Indian government orders Twitter to remove contents related to farmers protest

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/government-notice-asks-twitter-to-comply-with-order-to-remove-contents-accounts-related-to-hashtags-linked-to-farmers-protest-2362377

by hunter-2 • 5 years ago

56 44 5 years ago

ndtv.com

Clewza313• 5 years ago

For those wondering what the protests are about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Indian_agriculture_acts

In short, the bills aim to deregulate farming, which is good for the consumer, but a mixed bag for farmers, particularly those who are beneficiaries of current subsidies and competition restrictions.

Abhinav20003• 5 years ago

Its beneficial for farmers but not middle men, and unfortunately there is a huge propaganda to push back on it. The protests were highly unethical in a time where there is covid and congregating in such groups puts the whole country at risk.

In any case, I hope its not true that they are asking twitter to remove content - free speech is free speech.

Edit: Looks like Twitter went against a legal order, so they are the offending party here:

The social media giant "cannot assume the role of (a) court and justify non-compliance," the government said today in a statement. "Twitter being an intermediary is obliged to obey the directions as per satisfaction of authorities as to which inflammatory content will arouse passion and impact public order. Twitter cannot sit as an appellate authority over the satisfaction of the authorities about its potential impact on derailing public order," the statement read.

amachefe2• 5 years ago

Lol... Twitter has already showed that their free speech is not free speech in their platform. If they can censor the free speech of a Head of state, they should be ready to obey directives from a state

ignoramous3• 5 years ago

The incumbent government is as totalitarian as it gets. There's no democracy left, let alone free speech.

https://scroll.in/article/832961/finance-bill-in-one-stroke-...

webmobdev5• 5 years ago

I have different opinion on both the issues you raised:

- The new farm bills is absolutely a disaster for indian agriculture as it it tilts the balance of negotiating power completely in favour of the corporates by dergulating the marketplace and making the laws on corporate farming in favour of the corporates.

- In a democratic country, even with an undemocratic government in power like the current one, social media platforms (especially foreign ones), should comply with indian rules and laws.

kranner4• 5 years ago

Its beneficial for farmers but not middle men, and unfortunately there is a huge propaganda to push back on it. The protests were highly unethical in a time where there is covid and congregating in such groups puts the whole country at risk.

It is decidedly not beneficial for farmers with small land holdings, and most farmers in India are such farmers. The new laws remove legal protection when companies fail to honour farming contracts; the only option now is to approach the Sub-Divisional Magistrates for arbitration, a class of government official that is known primarily for being corrupt. The new laws also remove stockholding limits for private companies (except in the event of an official famine, etc). Incidentally new private godowns came up everywhere months before the laws were passed, almost as if these companies could predict the future.

If you want to talk about unethical acts, the laws were steamrolled through parliament. It was beyond farcical. Have a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5s4quyO2W0

And propaganda? The Centre spent a fortune on propaganda justifying the new laws. It even showed pictures of "farmers" said to be in support of the new laws who now claim their pictures were used without their consent. Far from being in favour of the bills, they are part of the protests against them. Here: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/protesting-farmer-film...

The Centre claims the laws will give farmers the opportunity to shop around for a better price. The reality is that most Indian farmers are in debt, and can barely afford to transport their produce to the nearest wholesale markets. They can't afford multiple trips. They can't afford to go to a neighbouring state. They have no storage facilities. Their goods are highly perishable. They have to take the price traders will offer, and collusion among traders is extremely common. This is the kind of fortune farmers can expect to make selling to private traders: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bareilly/angry-farm...

All those farmers who are protesting are not doing it out of ideological opposition to the Modi government. They have mostly refused to allow any political party to become part of the protests. They are protesting because they are aware that these laws will result in the government phasing out existing government-run wholesale markets, and then it will be curtains for them.

Edit: now the Government has barricaded in the protestors, cut off their water and food, cut off their Internet and barred any journalists from meeting them.

phillc73• 5 years ago

The benefits of agricultural deregulation is not entirely clear cut.

I quite closely followed the deregulation of the Australian dairy industry (had worked in the industry and still with friends who do) and the outcome 20 years later has not been entirely beneficial for farmers and one might even say only beneficial for the supermarkets. Maybe there's a direct consumer benefit initially through lower prices, but then if the volume of milk production drops, the prices will then likely increase due to lack of supply.

Some articles:

What Has Happened to Australian Milk Since Deregulation?: https://www.themilkhouse.org/a-look-back-at-australian-dereg...

The summary of this one is that Australian milk production and exports have stagnated rather than grown.

A Look Back at Australian Deregulation: https://www.themilkhouse.org/a-look-back-at-australian-dereg...

This one claims a 60% reduction of dairy farmers in some regions.

