Facebook Tells India It Won't Help Censor the Web 168
An anonymous reader writes "Indian Communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal yesterday announced a proposal to have technology companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Twitter pre-screen user generated content so that community sentiments are not hurt. Social media platforms are being asked to censor whatever politicians deem objectionable and too offensive for the Internet. Sibal called a news conference when the story broke, and following it, Facebook responded to say that it can't help in the effort."
Duh... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Duh... (Score:4, Insightful)
"In unrelated news, Facebook tells India it will grandly give them all secret profile information on any indian national no matter what country they live in, they may even give them a few non indians to sweeten the deal."
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I had to go and check, but in this country at least, Facebook doesn't collect nationality information. Presumably, they don't think it's important for selling you stuff.
The location you're posting from, where you went to school, etc, are only weak and very unreliable guides to nationality, citizenship, etc. If people followed them, then I've been Canadia
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They collect hometown information. Unless you use a vague definition of the word, or decide to call hometown an adoptive town, you can get nationality with it.
Also, most people dont travel that much during their childhoods so a combination of friends and elementary/middle school data can be enough to guess most people's nationality.
Do not underestimate the accuracy of overly tracky websites.
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Do they? So they do. What does mine say? Oh, it's the empty set. Maybe I should change it to match the "current location" field, whenever I update that. (Well, it is an editable field after all! Not a WORM field, as it plainly should be. Shows how important FB consider it to be.)
I'm sure that they can deduce nationality information. Which is not the same as being told it. And it is prone to getting things wrong : they could well deduce from my associations etc that I'm cul
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If you think advertisers don’t care about your nationality, I think you don’t know anyone in the field.
Immigrants are heavily targeted by money transfer ad campaigns or international calling cards, under the statistically correct assumption that most wire money to their families heavily or plain simply call them extremely often. These services also tend to sometimes specialize to some countries, so just knowing you are an immigrant is not enough for agencies; they want to target immigrants from
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Fortunately you're right. Or, if I do know anyone in that field (most people I know from non-work environments, I don't ask what their jobs are. Why would one?) they're smart enough to realise that I'm likely to be very un-impressed. Conning people out of money they can't afford for things they don't need is not an honourable profession.
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Re:Duh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Interesting)
How do you know that's the truth? There is a good chance the powers that be dislike censorship as much as everyone else in the software realm and now that they have some real power are exercising their right to resist censorship in a way that makes an impact.
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capitalization is a tool of the weak minded
Check the spelling of your username, feeb.
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Simple (Score:5, Informative)
Facebook doesn't want to censor: they want free flow of as much information as possible. The more that's out there, the more data they have to mine and sell.
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Sort-of.
They want it to flow to them. They only really care about /one/ of the exit pipes...
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Yeah, the one they screw us in.
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Facebook doesn't want to censor
Facebook censors all the time. I've had my account arbitrarily terminated because I made an objectionable post. They refused to tell me which post they were referring to; only simply that I violated their ToS and that I had no recourse of appeal. I have no clue because I generally don't even push the envelope.
I am not the only one who has had this story either.
Facebook is very kafkaesque and they're more than happy to muzzle people arbitrarily.
Re:Simple (Score:5, Funny)
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Censorship and TOS violations are distinctly different...
PR Giveaway (Score:5, Insightful)
It's in Facebook's best interest to say no anyway (since censoring comments would only make people want to leave and thus would reduce revenue at the additional cost of developer time), and by doing so they appear to be heroic. This was perhaps the easiest press release ever.
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This. I bet they'd love if more 3rd-world countries with a small Internet user base would ask for censorship, so that they could pose heroically and say "NO little country, I will not censor, for I support freedom of speech!" while blocking TPB links.
Re:PR Giveaway (Score:5, Informative)
Small Internet user base? Little country? Are we still discussing India?
