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Google Aids Indian Goverment Censorship
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Mar 12, 2007 08:58 PM
from the don't-be-what? dept.
from the don't-be-what? dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Google's Orkut has made a deal to provide IP addresses of posters of content deemed objectionable by Bombay police. They object, among others, to posts against certain Indian personalities, young women admiring Indian mobsters, and, amazingly, "anti-Indian words" (!)."
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here it goes: Beef is good (Score:5, Funny)
Re:here it goes: Beef is good (Score:4, Interesting)
It would have been the police had you started a community on the lines of "OMG! PaKiStan is teh roxxorz.. iNdIa is komplete sucks"
Parent
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"Don't be evil"?? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I dunno. Too early to be thinking about this stuff.
ant.
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Who sets the rules, then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now I'll admit that I have no experience with India or Indians, but I do have some first hand experience with the USSR (back when it was called that way) and eastern europe, and have co-workers from all over that area. Plus some from various arab countries. And I can tell you that so far I've yet to see major differences. People are people everywhere. Yeah, there are cultural and education differences all right, and even culture clashes when you put people from different cultures together, but at the end of the day most people want the same things.
Even the exceptions are, strangely enough, not much different from our or your exceptions. E.g., if you want to point out some of the religious fundamentalist nutcases from some area as somehow representative, I can point you to religious fundamentalist nutcases in the west (e.g., southern USA) which are strangely similar. For every Khoran-thumping "we should bomb America/Israel/whatever for Allah" nutcase, there'll be a Bible-thumping "we should nuke the Middle East for Jesus" nutcase on the other side.
Even if you want to point out some resistance to new ideas in some areas, I can point out at people ranting about the "good old days" and rejecting the new in the West too. There is the same resistance to change everywhere, some just got a head start in accepting it. But if you let them have what they want, overall all societies tend towards the same thing. E.g., for all the Party's moaning about western decadence, China tended to adopt Western consumerism and other supposed bad habits very very quickly when it had a half a choice.
Etc. As I was saying, I've yet to see any evidence that people are fundamentally different anywhere.
And more importantly, to get back to Freedom Of Speech, I've yet to see any evidence that people from any area actually cheer at the idea of having the police watching over their shoulder.
Sure, there'll be plenty who want to tell _you_ what you can and can't say. (Same as in the west.) But they'll tend to not appreciate when someone tells _them_ what they can and can't say.
And sure, group-think exists everywhere. Doubly so if you can bully them into an "if I say I disaggree, the others will think I'm a pervert/criminal/whatever and ostracize me" state of mind. You have them chest-thump and proclaim any idiocy just to seem like popular/responsible/whatever members of the community. (Again, in the west too.) But again, move them out of that environment, and they'll tend to snap out of it in no time.
In fact, the funny thing is, a lot (maybe most) cultural clashes with immigrants tend to be centered around their snapping out of it too fast and too far. People coming from areas where they have to watch out what they say or do all the time, often seem to turn to a sort of a "woohoo, here I can say and do _everything_ I want to" state of mind, and proceed to appear thoroughly impolite and disruptive to the locals. If you will, they end up appreciating the whole freedom ideas a bit too much, and not knowing where to stop exercising them.
So based on those impressions I'll go and say that the freedoms probably _are_ universal truths that all humans can appreciate.
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How so? You want to play in India, you play by their rules. You can argue that India is doing the black, but Google is just playing by the rules.
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What do you mean by "rules"? If you RTFA, it seems Google is coperating above and beyond the extent required by law. The police are congratulating them for not making them do any paperwork before handing over the IPs and other identifying details of anyone who posts anything deemed "offensive". No doubt Googel is coverd by its terms of sevice and such. But that's not the
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Or... Orkut might be thinking: "Indian magistrates rubber-stamp these kinds of police requests anyway, so lets just set up an electronic request process and make our lives easier."
Re:"Don't be evil"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to play in India, you play by their rules.
If your motto is "don't be evil" and India's rules require you to be evil, then you shouldn't want to play in India. Otherwise you're an evil hypocrite.
Parent
Shouldn't play? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Then why shouldn't the India govt be interested in boards where people are planning/ inciting the next riots [wikipedia.org]
. Of course, having observed how the riots always occur at convenient times for the local politicos, I don't believe for one minute that this has anything to do with public safety. But I do question the holier than thou attitude adopted by many Americans over free speech when their mi
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But I'd go further than you and say any censorship is bad.
Take you 'religious vilification laws' for example - how do you define a religion? Now you have got the govt involved in defining the word religion. Some idiot will come up with a new religion that worships the Kiwi bird (I can start such a religion in India within 10min) - now would everyone stop insulting Kiwis?
And what constitut
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Millions of Hindus goto Varanasi for pilgrimage every year.
Millions of Indian Muslims do Hajj at least once in their lifetimes.
Millions of Indian Christians goto the tomb of the Apostle Thomas in Chennai for pilgrimage.
Also, you should have seen Kerala, "God's own country". They have the cleanest cities in South Asia, as does Tamil Nadu and most places down South.
Generalizing a
well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:well (Score:5, Interesting)
Quite right. Which means, by extension, "don't be evil" and "IPO" are a bit at odds. Pulling out of India over this means lost shareholder revenue. Lost shareholder revenue means lawsuits. Lawsuits mean suffering...
So yeah, I would say "don't be evil" died a while ago.
Parent
Re:well (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I don't want them to be blocked. They have as much right to say "Hail Hitler" as I have to say "Hail Linux." You can't censor somebody because you disagree with their opinion.
I'm a supporter of their right to free speech.