20 years after dairy deregulation, Australia faces lowest level of milk production in decades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYanQoLKXOA

Push for milk levy to right deregulation wrongs: https://www.farmonline.com.au/story/6749486/push-for-milk-le...

"What nobody foresaw in the lead-up to deregulation was $1-a-litre supermarket milk."

roenxi• 5 years ago

There are days when stern-faced Austarlian politicians sternly caution the supermarket CEOs that their absurdly low milk prices are only just in the realm of the tolerable. It's been years since I last watched one - the theatre has been going on since what, 2011? 2010? Damn the capitalists and their cheap milk.

I find it impressive when they maintain character all the way through the committee hearings. Nobody is going to do anything about very cheap milk.

webmobdev5• 5 years ago

You are absolutely right. Deregulation and corporate farming is the first step to allow corporates to get a foothold in the agri industry and then slowly takeover and control it.

In both the US and Europe, contract farming has seen the consolidation of farms under few corporates.

- 1% of farms operate 70% of world's farmland: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/24/farmland...

- Contract farming as a means of ushering in corporatisation in agriculture: https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/fast-forward-to-co...

boruto• 5 years ago

India has deregulated milk production and is number one exporter and producer of milk in the world.

webmobdev5• 5 years ago

A much better resource is at - https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/k1hfyi/farm_bills_20...

In short, the bills aim to deregulate farming, which is good for the consumer,

Not necessarily. Corporates are not known to be benevolent and will act like cartels to dictate the market price. This bill will endanger India's food security for the poor as deregulation means that corporates will now increasingly dictate the price.

Farmers will suffer because this bill is a huge push to corporatise agriculture through contract farming, in the guise of "reforms".

Repeating what I said elsewhere - In both the US and Europe, contract farming has seen the consolidation of farms under few corporates. Many indian political parties understandably do not want that to happen in india too.

- 1% of farms operate 70% of world's farmland: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/24/farmland

- Contract farming as a means of ushering in corporatisation in agriculture: https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/fast-forward-to-co...

The new farm bills have now opened the gateway to corporates to take over indian farmlands, which will in time, invariably allow foreign corporates to take over them and control India's food security.

thunderbong• 5 years ago

From the Wikipedia article -

> Lack of statutory support in the bills for the MSP is a major point of concern, especially for farmers from Punjab and Haryana, where 65% of wheat (2019) is procured at MSP by the Food Corporation of India and state agencies.[30] The deregulation of the sugar industry in 1998, which paved the way for private establishments, did not result in a significant improvement in farmers' productivity or incomes.

There are other points of contention per the article as well.

_hao2• 5 years ago

It seems to me the democracy experiment in India can collapse some time in the near future. I have no stake in that race being a total outsider to the problems in that huge and diverse country, but from materials and books I've read things don't look very positive.

factorialboy2• 5 years ago

If it survived the early 90's, this is nothing.

Abhinav20003• 5 years ago

Unfortunately, while dictatorships are highly successful in the short run, democracies are required in the long run.

My partner comes from a country with a dictatorship so I see first hand how bad it is to live in an environment where the de facto ruler has full say on everything. You can and will be killed as per their request.

Democracies are bad and the US, India, Europe are all struggling with them, but there are essential for basic rights. Without politicising this thread, one can look at some of the other countries and see how bad life would be in a dictatorship.

Currently dictatorship's are not THAT bad, but that's because they are still competing with democracies. Imagine the whole world under one ruler - they would likely kill large parts of the population. Just as one good ruler can do many good things fast, one bad ruler can do many bad things fast.

_hao2• 5 years ago

I'm from an Eastern European country so I don't need telling on the good/bad sides of dictatorships. The problems with enforcing democracies in places where the populace is not ready for it are apparent worldwide. That's not a jab against democracy per se, but you need the right environment for it.

India is not really in that category since they've been a democracy for a while, but still not long enough to be ingrained in their psyche. They have ethnical and other social issues that few other countries have (at least when it comes to scale).

fakedang2• 5 years ago

This is nothing compared to the Emergency in the 80s. It's not good, but it isn't the worst India has seen.

ignoramous3• 5 years ago

...it isn't the worst India has seen.

Wouldn't be surprised if you are part of the 80%.

amachefe2• 5 years ago

This can be said for every democracy. Democracy is always chaotic in the short run and organized in the long run.

While authoritarianism is organized in the short run, but collapse in the long run as no one person lives forever.

silicon2401• 5 years ago

What real historical governments are you basing this on, when many of the longest-lived governments are empires and kingdoms, ie authoritarian? https://www.eupedia.com/history/longest_lived_empires_in_his...

perryizgr87• 5 years ago

Don't believe everything you read in the media. We had elections in 2019, possibly the freest and definitely the largest elections on the planet. No large scale violence, vote rigging, during the election, no violence after it. The Election Commission is very well-funded, has an army of volunteers and they make sure that citizens even in the remotest of areas get to cast their vote.

