Twitter Decries India Intimidation, Will Press for Changes (bloomberg.com) 50
Twitter called the visit by police to its Indian offices on Monday a form of intimidation in its first public comments on the matter. From a report: The social network reiterated its commitment to India as a vital market, but signaled its growing concern about the government's recent actions and potential threats to freedom of expression that may result. The company also joined other international businesses and organizations in criticizing new IT rules and regulations that it said "inhibit free, open public conversation." Twitter will continue its dialog with the Indian government for a collaborative approach, while also advocating for change to the regulations.
The San Francisco-based company has disagreed with local government officials on a number of fronts, deeming some enforcement orders to be improper curbs on free speech. Most recently, Twitter marked several posts by accounts associated with India's ruling party as containing manipulated media -- they purported to show a strategy document from the opposition party whose authenticity has been disputed -- which prompted the police visit to its offices late Monday.
The San Francisco-based company has disagreed with local government officials on a number of fronts, deeming some enforcement orders to be improper curbs on free speech. Most recently, Twitter marked several posts by accounts associated with India's ruling party as containing manipulated media -- they purported to show a strategy document from the opposition party whose authenticity has been disputed -- which prompted the police visit to its offices late Monday.
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I'm sorry COVID-19 did not turn out to be the extinction level event you seem to want it to be, you genocidal maniac.
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Twitter should mind its own business (Score:4, Insightful)
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This. Twitter currently use the power of their services to affect politics in host countries. I'm all for that being illegal and people ending up in jail for that.
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There are many things that if put on a private website would be considered illegal in many countries.
This being one of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
You'd hope that Twitter would play straight out of principle, but they have all ready shown that's not going to be the case. So if they can't be trusted they will have to be forced.
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Yawn. You don't give a shit about free speech.
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> Create your own Twitter for treasonous shit-gibbons if you want.
Sorry, they already banned Trump. There are no free speech advocates anywhere near twitter.
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You're not allowed to post that on Twitter in North Korea, by the way.
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Twitter currently use the power of their services to affect politics in host countries.
Can you lay out for me exactly what Twitter does? Thanks.
Re:Twitter should mind its own business (Score:4, Insightful)
Selectively promotes the politicians that it likes, and deplatforms the politicians that it doesn't like.
The obvious answer to this charge is to turn off moderation entirely and become a common carrier no different than the rest of media that contains community created content, but then nobody would "trust" their propaganda or advertise with them.
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It remains a mystery to me why some feel that Twitter is obligated to create a platform where liars can post what they want, and why people so willingly believe blatant lies from politicians like Trump and at the same time willingly ignore facts from other.
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It remains a mystery to me why some feel that Twitter is obligated to create a platform where liars can post what they want
They weren't obligated to, but they went ahead and did it.
Years later they got cold feet because Trump.
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The question is more, is twitter a common carrier or a media platform?
If it is a common carrier, then "lies" are not a reason to cancel accounts, especially when those "lies" are merely an opinion different than yours.
If it is a media platform, it should be sued for slander several times a day.
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especially when those "lies" are merely an opinion different than yours.
A lie is not, by definition, an opinion different than mine. If you believe Biden's stimulus will grown the economy by X% and I believe it will grow by Y% your opinion is not a lie.
But when Trump writes in his blog today "Great work is being done in Georgia revealing the Election Fraud of the 2020 Presidential Election" that is a lie.
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[Twitter] .. acts as the absolute overlord its empire^H^H^H^H^H^H web site.
FTFY.
Threats to freedom of expression (Score:5, Insightful)
"inhibit free, open public conversation" (Score:4, Insightful)
"The company also joined other international businesses and organizations in criticizing new IT rules and regulations that it said "inhibit free, open public conversation."
This has to be a joke, right? The issue is that Twitter is not providing "free, open public conversation".
Re:"inhibit free, open public conversation" (Score:4, Insightful)
The joke is that twitter does not promote free, open, public discourse and then is surprised when someone else does it to them.
If they behaved fairly, then some of the "press" protections might kick in. But seeing as they don't protect anyone else, there is no one left to protect them.
Good luck Twitter. You're going to need it.
India is upset by people saying Indian Variant (Score:1)
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Sure, Indian variant of Chinese corona virus which was released either intentionally or by mistake from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is in Wuhan China.
Enjoy (Score:3, Insightful)
Dear Twitter, you set the precedent of selectively grooming your content of 'hate' and 'misinformation' and indulging moral panics. Now others demand you to do it on their behalf. What allies you might have had in your corner are entirely indifferent to your self inflicted plight. So enjoy. You deserve it.
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If you know anything about India [rsf.org], you know they're "inflicting plight" on anyone who might question the state. What Twitter did to inflict this on themselves was operating in India, nothing more, nothing less.
Not that agents of the state busting down your door is equivalent to a private entity choosing what to display on their own website, which you are free to ignore.
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> What Twitter did to inflict this on themselves was operating in India
I think unfairly censoring their own users also helps remove any possible protections you would expect the "press" or common carriers to have.
