US Tech Giants Voice Concern Over India's Fact-Checking Rule (techcrunch.com) 37
The Asia Internet Coalition, an influential industry organization representing technology giants such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon, has voiced concerns over a recent amendment to India's IT rules, saying the changes grant the local government expansive content removal authority without implementing adequate procedural safeguards. From a report: India recently updated its IT rules, barring social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter from disseminating false or misleading information about the government's business affairs. Under the new regulations, these firms must rely on New Delhi's own fact-checking unit to verify claims. The amendments lack the "sufficient procedural safeguards" to protect people's fundamental rights to access information, said Jeff Paine, Managing Director of AIC in a statement Monday.
Irony (Score:1)
Lmao. I can't wait for this shithole country to have enough power to be in the news on the regular.
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Modi has a small nuclear arsenal at his disposal. More like Voldemort vs a guy that slaps prostitutes around.
Yes! Only the incompetent political hacks (Score:2)
Actually... (Score:1)
Come to think of it, the "tech giants" (advertising companies, really) don't really care who is to be the arbiter of truth, as long as it gets them off the hook for having been found to carry the wrong content. These are not champions of free speech, they're just in it for the money.
Their bigger concern is that this means every country/region/satrap/what-have-you will have their own "fact checking", and so they're going to have to balkanize their platforms so as not to leak the wrong content to the wrong s
It will at least clarify the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the basic problems with "fact checkers" in the US is that they are private parties who get to hide behind a mountain of legalize that says "even though we tout our judgments as objective facts, legally they are just 'honest opinions' for the purpose of defamation law." If a Western fact checker defames you, destroys your account, gets you banned, etc. good luck getting them held accountable and forced to make it right. In India, it will simply be more forthright in that censors will be backed by the Ministry of Truth which enjoys sovereign immunity.
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Which is exactly why CDA-230 needs to go. Defamation and misinformation are serious problems to day but each situation is unique. Courts need to be able to sort this stuff out, not unaccountable censors or censors who are accountable to certain political interests.
I don't care if its Nina Jankowicz or Modi nobody should be able to set themselves up as the arbiter of truth, except a jury or a judge if both parties agree to bench trial. Nobody should be subject to a social media megaphone spreading defamato
Re:It will at least clarify the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
As we can see from Dominion's lawsuit against Fox, it isn't nearly that simple. Fox News isn't trying to defend its election misinformation (which it is now clear that it knowingly disseminated) as a version of the truth, it's simply saying "Hey, we were just reporting a story in the news", despite being one of the organizations knowingly amplifying the messaging, in particular via its "talent" like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, even as these individuals privately were rejecting those claims.
The good thing is a lawsuit means Fox's dirty laundry and disinformation campaign get outed. The bad thing is not everyone has the resources to hold these companies accountable, so for every misinformation campaign outed, who knows how many are not. If the tobacco lobby is any indication, we've all been victimized by such disinformation campaigns. Our legal system allows too much to be concealed, and makes it too difficult to pull back the curtain.
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Fox's bad habits sprawled beyond their planter (Score:1)
Fox was only outed in court because they trashed the reputation of somebody with deep pockets for ratings. They can and will continue to do this to "little people", and also politicians, because defamation laws generally don't apply to politicians. It's perfectly legal to lie about politicians loudly and widely.
As far as India, a compromise may be to require a "fake news" label/marker rather than outright ban allegedly false gov't criticism.
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As we can see from Dominion's lawsuit against Fox, it isn't nearly that simple. Fox News isn't trying to defend its election misinformation (which it is now clear that it knowingly disseminated) as a version of the truth, it's simply saying "Hey, we were just reporting a story in the news",
I think you haven't understood Fox's only remaining defense: the actual malice standard.
The judge has issued summary judgement that Fox knowingly lied, thus it can't claim to be reporting a story in the news. Fox is claiming that it's lies don't meet the "actual malice" standard.
Re: It will at least clarify the problem (Score:3)
I don't think that's actually true that big fact checkers claim it's really just an opinion. First off, because that wouldn't work. Like the dominion lawsuit judge said, something like that doesn't cover you.
Legitimate fact checkers in the USA cover themselves legally with documentation, evidence, and often very specific statements. That puts them far above the legal bar for libel. It also hurts anyone that would try because like in the dominion case, because you won't get away with lying in court and you'
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"If a Western fact checker defames you, destroys your account, gets you banned, etc. good luck getting them held accountable and forced to make it right"
In other words, "I shouldn't be subject to other private citizens criticizing what I say"
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Do you not understand what defamation is? If I spread a bunch of lies about you and it cost you your job, friends and marriage, don't you think you should have some kind of recourse?
