
| xienze wrote:
| "Stealing" two SC seats? Tell me which law was broken.
| Filling a vacancy in short order is a far cry from what
| Biden wants to do now, which is add seats to the SC. All
| this pearl clutching over breaking some supposedly sacred
| tradition of not filling a SC during some arbitrary
| number of months before an election and nary a peep about
| packing the court, how odd.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I don't understand what Modi is doing. It seems like many huge
| companies based in the west will be looking to leave China (as
| much as possible) in the next 5ish years and India is a
| democracy perfectly situated to grab all of that economic
| productivity. They have the education, the infrastructure, and
| the population. All they have to do is be a bit less dictator-y
| than China and a bit more respectful of human rights.
|
| That should be a pretty low bar. But for some reason when Modi
| should be positioning India as "we're not like China" he
| instead seems intent on repeatedly pointing out the
| similarities on the international stage. It just seems really
| short-sighted to me.
| asenna wrote:
| Absolutely agree with this. In fact even if the minimum they
| do is walk back to how the country was before Modi, that
| would be a huge step forward. Not talking about politics here
| but just to a time when comedians and journalists didn't have
| to fear harassment for doing their jobs.
|
| Also a fun fact - Modi has not done a single open, unscripted
| press conference in his entire 7 years of being in power! Can
| you actually believe that. He hasn't taken a single question
| on camera that was not pre-determined. Most likely because of
| the lesson he learned after the one interview he did with a
| reputed Journalist a while back before coming to power -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAGAYL8dtic
|
| The effort that he puts into forming his public-image is
| actually impressive at some level.
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| probably the likes of arfa khanum are not of interest to
| modi.
| [deleted]
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| It is better to be a consumer than a west leaning producer.
| One would never advance when the primary market is outside
| the country.
| akiselev wrote:
| Many Indian politicians learned the exact opposite lesson
| from the 90s to 2000s when China's economy far outgrew
| India's despite the supposed geographical, labor, and
| education similarities between the two (i.e. see the debate
| from a western perspective in [1][2][3]).
|
| The idea that democracy and free markets help with economic
| growth simply didn't pan out for India w.r.t. its neighbor
| and biggest rival. As far as Modi is concerned, why keep
| trying something that doesn't work? Especially when the
| alternative is self serving.
|
| [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2003/07/01/can-india-overtake-
| chin...
|
| [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/06/india-plays-catch-
| up/
|
| [3] https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/07/05/think-again-indias-
| rise...
| baybal2 wrote:
| One needs to be heavily inebriated to call India a market
| economy even today, after 3 decades of supposed economic
| "liberalisation."
|
| I myself is in the process of scouting an opening for a
| satellite office in India now.
|
| The progress India made towards freer markets since a
| decade ago is this ->_<- much.
|
| Best to compare it with Bloc of late eighties, early
| nineties.
| plinkplonk wrote:
| >I don't understand what Modi is doing.
|
| I assure you, neither does he.
|
| Not a particularly intellectual or introspective man. He is a
| living example of the Peter Principle.
|
| Too bad a billion people have to suffer for his incompetence.
| baybal2 wrote:
| I'm afraid to say, but Modi G's approval ratings are made out
| of steel.
|
| If they keep above 60% even with current royal mess happening,
| and don't know what else he can do to loose the election.
| Bang2Bay wrote:
| The real reason is government tried to help. Cabinet minister
| reached out to help[1] . Sent cops to help . cops ran around
| calling, tracking and finally found the truth. Since there was
| no real need for oxygen in this case, cops suspect he tweeted
| to sensationalise.[2] if there was a need for oxygen then we
| could expect there would have been no arrest.
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/smritiirani/status/1386763271835774980?s...
| [2]
| https://twitter.com/indiantweeter/status/1387293380212715524...
| lovecg wrote:
| This headline is at best misleading and at worst intentionally
| dishonest. How I interpreted it when I first saw it: "Facebook is
| considering hiding these posts" (looking into, as in planning to
| do something). Censorship, bad, etc. What it actually says (after
| reading the article and the referenced tweet): "Facebook is
| investigating why these posts were removed" (looking into, as in
| investigating an action that happened).
| naruvimama wrote:
| Democrats had stopped critical vaccine raw materials just when
| India most needed it, just to score a political millage or for
| big pharma.
|
| Careful when you are on high horses, if you fall it is a long way
| down.
| Vadoff wrote:
| Updated at 1.17am IST, Thursday: Facebook comms Andy Stone said
| the company has restored the posts and is "looking into what
| happened."
| asenna wrote:
| I've always wanted to ask the HN community about this problem,
| what exactly can be done from a technology standpoint?
