BJP (ruling party) commands over a huge IT Cell and a larger fan base which activates at very slightest triggers. Few years back a popular Muslim actor (Aamir Khan) made a mild comment on increasing radicalism in Indian society and incidents of lynching against Muslims. Within days everything related to him was scorched, the app he models for got millions of 1* rating on Android.
A more recent incident is about an actress showing solidarity with students against violence in JNU, a left leaning university. The next movie ratings were grounded.
Bias of Indian media houses makes Fox feel like champion of truth and journalism.
In a nutshell, nothing to do with Disney, it must be pragmatic decision by Indian subsidiary to play safe.
This "IT Cell" is pretty active on Twitter. It is vicious and relentless.
I suspect it is present on HN platform too. I have posted two submissions (one from NYTimes and another from The Guardian) on issues that highlight the Modi government's continued descent into what writers are calling fascist policies. Both my submissions didn't survive being flagged within minutes. I am not sure if a concentrated group of users can achieve this objective on HN?
In my experience, there are many Modi apologists on HN. In a recent thread about people being prosecuted for using VPNs, they were out in full force justifying the effective house arrest of several million people and the suspension of basic human rights like Habeas Corpus.
And sure enough, they achieved their goal on that thread too - it was flagged and removed from the front page within hours. We shouldn't allow anything that tarnishes the reputation of our Dear Leader.
You don't even have to go find the original thread. The Modi apologists are on this thread too. See if you can spot the person justifying murdering Muslims for the crime of eating beef.
I flagged this post after reading comments at the bottom and in my experience, the reason why you see less political posts from india on the front page is mostly due to the demography of the site and guidelines. Indian posts always have little activity with or without political element and for few political threads that do get some activity, lot of uninformed opinions posted within a few minutes. People just aren't interested outside of HN too, I don't think the IT cell mob will come in private political forums/guilds.
I might also point out indian news sites are horrible with tracking, adverts and UI/UX. A blog post from someone on hn about mac revealed that an average HNer spent very little time on the site compared to other places. So that might skew things further outside of international sites.
Secondly, I can see who you might be referring to as modi apologist, I also see similar attack from the opposite spectrum. Either doesn't seem healthy and should be kept somewhere else.
1.34 billion people are a lot. That's 3x the size of US. We have greater inequality and varying standard of living resulting in highly different or counterproductive expectations from the system.
A farmer getting by barely with not much need for hyper internet connectivity may not see the implications of laws that deteriorate freedom/privacy online. They are in different hierarchy of human needs than someone living in urban area with a lot of solved problems and some artificially created as a consequences.
One want more roads, the other want more greenery.
One want availability and affordability, the other want quality.
There are highly controversial laws passed such as the act to give less qualified people the same authority of a doctor so they can treat patients and there were some consequences to it of course but it happened because someone wanted it or at least thought it was a good idea than nothing. I have met a couples like that and know personally.
Becoming condescending, calling everything propaganda or blindness because you don't agree with it or think it's fine is a good way to cause hurdles in leading to a compromise.
What you see online isn't representative of most things. People won't mention about a product/service they don't face any problem with, they mention about things they face problem with or have had a horrible experience most of the time. It's easy to say nothing than a thank you. We ought to do it more but we don't. The specific indian culture I have lived in doesn't encourage that and sometimes even discourage thanking people because it's their job or things should be like that encouraging people to share views in negative light more.
This isn't specific to india either but we have a tad bit more pressure to live within segregated communities directly or indirectly. Marrying into the same caste, income bracket or status quo. Interacting with people from the same checks only.
I would recommend working for upping the quality of life for everyone and things will stablize on their own but in the meantime, calling people modi apologist will give you a knee jerk reaction from otherwise people who may listen.
There are those for and against Modi in this thread. It's easy to spot both sides. An easy way to spot one of the sides is their use of words like "Modi apologists", etc.
Considering Modi is arguably the most popular politician of a country with 1.3 billion people, why are people shocked when that support translates to support online?
Or are only Modi detractors supposed to voice their opinions? Shouldn't Modi supporters have their say too?
After reading HN for years I'm basically an expert on housing policy in the Bay Area. I may not know much about anything else but goddamn, I can talk for an hour and ten minutes without a break about the complexities of this one issue.
Some am I, too some extend. And I live in France and mostly skip these articles.