If a newspaper prints a bunch of lies about you, you can sue them. If Facebook publishes a bunch of lies, good luck with that. Seems unbalanced to me.
You can't just spread lies about people. We have laws about that kind of thing. It's call defamation.
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If a newspaper prints a bunch of lies about you, you can sue them. If Facebook publishes a bunch of lies, good luck with that. Seems unbalanced to me.
If someone posts some lies about you on Facebook, you can sue that person for libel.
It seems sensible that you should sue the actual author, right? Perhaps you think that the people who operate TV broadcast antennas should be sued for any lies on any channels broadcast from their antennas?
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Well first you would have to subpoena Facebook for whatever user information you could get out of them, since anyone can use a throw away email address created with totally bogus information and make an account. People's pets have Facebook accounts, for example.
It would be really hard to actually sue the random Internet person. Facebook in the mean time is generating clicks and ad impressions, making money off this person's post. You could possibly blame Facebook since their algorithms are part of the whole
It's not that I care about Facebook (Score:2, Insightful)
But their behavior censoring dissenting voices during the pandemic certainly led to governments everywhere realizing that the general public would tolerate censorship in the name of safety. Those who would say, "It's their platform, they can do what they want..." must certainly realize now that a threat to free speech anywhere is a threat to free speech everywhere.
For at least the past decade, conservative voices have been silenced by the Left - they control the media, tech sector, Hollywood, and now t
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Because it doesn't actually happen. But conservatives, both cultural and religious, feed off of conspiracy theories about them being silenced. After all, once you've put on the mantle of victimhood, it allows you to be a monster to others because "we're just protecting ourselves."
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It's amazing how much noise we hear from a group that claims it's continually being muted.
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The issue with censorship on the platform level is that it allows people to live in their own little Insta-bubbles and never see a dissenting opinion, whether it's valid or not.
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They have one main channel - the other smaller "competitors" are not widely available.
They win the top viewed audience scores because the entire audience is stuck on that one channel versus the other side having several choices depending for far left you want to go.
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I think when people complain about conservative channels, they are complaining about the ones that don't make conservatives look "batshit" crazy.
That said, you should remember that what you watch is based on your cultural (based on country/beliefs/etc) perception of what is normal.
If I hated liberals... (Score:2)
If I hated liberals, I'd make sure to host only the ones spouting conspiracy theories as well. If you can't win an argument outright, and you can't completely silence them, it is often just as damaging, if not moreso, to associate your opponent's argument with the irrational, mentally unstable people.
They should offload this to NGO institutions (Score:2)
...staffed by former intelligence officials and political operatives. THEN it'll be legit.
Sure... (Score:2)
(2) They wouldn't be able to regulate outside the country, but it's within their purview to regulate within their borders whether Westerns/Foreigners like it or not. This is part of why they require that companies operating within India be run by native, resident Indians too (though that goes to IP capture as well).
Best thing for them to do is not to setup any presence within India. If Indians reach out to their syste
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> India doesn't recognize fundamental rights. it's not in their system of government.
Without this as part of a democracy, 51% can take the rights away from 49%.
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> India doesn't recognize fundamental rights. it's not in their system of government.
Without this as part of a democracy, 51% can take the rights away from 49%.
India like the US, Canada, and UK is not a democracy but a Republic.
Even then, this isn't required for a Republic or a Democracy to function. The Greeks and Romans did it for several hundred years each without recognizing any "fundamental rights". So again, you're projecting Western values and ideas.
In a pure democracy, 50.00..01% of any group can control the other 49.999... by simple votes. Republics don't allow that by instituting representatives but even then the basic definition of a Republic does no
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> [fundamental rights] isn't required for a Republic or a Democracy to function....So again, you're projecting Western values and ideas....So please learn your history and what the terms mean.
I didn't claim it was. You appeared to have misread. Thus, please apologize for your rudeness.
My intended point was that without fundamental rights hard-wired into the system (or at least hard to remove), citizen votes alone may end up removing or skipping fundamental rights for some or all groups. I made NO value j
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India like the US, Canada, and UK is not a democracy but a Republic.
The UK is a Republic? I guess you better go halt the upcoming coronation, then.
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India like the US, Canada, and UK is not a democracy but a Republic.
The UK is a Republic? I guess you better go halt the upcoming coronation, then.
You do realize that the monarchy in the UK is just a figure head now, no?
And yes, they're a form of a Republic via a Parliamentary system and Constitutional Monarchy.
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You do realize that there are other forms of democracy than Republics, right?
The definition of "republic" from Wikipedia:
'A republic (from Latin res publica 'public affair') is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy"'