Outrage In India Over Arrests For Facebook Posts 90
concealment sends in an AP report about an uproar in India over citizens arrested for their Facebook remarks. Quoting:
"As India's financial capital shut down for the weekend funeral of a powerful politician linked to waves of mob violence, a woman posted on Facebook that the closures in Mumbai were 'due to fear, not due to respect.' A friend of hers hit the 'like' button. For that, both women were arrested. Analysts and the media are slamming the Maharashtra state government for what they said was a flagrant misuse of the law and an attempt to curb freedom of expression. The arrests were seen as a move by police to prevent any outbreak of violence by supporters of Bal Thackeray, a powerful Hindu fundamentalist politician who died Saturday."
Slashdot is becoming a long list... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Going to get worse ... (Score:2, Interesting)
But, in some places, if I said "show me the evidence that Jesus was at least a historical person, let alone the son of god" ... or "Why should I believe that Mohammed was the prophet of god" ... there would be angry mobs ready to burn and stone me because I hurt their feelings.
You don't need to go far for that. Right here on Slashdot it happens. Granted it's only modding down, no actual burning occurs, but "Troll" is a label that appears to be applied quickly to someone who says things like: "did Obama and Gore really deserve a Nobel prize", or "if global warming is man-made, how come it also happens on Mars" even when the questions are completely in line with the thread. Same used to apply to someone saying that Apple is anything but perfect, however in recent years as it became more mainstream to own Apple products the discussion on that topic seems less emotional.
People are intolerant all over the place and on both sides of every issues. But ask anyone and they'll say that they, themselves, are not intolerant, because *they* are right and the other is a moron. This behavior is universal and thinking that it is limited to religious people is a demonstration of that.
dual outrage! (Score:4, Interesting)
(1) I'm outraged that people are being arrested for shit they say on Facebook.
(2) I'm outraged that the entire world seems so stupid as to think it's a good idea to tie real identities to everything they say online SO THAT people who want to use that speech against them are able to. (Never mind that the stupid shit you might have said at 17 will still be there nice and searchable when you are 52 and trying to become mayor).
Report: Every Potential 2040 President Already Unelectable Due To Facebook> [theonion.com]
Re:Going to get worse ... (Score:5, Interesting)
While he opportunistically attached himself to Hindutva ideology in the latter part of his career, Thackeray was really more of an ethno-nationalist than a religious fundamentalist. He started out pretty explicitly as a Marathi nationalist, positioning himself as a hardline advocate for the Marathi ethnic group, and pushing for them to have a privileged position in local politics/economy, versus other Indians who came from ethnic groups not native to Maharashtra. But he wanted to go bigger, so he started playing up more Hindu symbolism at some point to break out of being seen as only a Marathi partisan, even though they remained the core of his followers.
So in a sense it's religious, but afaict it's not religious in any sort of devout/belief sense, but more in the sense of symbols used to construct a nationality.
Re:Going to get worse ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good thing we got these "real name" policies! (Score:4, Interesting)