There are more Indians online than British people. India is 6th. CIA world factbook [cia.gov] (and that's from 2009, I wouldn't be surprised if India is now ahead of Germany. Most Germans who want to be online are; that's not the case for India.)
Let's have some respect for the world's largest democracy, please.
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They may be a democracy, but they're still fairly backward in several ways: far too religious, abortion of female fetuses [washingtonpost.com] and female "circumcision" (mutilation).
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America is far too religious and practises male genital mutilation...
India isn't the best democracy, and I didn't suggest that. I took exception to the GGP's disparaging remarks. It still is a democracy, and this proposal (law?) is being openly debated.
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there's no law here that allows that kind of censorship. this guy (kapil sibal) has been quietly talking to google and facebook and asking them to censor whatever he says is objectionable. understandably, there's been widespread uproar. there's no debate because this is not something that was brought into parliament or anything.
in fact, i read in some website that google said they'd be happy to censor content if there was a well-defined law.
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Why? It's a country looking to lead the world in censorship, to protect protect politicians and religious sensibilities.
Hang on, we're still talking about India here, right?
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If it is the "the easiest press release ever' then where are the other press releases from the other company's specifically Google? They have a stance somewhere Must be weighing heavily in the Google bureaucracy somewhere
Ignoring it is the best press release.
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FB's premise is that you can share your information with others. If they start censoring for political reasons, they risk violating that premise. Google has none of that.
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Interesting... (Score:5, Funny)
I think it's interesting to see India asking for IT help.
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Apparently what they want isn't on the script?
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If you're not Indian, there is nothing to fear from this.
FTFY
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If you're not a terrorist, there is nothing to fear from this.
Seriously? Did you just use that famous quote in the defense of censorship?
That same same sentiment is used satirically to great effect to shame thoughtless censorship for decades.
Wait! Am I being trolled?
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If you're not a terrorist, there is nothing to fear from this.
Kapil Sibal wants to be able to control what you can and cannot say. That makes him a more immediate threat than terrorists. It's a shame you're too naive to understand that.
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facebook can't be locked out.
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It's sad that people still believe this is true. Would you say the same in Syria? Governments are composed of people. Sometimes they're composed of good and moral people, sometimes they're composed of psychopaths. Nah, that's not right. ALWAYS they're composed of a mix, and plenty of people have been thrown under the bus for saying things someone in power didn't like.
As for the rest, if India wants to fork facebook, go ahead. The rest of us
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Has Kapil Sibal tried rebooting his Internet yet?
Well ... (Score:5, Funny)
If you want to filter something, block his campaign ads when it's time for re-election.
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Oh dear God, I could really use some mod points right now.
+1 insightful.
Wait, wait, wait, wait (Score:4, Funny)
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Stopped clock, twice a day. You know the old adage I'm sure?
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*sarcasm* ;-) (Score:2)
Or that AT&T have employees listen in on all telephone conversations.
That's what AT&T bought the NSA for, silly! ;-)
Don't worry... (Score:2)
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Furthermore, I have censored my Ubuntu installation against Facebook, and all its data-collecting sites. From a previous discussion here, this is now my hosts list:
Facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
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Exactly! Censorship is a form of privacy, and Facebook doesn't do that.
all governments around the world (Score:5, Interesting)
war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength
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The good news is that the strategy utterly failed to work out for Hosni Mubarak.
Ad hoc mesh networks (Score:2)
An increasing number of households, smart phones, and even newer model cars have WiFi transmission capabilities, so why can't we create ad-hoc mesh networks as a backup to the internet the government can control via backbones? As long as houses, phones, and cars have power there will always be a free internet. Confiscating all those is logistically impossible.
Seems to me, that with the un-constitutional reactionary laws the 1% is trying to push through right now that we need to make this happen swiftly.
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Confiscating all those is logistically impossible.