|
| I feel we're already at a point where tools are available to make
| a censorship resistant social network.
|
| The main challenges would be: - Kickstarting a network is a
| difficult problem - A way to ensure sane content moderation
| (child porn / abuse, etc) while still keeping the decision-making
| decentralized enough - Easy enough for the first time mobile
| internet users to onboard
|
| Would love to hear your thoughts. In my opinion a blockchain
| based solution seems appropriate (I know there's a lot
| blockchain-hate on HN but requesting for constructive comments).
|
| I know something needs to come up soon because the situation on
| the ground is actually quite bad.
| lucasmullens wrote:
| I think Mastodon might be similar to what you're describing?
| asenna wrote:
| Yeah I've heard about it and will be looking into this. But I
| haven't actually ever seen it in the wild anywhere online
| which makes me wonder why it hasn't gained traction much.
|
| For a country like India, the solution needs to be dead
| simple. Exploring a mastadon server a bit, it doesn't feel
| like it would cut it.
| [deleted]
| lovecg wrote:
| What's a "censorship resistant social network"? Would Trump be
| allowed on this platform? Would it be hosted on AWS? One
| person's censorship is another person's moderation.
| xienze wrote:
| Exactly, we already have the "censorship resistant social
| network" (gab), but for reasons completely unrelated to not
| restricting speech third parties seem hell bent on nuking it
| from orbit. Such is the fate of any similar social network.
| lindy2021 wrote:
| > Kickstarting a network is a difficult problem
|
| Crypto networks can solve this through incentivising early
| adopters, e.g. https://bitclout.com
|
| > A way to ensure sane content moderation (child porn / abuse,
| etc) while still keeping the decision-making decentralized
| enough
|
| Subscribable mute and block lists. This allows each user to
| tailor moderation to their comfort level.
| pax wrote:
| If just enough celebs could be convinced to adopt & evangelize
| a new platform.
|
| The last time I remember being excited about a new social
| platform was Quora. I was quite amazed by the quality of
| answers in the early days. I wonder how they managed to gather
| their first settlers.
| naruvimama wrote:
| It is funny to discuss free speech on hn where people want to
| downvote you because they do not like facts that contradict their
| opinions about India of which they know nothing about :)
| mancerayder wrote:
| Shocking. What do the pro censorship people say all the time when
| defending Facebook or Twitter: speech is free but not free from
| consequences. I believe that's the line.
| neither_color wrote:
| I believe they say "as long as we censor just this one
| particular politician because he's really bad just this one
| time using a variety of arbitrarily enforced technicalities,
| it's not censorship and it'll never come back to haunt us."
| pionar wrote:
| I believe you're:
|
| A) using a strawman B) Comparing apples and oranges
|
| When facebook decides on its own to remove posts, I'm ok with
| that, they're a private company and can do what they want on
| their platform.
|
| When the government tells FB to remove posts, I'm not mad at
| FB; they can do what they want on their platform. I'm mad at
| the government for telling them to do that.
| pyronik19 wrote:
| So when democrats drag zuck in front of congress and ask why
| he isn't banning more right wingers, no government coercion?
| mancerayder wrote:
| No because it's just a friendly suggestion, kind of like
| the Indian government.
|
| Bottom line: Silicon Valley techies often suffer from a
| lack of education in civic matters and liberal democratic
| values in particular. They believe as long as Bad People
| have their, here's another term they often use, megaphones,
| taken away, then ethically it's a thumbs up.
|
| The lack of civic education and historical education
| becomes evident when you ask them, OK, you support
| censorship and cleansing misinformation: now who decides?
| rvz wrote:
| In the US, 'Wrongthinkery' is policed by the silicon
| valley techies who think hiding posts from anyone who
| they disagree with is the solution.
|
| > OK, you support censorship and cleansing
| misinformation: now who decides?
|
| 'They' can't come up with an answer to this classic one
| since they already realised that down the line they're
| becoming an arbiter of truth.
|
| The liberal left are never in short supply of
| whataboutism, hypocrisy, gaslighting and the best of all
| of them, ignoring anything that doesn't fit their
| narrative.
|
| In summary: If it affects them and those who they agree
| with, its an issue, if it is someone who disagrees with
| them, its their funeral and I'll get my buddies from
| FAANMG, Twitter and Facebook to ban them all.
| mancerayder wrote:
| The government can suggest it and they can choose to do it.
| No?
|
| Censorship is censorship. No one cares about narrowly
| defining Freedom of Speech as conflated with the 1st
| Amendment except Americans .. and especially Americans who
| support censorship on giant monopolistic platforms.
