this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
390 points (98.3% liked)

World News

39032 readers
2275 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

India, the world’s largest democracy, prepares to kick off its election season in just a matter of weeks. But activists and experts worry that the government is cracking down on platforms and internet service providers to silence critical voices, and tighten its grip on the information ecosystem.

On January 16, Raqib Hameed Naik, an Indian journalist and founder of the website Hindutva Watch, received a notice from X, formerly Twitter, that the website’s account had been blocked, by order of the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). “I received frantic messages from people in India saying they cannot access the Hindutva Watch Twitter,” says Naik

Hindutva Watch, along with its sister site, the India Hate Lab, tracks incidents of religiously motivated violence perpetrated by supporters of the country’s right-wing government, helmed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Press freedom declined under Modi, leaving fewer spaces for those reporting critically of the government and the impact of its policies on the country’s minorities. In the lead up to elections, where Naik predicts a “surge in hate crimes,” Hindutva Watch’s information may be more critical than ever.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] spiderman@ani.social 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

i think it could be dictated? like what if a government sends notice to the website owner/instance owner to take down something? are they obliged to take it down? or else will they face any legal actions?

[–] TurtleJoe@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

No, the Indian government can't do anything to a website that isn't based in Indian territory.

A good example is a recent giant investigation by Reuters into an Indian hacker-for-hire company, and the man who founded (and made hundreds of millions of dollars off of) it. The man sued Reuters over it, and an Indian court found the article "indicative of defamation." I believe Reuters is appealing, or there is something ongoing. In the meantime, they took the article down worldwide. Why? Because they have offices in India, and employees there, and the Indian government could punish those branches if the article stayed online in other parts of the world.

In this case, they've deployed similar tactics to pressure international companies to block the website.

Meanwhile, the New Yorker and The Daily Beast have large articles up based on the Reuters investigation, because they have no branches in India, and thus give no fucks about what their courts say. The original Reuters expose is also still available on the Internet archive.