In my case it is rather that weird interest in esoteric things about which I read without a reason to be interested (though SF indeed changed a lot between my visit 20 years ago and last year)
I disagree. In truth, the flag functionality on HN is broken, and allows a small number of users to censor otherwise good posts. It happens a lot, and has little to no oversight.
>Both my submissions didn't survive being flagged within minutes. I am not sure if a concentrated group of users can achieve this objective on HN?
My subjective impression is that flagging feature on HN is routinely abused by flagging-rings conspiring to suppress submissions and comments on certain topics.
I'm super happy that the ability to flag exists, but it would be nice if something could be done to stop its abuse.
Disney's Indian subsidiary might not stream it on Hotstar but their International counterparts aren't geo-censoring it on YouTube (at least not yet): https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qVIXUhZ2AWs
It'd be interesting to keep an eye on the video's viewership count [0]-- at 4,606,963; at the time of writing.
The fastest way to get depressed is to read the news. I can't name a single decent leader of a major country/party/region today. Everywhere we look, there are politicians stroking differences. We desperately need good leaders and thoughtful/responsible voters.
She seems better than others but I am also not German, so I don't know. When Trudeau and Macron came along, they seemed better - until they too turned out to be disappointments. It is very disappointing and depressing that out of 7+ billion people, we can't produce a few dozen sensible leaders. The business world doesn't seem better either, even in the tech industry which was supposed to attract better people.
Then again, how is one supposed to take on a billionaire who casually throws half a billion (!!!!) dollars of his own money just at the beginning of a primary race?
Well in the last few years, we have seen an uproar of the right wing party „AfD“. Some attribute that to Merkel‘s Party moving away from the conservative side of things.
After Fukushima, Merkel pushed for immediately closing out all nuclear power plants, which some say also say is in conflict with our plans of becoming carbon neutral. Massive financial support for solar and wind energy has been stopped as well, which devasted at least the local solar industry.
We had waves of right wing terrorism, her party is pushing something like a „black 0“ (no new debt) instead of investing in infrastructure, schools and the like. Even pushing that on other European countries like Greece or Spain, which definitely would need to invest.
There are just slow or no plans for meeting climate goals or modernize the automotive sector.
Personally I think it has become very quiet around the chancellor, the inertia is almost unbearable sometimes. The government is supposed to stimulate progress and move our Society forward. But as I see it, we are moving very slowly with a captain who doesn’t like to rethink their course.
This is a bit shortsighted. Just because a country is in debt doesn't mean the best way forward is to pay off the debt as fast as possible. Once you're out of debt you'll still need to have an economy and well educated people to run the place. Imagine if the US took an even more extreme example and refused to pay police officers before the national debt. Good luck for recovering from actual anarchy.
You can't reverse past bad policy, you can only move forward from where you're standing.
Indeed, and that's exactly the model much of the world uses for adult education. Except that better early-years schooling has at least as large and probably much bigger effect on the future productivity and health of society.
IT Cell or "Information Technology" cell is an Indian English term for an internet brigade. India's ruling party BJP has a ton of such internet trolls employed.
Star Asia (parent of Star India) was owned by Fox, which was how Disney ended up with it. Any similarities to Fox in the US are likely not coincidental.
You can see a difference between "Muslims on Twitter" and the ruling party of the state, right?
But that's neither here nor there. However Muslims might react to a theoretical comment on cattle theft has no bearing on what a government actually has done in response to an actual comment. That their reaction could have been worse does not make BJP's actions any better.
so.. if a non-ruling party instigates people, it's OK, but if a ruling party does it, then you have a problem ?
This entire anti-CAA protests are organized and funded and instigated by Opposition parties to create a Muslim vote bank, because they're upset that the ruling party consolidated the Hindu vote bank.
> entire anti-CAA protests are organized and funded and instigated
Or maybe the people who are afraid that they (or their friends/family) might lose their citizenship want to fight for it? Just seems like a simpler explanation.
And before you try explaining that CAA is harmless, no intelligent person falls for that. We know that it's the combination of NRC and CAA that makes it lethal.
> so.. if a non-ruling party instigates people, it's OK, but if a ruling party does it, then you have a problem?
No. They’re both a problem. It’s worse when the ruling party does it, because they have more power.
> This entire anti-CAA protests are organized and funded and instigated by Opposition parties to create a Muslim vote bank, because they're upset that the ruling party consolidated the Hindu vote bank.