| rodgerd wrote:
| The Indian government's position is perfectly in line with so-
| called free speech defenders: they are shutting down illegal
| content, not applying their own judgement.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Couldn't Facebook just call it Misinformation? Certainly
| authoritarian enough for Silicon Valley to rally behind.
| lindy2021 wrote:
| When you can define the laws, any content you dislike becomes
| "Illegal content".
| saagarjha wrote:
| Perhaps the issue is that the law does not protect free
| speech.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I believe that's the line.
|
| I believe you're misrepresenting the line.
|
| Free speech in the US is about being protected from
| _government_ -inflicted consequences. I can say "fuck you" all
| I like, but that's never meant I can say it to my boss and
| demand a First Amendment right to remain employed.
|
| It's never been an absolute, either. Incitement to riot, fraud,
| libel, actionable threats; all are speech, but we've long
| accepted restrictions on it.
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| The First Amendment is about that. The principle is broader.
| We don't all accept restrictions on it.
| thelean12 wrote:
| Not quite as simple as you make it out to be.
|
| Why should I let you scream "fuck you" over and over again
| in my coffee shop?
|
| Yeah yeah, maybe social networks are the new town square
| blah blah. My point is that the line isn't so black and
| white.
| hajile wrote:
| When I was younger, the Left was pro free speech and against
| big corporations and corporate censorship. Now I'm a bit
| older and the Right is pro free speech and against big
| corporations and corporate censorship.
|
| It seems that the big factor is power. When you're in power,
| you use any excuse to silence the people who disagree. When
| you're not in power, you recognize that free speech is a
| universal principle.
|
| The majority of the US is anti-abortion. Would you be fine if
| they cancelled the other side? Huge swaths are anti-gay.
| Should coming out mean people are free to cancel you? While
| the number of churchgoers is around half, the number of
| Christians in the US is well over 75%. Should claiming to be
| another religion (or no religion) mean that cancellation is
| in order?
|
| Once everyone agrees that persecution is acceptable, all
| that's left is arguing about who to persecute.
|
| The government is by the people and for the people. It
| reflects the values of the people. You claim that free speech
| is government only, but why does the government create ideas
| like hate speech then? Why force private people and
| businesses to desegregate if your inalienable rights only
| apply to the government? If rights are inherent in humans,
| but may be stripped at a whim by the majority, either they
| aren't actually rights or the pro-cancellation majority are
| actually despots.
|
| The pro-cancellation argument is all sophistry to gain and
| increase power.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > When I was younger, the Left was pro free speech and
| against big corporations and corporate censorship.
|
| > Now I'm a bit older and the Right is pro free speech and
| against big corporations and corporate censorship.
|
| I'm not sure when you were talking about; since at least
| the 1980s the positions have been basically identical--to
| today, both sides complaining of institutional biases
| cutting against them (often both accurately, though
| selectively), both sides claiming support for free speech
| but disagreeing that what the other side advocated for was
| genuine freedom. The big change is that the Right recently
| adopted the phrase "cancel culture" after nearly 4 decades
| of using "political correctness" in exactly the same
| arguments.
|
| Sounds more likely that as you've gotten older you've just
| gained more sympathy for the right and thus have given more
| credit to their claims of support for free speech than you
| used to.
| mancerayder wrote:
| >When I was younger, the Left was pro free speech and
| against big corporations and corporate censorship.
|
| >Now I'm a bit older and the Right is pro free speech and
| against big corporations and corporate censorship.
|
| 100 percent. When I was growing up, the Christian Right
| wanted to pass anti-flag burning amendments, because
| veterans were offended. Pornography, because children might
| see it. Bad words. Unpatriotic stuff, defined as socialism
| or communism, was a few decades before me. Also to protect
| morality.
|
| Today we ban so-called hate speech and X phobic speech
| because 'it hurts'. And in the same way, there's a
| religious zealotry where if you attempt to use reason
| you'll be psychoanalyzed and motives attributed.
|
| My advice is, don't engage with these people. If someone
| uses phraseology like words kill, words are violence,
| silence is violence, there is no such thing as neutrality,
| megaphone, we need to do better, systemic Xism, and so
| forth, run, don't walk away. It's a secular religious
| movement.
|
| My main problem is the secular religious movement of
| banishing naughty thoughts has taken Silicon Valley and
| Madison Avenue by storm.
| eyear wrote:
| I never used Facebook.
|
| What's the use of it?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Jaygles wrote:
| When it first came out it was actually a pretty good tool to
| communicate, coordinate, and share things with your friends.
| Over time they monetized the platform until it no longer
| resembled anything useful, but it has too much inertia and
| keeps chugging along.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-04-28 23:00 UTC)