Somebody already glorified the WTC attacks. There have been at least a couple movies...
Parent
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India is surrounded by rabidly totalitarian regimes that conducted government sponsored genocide of Hindu minorities in East Pakistan in 1971 (death toll estimates range from 1.5 million to 3 million, with 75% of the victims Hindus and 25% Bengali Muslim intellectuals), just like Nazi Germany did to Jews and Romanis and Homosexuals (the de
Bombay police? (Score:5, Funny)
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: slashdot.org
Address: 66.35.250.150
Mumbai (Score:2, Insightful)
Then again, that's not how you spell "Government" either.
Also - read the end of the not-so-fine article. Yes, undoubtedly there's evil at play. On the other hand, if something illegal was done (the police were involved, one can only sadly assume the 'posting of picture with derogatory comments' was of an illegal nature over there), there shouldn't be any reason for Orkut protecting the suspect perp. Though filing a subpoena for the information (thus not bypassing the j
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Business Sense (Score:5, Funny)
It's time to stop this "Don't be evil" BS and get on with its obligation to its shareholders.
Having said that, if DBE actually does bring in more profit, or BE brings down profit, Google is then expected to DBE.
In short, act like a business and protect the bottom line, not teh "line".
Re:Business Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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That's nothing! (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously. Orkut used to organize party = Drugs used at party = Orkut bad? I don't think so.
I thought India was atleast a pretend democracy?
Re:That's nothing! (Score:5, Insightful)
India happens to be the world's largest democracy, their voting system is simpler and more secure than what can be found in recent US elections.
Parent
Sigh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or have they simply abandoned "Do no evil" in favor of, "Do not much evil, and even then only do it if you want to gain a foothold in countries with rapidly growing economies."?
Not another China (Score:3, Insightful)
Goddammit Google (Score:2)
Maybe you should hire a couple linguists to complement your thousands of engineers.
Standby for Google Spin (in Beta!) (Score:2)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/27/18 39238 [slashdot.org]
Shows how disingenuous that hand wringing was.
On the bright side, at least Google aren't just cutting deals with totalitarian governments. They're now making political censorship deals with democratically-elected governments too! A Googlestroika, if you will.
Expectations (Score:3, Informative)
Other sources? (Score:2)
The real Google corporate motto... (Score:2)
Kinda reminds me of George Orwell's Animal Farm, where the revolutionary sheep are initially chanting "four legs good, two legs bad", but after the corruption has set in, and the head animals are enjoying human comforts, the chant changes to "four legs good, two legs better".
Things That Bit Butts (Score:5, Funny)
List of nifty little phrases that have bitten their speakers in the ass:
Iran (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder what they'd do in an officially Muslim like Iran if someone posted a blog saying, "I was a Muslim but I converted to Christianity", and the government demanded that Google turn over that person's identifying information?
If Google refused, then they're giving up on the broad claim that their presence a blessing to a country regardless of what censorship / person-finding they assist with. If they went along with it, then they show the true vacuousness of their "moral" reasoning.
I don't want such a test case to arise, but I'd be (morbidly) curious to see how it plays out.
Criminal investigatoins should be allowed (Score:5, Interesting)
After reviewing the articles I've come to the conclusion that while I don't condone investigating people for hate-speech against India that I see no problem with investigating the source of a mob boss fan club. Even applying the U.S. constitution (which of course India is not held to) I would see no problem with this. The police can and should investigate something like this. If it turns out it's someone not connected to the criminal then that's fine. But if it turns out that it's part of a conspiracy to drum up public support and poison the jury pool then that is an entirely different matter. Who's to say that this anonymously submitted article is not part of that conspiracy?
I believe Google did the right thing by turning over records to the police. Anonymity is not sacrosanct. Freedom to say what you want is, and if that is not allowed in India then that should be changed. However, impeding a criminal investigation is not a good way to bring about change.
I wish I could point out a specific attribution but it's not a new concept that one must work within ones societal rules to change society for the better. I believe it is mentioned at least a few times in the new testament and most likely in other religious and philosophical texts as well.
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It is not evil to search for how to make a bomb. It is not even evil to make a bomb, or to set off a bomb. What's evil is to set off a bomb where it will hurt people or their property.
Assuming you do it with appropriate precautions in appropriate places and times and with appropriate permissions (per local laws), making big booms is good, clean fun.
Their new mantra? (Score:3, Insightful)
-GiH
Re:Time to feel silly, slashdotters... (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to the fact that many Indians are not as urbane, tolerant, and well-educated as those one encounters in the US, one has to take into account the fact that India is much more diverse ethnically and religiously than the United States, and that many potentially hostile groups live in close proximity. While I don't agree with such censorship, I can understand the desire of the Indian government to keep everybody happy and avoid bloodshed.
17th century, actually: 1680.
Parent
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Precisely. I am an immigrant Indian living in the US and I personally feel insulted by that bias, positive as it may be. It results in a weird kind of prejudice wherein if you do something outstanding people are like "well, duh, they're all like that. Big effing deal :P". And under achievement (relative to the OTHER Indians) is reportedly grounds for deportation in some IT companies. To be perfectly clear, I have experienced
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Then change the system, don't hold on to the old d (Score:3, Insightful)
Then change the system, don't hold on to the old days when the real world didn't know about the internet.
I come from the BBS era and as such have gone through that magic time when the internet was just for techies. Nobody knew about it and it was a grand time. No ads, no spam, no leet speak, just men, real men and stuff geeks cared about. (Star Trek ASCII Porn mostly)
And then things changed, more people found out about it and with them came the coorperations, the criminals (often hard to tell the differen