So no, being unfair does help others be unfair against you. Kind of like walking outside isn't the only thing making you cold when you left your pants down as well.
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Dear Twitter, you set the precedent of selectively grooming your content of 'hate' and 'misinformation' and indulging moral panics. Now others demand you to do it on their behalf. What allies you might have had in your corner are entirely indifferent to your self inflicted plight. So enjoy. You deserve it.
Translation - Yeah, you fucked that thing last night. And now she wants you to meet her friends. Live with it.
Shocked to see people cheering actual censorship (Score:4, Informative)
When Twitter doesn't allow you to use their platform as a megaphone for misinformation, that is not censorship. You are still free to post your misinformation on your own website.
When the Indian police show up to tell you what can and can't be on your website that is censorship. You aren't free to just create another website for your speech. You already have a website. It's the one that the police are trying to exert control over.
To see slashdotters actively praising government censorship of websites is deeply troubling.
Seriously people get a grip. I don't like or use Twitter, but they have a right to use their website how they see fit, just like the rest of us do.
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Apparently the Indian police think the misinformation shoe is on the other foot...
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When Twitter doesn't allow you to use their platform as a megaphone for misinformation, that is not censorship. You are still free to post your misinformation on your own website.
That's an interesting definition of censorship, but I think not a useful one. If you want us to adopt it, you'll need to coin another word to cover the activity we're usually talking about, where an entity uses its power to block a particular message from a particular medium.
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How about, "enforcing terms of service" for their website, which you are not required to use.
Another phrase would be "Free Speech" for the owner of the website, and free speech for any website that you own or welcomes your comments.
Trump was removed from Twitter for inciting a violent insurrection, but he now has a blog where he pathetically continues to spread the same lies and sore loser propaganda that he used to inspire his violent insurrection.
This is exactly what I'm talking about.
Trump wasn't censore
Re: Shocked to see people cheering actual censorsh (Score:1)
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Are you forgetting the incident where Twitter deplatformed a national news organization, the NY Post, weeks before a presidential election because the Post published an article that might be damaging to Twitter's preferred candidate? This wasn't one of Trump's groundless ravings, this was a researched article by a major news organization.
Story in question: https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/... [nypost.com]
NY Times coverage: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/1... [nytimes.com]
Post's Coverage of the situation: https://nypost.com/2020/12/10/... [nypost.com]
T
You can prove Twitter's hypocrisy in one tweet (Score:2, Interesting)
Go on Twitter and say "Only real women can have periods, carry babies and nurse them."
That completely factual, utterly banal to 95% of the human race outside of blue enclaves in the US and other Five Eyes nations, statement will get you banned for daring to speak hate-facts about trans people.
India is having none of it. If you can't even state something completely scientifically true about women and female mammals in general without being censored, India is not going to buy this bullshit that they have to a
Re:You can prove Twitter's hypocrisy in one tweet (Score:5, Informative)
[...] statement will get you banned for daring to speak hate-facts about trans people. India is having none of it. If you can't even state something completely scientifically true about women and female mammals in general without being censored, India is not going to buy this bullshit that they have to allow Twitter to wade into nuanced, local political fights and say what ideas are off limits, what rhetoric is too extreme, etc.
To be clear, members of the ruling party posted doctored videos, and Twitter put a label on them saying "this media was doctored", and the government therefore got their police to raid the Twitter offices.
I'm having a hard time relating the facts of the matter to your outrage.
Re: You can prove Twitter's hypocrisy in one tweet (Score:1)
Wrong. An opposition partyâ(TM)s documents were leaked and screenshots of those docs were posted.
Twitter marked those screenshots as manipulated media based on a claim by a website which has links to the same opposition party.
The police showed up to serve a notice to Twitter to provide evidence on said claim.
The video incidents took place weeks ago and arenâ(TM)t under discussion at all right now.
Aww, Twitter is sore (Score:2, Interesting)
Twitter spent the last 4 years giving a US leader nearly-complete-freedom to post whatever the guy wanted. And let's be clear about what the last US leader used that freedom for - he used it to help launch a violent coup attempt against the incoming leader. Twitter, and the rest of social media, tolerated this guy because, essentially, they judged that being elected the leader of a country gives someone elevated rights on the platform. Nobody else coul
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Wait. So you're saying Twitter's salvation will come through MORE censorship, not less?
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Trump demanded that Twitter let him say whatever he wants, including baldfaced lies, racism, trolling, ranting, sexism, gaslighting, and more. You can't counter by saying that Twitter was pro-free speech, because absolutely nobody els
Jack isn't a noteworthy villan. (Score:1)
I've heard him compared to a super villain. He's more like Gargamel from smurfs. He has this strange delusion that he can turn smurfs into gold, but he never succeeds in catching them anyway.
Twitter is absolutely right here (Score:1)
Jack Dorsey is going to get fired (Score:1)
Twitter has no presence in China - hmm, I wonder why - and he is going to get blocked in India too, a huge market. I wonder how their board and shareholders will like that.
They blocked TikTok and they will block Twitter.