Well, our government at one point confiscated "all" the gold. So, I wouldn't say it's impossible; it's actually far more likely, as the government has a list of all phone users thanks to the NSA boxes hidden in all but Qwest. Gold detectors? I think the next collection effort will have a far higher percentage of success. Not that I'm hoping for it to happen.
Hell = auditing youtube comments for an eternity (Score:5, Funny)
Here's my suggestion: tie him down to a chair and pry open his eyelids clockwatch orange style, and then have him screen youtube comments for 8 hours.
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Facebook's position (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, everyone's really quick to jump on them and claim it's because they have profit motive in having more data. I won't deny that, but there are other factors that are possibly more important.
Human-scanning every single message would be nearly impossible. Even if they managed to handle the staffing problem, they couldn't afford it. And even if they could afford it, there's the ethical issues it presents.
There are plenty of other reasons for them to decline.
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And all but one of them is tied to profit.
If you think FB has ethics, you are deluded.
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Reminds me of the Better Off Ted [wikipedia.org] episode "Racial Sensitivity" where a glitch in the new automatic sensors controlling the building (lights, door, elevators, water-fountains, bathrooms) - that worked by measuring light reflected off faces/skin - didn't detect "black people"... Management didn't
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Human-scanning every single message would be nearly impossible. Even if they managed to handle the staffing problem, they couldn't afford it.
They could always just outsource it to India.
Dear India... (Score:3, Insightful)
Your own bloody, medieval, sectarian clusterfucks... [wikipedia.org]
How about you work on the "brutal violence in response to hurt feelings about whose invisible friend is better" problem and then worry about scary things on the internet?
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Yep, religion rears it's ugly head, again.
A much better answer is to ban any religion that thinks going out on the street and being violent is the right response to something they saw on a web page.
Root of all evil...etc.
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I know that it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside to sneer at people who believe something you don't, but making fun of people who don't think the same way as you do simply makes you look childish, shallow and boorish. Now, I happen to agree with your basic premise that India should spend more time teaching people that violence isn't
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Draconian over the top punishments, done publicly is the perfect deterrent, there's a reason theft in countries that lop your hand off have the lowest theft rates in the world,
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I know that it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside to sneer at people who believe something you don't...
Whoa there. Sure, he's referring to gods as "invisible friends", and yes that's kinda sneerish.
But you're skipping right over the part where he's specifically sneering at THE ONES WHO ARE KILLING EACH OTHER over rather trivial differences. So, while you have a point about respecting each other, getting in a huff about such a minor slight is kind of playing right into his argument.
The fact that you're getting insulted over an insult to murderers is rather sad.
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The fact that you're getting insulted over an insult to murderers is rather sad.
As it so happens, I'm not in the least bit insulted by his rudeness. I'm not the type of person he was talking about and I don't take offence from generic slurs that aren't directed at me. I commented on it both because I find that type of off-hand rudeness tiresome and because I thought that
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alrighty then.
No Incentive to Censor (Score:3)
Jobs (Score:1)
This would create a lot of jobs, which to some people are more important than trolling the Inet with Photoshopped pictures of leaders and religious figures.
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This would create a lot of jobs, which to some people are more important than trolling the Inet with Photoshopped pictures of leaders and religious figures.
Most likely jobs in India. Hmm. That's a really interesting scenario, if you think about where it could end up.
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Yes I meant jobs for India as they need them even more than the West does.
This is gonna hurt.... (Score:2)
... but....
Good on Facebook.
ouch.
Not only will Facebook not help Censor... (Score:4, Funny)
They'll indvertantly have accumunated a lot of private info on Indian politicos and the State and accidently exposed it all through a defect in code, which will redirect all Indian FB users to pages of it, but for one day only, until they find the bug and fix it.
So there :P
Self censoring (Score:1)
Isn't FB self censoring, since you can choose your friends?
What about the US? (Score:2)
Solution (Score:2)
Sibal is asking companies to help him filter the Internet because the country has several religions and faiths. He argues what might seem humorous to someone can be really offensive to another and he wants to avoid further incidents of communities taking to the streets and vandalizing public property.