There are 1000s of problems in India, but democracy is not one.

kranner4• 5 years ago

No large scale violence, vote rigging

There were widespread allegations that the EVM machines were rigged.

https://thewire.in/politics/elections-2019-money-evm-media

webmobdev5• 5 years ago

It seems to me the democracy experiment in India can collapse some time in the near future.

As an indian, I am still optimistic. As these farm protests shows, our democracy still has life despite a government that has scant regard for it.

Despite the hiccups in the past (dismissing of an elected communist government in a state and a short emergency that suspended elections and most democratic rights), democracy has thrived till the last 6 years.

What this government has done is exposed all the huge shortcomings in our democratic institutions that has allowed it to control and dominate it, thus weakening our democracy. As long as we don't allow the current party in power to totally subjugate our democracy (like Hitler did with Germany), we can still repair our democracy.

(As the right-wing in power in US and India showed, democracy in the US is more resilient than India's because the democratic institutions of the US were stronger. This is where India needs to focus. Also note that one of the propaganda of the party in power is to show that democracy is totally dysfunctional in India, because that is the only way they can find support to change the constitution to "fix" it.)

factorialboy2• 5 years ago

Terrible title to this thread. It's a court order to specifically remove tweets that falsely compare protests to genocide.

The HN thread title "Indian government orders Twitter to remove contents related to farmers protest" suggests it is an Indian government order to remove all content regarding the protests.

Dishonest.

maurys2• 5 years ago

My personal opinions on the protests aside, this is clearly a different title from the original article.

And it's deliberately titled to make it sound worse than it is (at the moment at least).

I'm not sure how one requests a title change on HN, but that would help here.

jariel• 5 years ago

Not quite the offending hashtag is:

"#ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide"

So this is the government tamping down language which they deem destructive to them, particularly, one individual i.e. Modi.

It remains to be seen if 'genocide' used in any other context would elicit a take-down order.

perryizgr87• 5 years ago

So this is the government tamping down language which they deem destructive to them, particularly, one individual i.e. Modi.

But it's not the government "ordering" anything, it's the court. That's the inaccuracy. Court is totally separate from the government.

hunter-2• 5 years ago

At the time of my posting, the title on this article read something along the lines of

"Government asks Twitter to comply with orders to remove content/accounts related to farmers protests"

I added 'Indian' to provide context. And had to remove words to comply with HN's character count rule.

You can see what the original title was in the slug:

government-notice-asks-twitter-to-comply-with-order-to-remove-contents-accounts-related-to-hashtags-linked-to-farmers-protest-2362377

maurys2• 5 years ago

I was wondering (and hoping), it's just a case of the title changing on the media site.

The original title definitely sounds more inflammatory than the one they changed it to later.

Thanks for clarifying!

Abhinav20003• 5 years ago

No, the key word here is comply. Which you do not have in your title.

Its very different to order twitter to remove something vs. ordering them to COMPLY to a court order

I cannot believe nothing is being done about this and inflammatory and misleading titles are accepted on HackerNews.

perryizgr87• 5 years ago

I am generally against censorship, but if Twitter wants to be consistent, they should comply. These "protesters" took over Red Fort in New Delhi on Republic Day, quite similar to the riots in the American Capitol building. Many policemen and women were beaten up and pushed into deep ditches. These rioters are egged on by countless woke accounts on Twitter, they are effectively inciting the violence.

Again, if it were up to me, I wouldn't censor a word. But Twitter did huge amounts of banning and censoring in the Capitol's case, so it makes sense for them to do it here. Otherwise this exposes Twitter's behaviour to be nothing but a cover for supporting the owner's politics.

Dma54rhs• 5 years ago

They should definetly take action and comply asap since it puts delicate but biggest democracy is danger. As if they haven't learned anything from the 4 years.

op03• 5 years ago

Twitter should safely follow the future FB path of just turning off the algo amplification (recommendations, likes/follower counts) on all political content. Its not a big revenue source anyway and all it seems to produce in terms of outcomes is people attacking each other 24x7.

Let politics happen in the voting booth and parliament.

Ofcourse Narendra Momeme and his fan club owe their rise to social medias algo amplification design, as much as anything else, so its going to be interesting to see where the story goes.

jelliclesfarm• 5 years ago

Brilliant. Twitter is chomping on its own tail. I look forward to seeing it devour itself ass to nose.

Indian government orders Twitter to remove contents related to farmers protest

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