Something something "it is only censorship if the government does it," something something "deplatforming works," something something "private companies can do what they want."
I am a bit older than much of the Hacker News crew. I remember the right doing this kind of nonsense and thinking it was lousy. Watching the left take this sort of thing up a few decades later, only to act as if it could never possibly happen to them, has been disheartening.
People keep forging shackles and never pause to ask if the manacles might fit their wrists, as well.
> Watching the left take this sort of thing up a few decades later, only to act as if it could never possibly happen to them, has been disheartening.
The Modi government is also censoring content like this, and likely would take action against Hotstar if the streaming service hadn't preemptively done so. This is very different from the media landscape in the US, and inferring some relationship between Indian authoritarianism and western leftism is just inaccurate.
"The left" does not want Indian-style authoritarianism and purges of minorities.
Setting aside "Eliminate Whiteness" and the such, it isn't about racial purges -- it is about creating mechanisms of control, about the machinery of restriction, hence my metaphor.
Once that ability exists, once the assembly line is built, once the use of that control and restriction becomes normalized (see "localization"), nobody should be a tiny bit surprised if it happens in a way that they might not like. Perillos of Athens, who invented the instrument of tortue known as the brazen bull, had his own turn in it.
The Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse was perilously close to being accurate and people just seem to have gone along with it. Decades ago, I truly had thought that the left was too smart to fall for this sort of thing but evidently I was wrong.
We ought to be continuously on the lookout for this kind of thing and fighting it at every step, even for people whose views we find disagreeable, if for no other reason than the self-interest of hoping that it will not be our turn later on.
Private companies can do what they want, and like everything else, they are subject to criticism for it.
If I run a conference and un-invite someone from speaking for whatever reason, of course that is my right. And if members of the public want to criticize me for it, and make their own choices about whether to business with me on that basis, that is also their right.
This has nothing to do with this hand-wavey "Left" being hypocritical about anything. It's a company doing what it is legally allowed to do, and various members of the public having opinions about the company's choices.
If and when somebody is proposing a law to regulate that Disney has to give anti-authoritarians a voice, and that same somebody also proposed a law barring Disney from giving pro-authoritarians a voice, we can talk about hypocrisy or manacles or double-edged swords.
Perhaps a more apt analogy would be companies cannot violate Federal Trade Laws (easily) without facing serious repercussions.
While it may be unconstitutional to refuse service because of Race, it does happen. Perhaps not overtly. Speaking from my own experience as a "person of color", it's difficult to prove something happened because of my race.
And there are still plenty of examples of people's constitutional rights being violated--such as when Starbucks called the police on two black men, who were then arrested, despite not committing any crimes.
> While it may be unconstitutional to refuse service because of Race
Sadly, it actually is constitutional to refuse service based on race (or any other reason)—it's literally part of the 1st Amendment (aka Freedom of Association).
You are presumably referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which bans certain forms of exclusionary behavior and sort of "soft-repeals" that aspect of the 1st Amendment. Like anything else passed by Congress, it can be undone at any time. Unlikely, but in theory it could happen.
It's actually astounding (and a little scary) how much of modern American culture and laws are built on top of legislation passed in the 1960s. That legislation and subsequent enhancements almost functions as a parallel legal system today to the one enacted by the original constitution (and the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition more generally).
That said…I don't see a reversal coming any time soon and expect the Anglo-Saxon tradition (such as it is) to fade into the dustbin of history while the CRA and friends become more and more the law of the land over time.
In a very real sense "the law is whatever is enforced", and it's extremely clear that even things like Freedom of Speech are going to be re-assessed in the name of tolerance in the very near future. Europe already has much stricter rules on speech, and I expect the US to follow suit.
(I also expect the 2nd Amendment to be effectively repealed in the next 20-30 years as the baby boomers die off and no one still alive cares about owning a gun—but does care about not getting shot. I can easily imagine using the CRA as the legal vehicle to do so, something like a "right not to be shot" or whatever.)
I was thinking of the Equal Protection and Race in the constitution, aka the 14th amendment, but you are right. It was the Federal Civil Rights Act that actually made it a crime to discriminate.
I think this gets "complicated". There are night-clubs which cater to certain audiences and you may find it hard to gain admission if you're not invited. Maybe that's not a thing anymore. In particular I used to hear clubs that catered to specific international audiences, so they catered to that audience and excluded others.