Bear with me, I have a solution to propose for this, from the Bible, from a time when another large country in Asia faced a problem with the presence of several faiths and ethnicities and some were getting ready to take to the streets in violence.
the king granted the Jews who were in each and every city the right to assemble and to defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate the entire army of any people or province which might attack them, including children and women, and to plunder their spoil. (Esther 8:11)
It worked. When the Jews were granted the legal right to defend themselves, only idiots got violent against them, and they received a rough justice as a result, with little cost to the government.
Just a suggestion. It's a lot better than taking away civil rights.
Impractical (Score:2)
Can't or won't? (Score:2)
Article says won't but summary says can't.
There is a world of difference between those two words.
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Whoa! (Score:2)
An evil thing Facebook won't do.
Or is that just what they want us to think...?
Conspiracy theorists, start your foiling!
Is this a cross-up with a Dilbert post? (Score:2)
The real question is: Who will get on the bus? (Score:1)
I imagine that Microsoft may be cooking some stew in the back ground which would help India. What a better way for them to gain market share in an area that they have struggled with!
When you look at how Microsoft already filters content for users, is it that much of a leap?
Grow up (Score:1)
He showed company executives derogatory images of the Prophet Mohammed as well as altered pictures of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi that appeared on their platforms. He argued these images would offend “any reasonable person.”
Grow up is all I have to say. If you can't take a joke and little harsh humour then go find a rock and live under it, the rest of us will have a great time and party all night. The fact is to many people take offence to what aren't offensive situations. Just because you haven't grown up and matured to know the difference between what you think is offensive and what is actually offensive isn't my problem and it shouldn't be Facebook's, Google's or Microsoft's.
A reasonable person will understand this a
Fuck the corrupted politicians (Score:1)
Common Carrier (Score:1)
editing / censoring part makes them responsible for all the content. They lose their legal status
I wish it were just a third world problem.. (Score:3, Informative)
I wish I could be smug just laugh at India and its stupid corrupt politicians.
Unfortunately this kind of hare brained ideas aren't limited to the third world.
In Australia the filtering plan seems to be on hold for now, but you don't even need a slippery slope argument to know how batshit insane and scary the idea of a secret internet censorship blacklist is: http://nocleanfeed.com/ [nocleanfeed.com]
Or have we already forgotten the UK plan to censor social media during times of social unrest: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/11/uk-riots-day-five-aftermath-live#block-33 [guardian.co.uk]
Think of how easily that could be used in the style of the Arab governments to cripple organised protests against the government.
Or we can mock India for wanting to intercept and read Blackberry messages, and ignore the implications of legislation like the Patriot Act: http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/12/02/1923207/patriot-act-clouds-picture-for-tech [slashdot.org]
Or have we forgotten the domain seizures to try to block pirated content with no due legal process: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/domain-seizures-defended/ [wired.com]
Even extending to attempts to block a Firefox add on: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20060636-281.html [cnet.com]
Blocking sports streams when they still cannot find a way of offering pay per view streaming of major sports events over the internet, where your only way of viewing a couple of hours of sports content a week is to sign up for an expensive cable package that gives lots of stuff you will never watch and THEN purchase an extra expensive add on for the sports content. And the US government is protecting that business model by seizing domains with no legal notice or court enforced legal process.
I would love to be able to just mock India, if we could afford to be that complacent...
Why are they babysitting their populace? (Score:2)
Don't waste resources protecting people from "offending content". If people seek out stuff that offends them, they asked for it. If they get offended by regular newsfeeds, go complain to the provider, not the government. And stop reading newsfeeds that contain what they consider offending content.
Under no circumstances does it make any sense that the government should impose censorship to protect the populace from "offending content". They might protect against subversive content but that doesn't seem to be
Re:fuck the curry pakis (Score:5, Insightful)