I would think it applies to attendees and not necessarily to speakers. Like a conference on I dunno, Brazilian businesses, maybe they only want Brazilian speakers --I can'[t imagine there be a requirement for there to be any American speakers or any class.
> Like a conference on I dunno, Brazilian businesses, maybe they only want Brazilian speakers
AFAIK there's an exception if it's vital part of the job, like in that case (a conference about Brazillian businesses I presume). I was thinking more like, a node.js conference where you say "no muslim speakers allowed".
This is a government using implicit, extra legal threats to silence it's critics. As opposed to mass pro-democracy, human rights moments to counter pro-regime propaganda. People used to be able to tell the difference. For example, that's why apartheid ended.
Do you have a suggestion as to what to do about all the misinformation and hate out there? Clearly ignoring it or "drowning it out with correct information" is not working. I'm uncomfortable with censorship in any form, but am also not comfortable forcing companies to give a platform to sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic/etc. drivel.
Definitely acknowledge and agree that this deplatforming-by-companies mindset is backfiring in this particular case.
This only makes any sense if you believe that censorship will _only_ be used for misinformation, as opposed to information people do not like. Otherwise, you could end up raising the density of misinformation as "true" information is filtered out.
If YouTube existed a hundred years ago, and censorship of "misinformation" was an accepted practice, would there be any doubt that videos on women's suffrage, black rights, the perils of McCarthyism, that any of those would have stayed up?
Why? History has proven time and time again that more speech is better than less speech. Better it be out in the open and freely attacked, then hidden and locked away so it can dwell and grow in the dark moist corners.
Events over the past ~5 years seem to put that belief/pattern in doubt. While I'm not so arrogant as to definitively assert that our current time is the grand exception to the rule, I think it's worth examining that perhaps what we're doing to combat disinformation and racist/sexist/etc. speech isn't working.
Free speech cannot exist with free speech and so a line is drawn. That line is that a person can say whatever they want but they cannot force people to listen. Forcing people to listen to free speech violates free speech. You don't deserve a platform for free speech.
Censorship is censorship, whether it's voluntary and on your own servers or at the behest of the government. Blocking adults from communicating to other adults because you don't like it is not a nice thing to do.
What does "the left" have anything to do with something that's explicitly not about US politics and was done by an Indian company that happens to be owned by a US corporation that, even if involved with the decision, is doing it for financial and not political reasons?
You're right.. I've often scoffed at claims that present deplatforming as an ineffective or even dangerous strategy. But seeing these several multi-nationals go along with "self-censorship" whenever a repressive government asks is quite worrying.
The relationship between HBO, Hotstar, Star India, and Disney was still unclear to me after reading the article.
From the article:
> Hotstar, India’s largest on-demand video streaming service
> Hotstar is the exclusive syndicating partner of HBO, Showtime and ABC in India
> Star India, which operates Hotstar, and Disney, which owns the major Indian broadcasting network
From the wiki:
> Hotstar is an Indian over-the-top streaming service owned by Novi Digital Entertainment, a subsidiary of Star India, which itself is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.
Disney Owns Star India which has subsidiary company Novi Digital Entertainment that operates Hotstar. Hotstar is the exclusive syndicating partner of HBO, Showtime and ABC in India. Around this time next month, Hotstar will also have all the content of Disney Plus in India.
Ah, I had to read what was up. Star India only became part of Disney as a result of the 21st Century Fox, so like beginning of 2018.
For most of its life its been part of Fox, but when Disney bought them they ended up in the weird situation where Disney had the syndication rights to both competing services, but also it's own productions.
I agree, quite murky as international media agreements seem to be.
I expect they can make the claim that "family-friendly" and sanitized entertainment means never covering and exposing the "controversial" nature of the people in power. After all, in Disney, we take comfort that everything is alright and happy and everyone gets along! And further, people intentionally play to visit this constructed world.
This is a reminder that opting out of controversy means tacit approval of the existing power structures.
I usually stay out of these fights but suppressing facts or opinions is something I don’t support. People should be exposed to things they don’t want to hear and learn how to do deal with them.
[tangent time]
It's also very interesting looking back at Bambi in general. It's a mature story of growth as Bambi grows up to take his place in the world.
But it's the subtly, especially for a children's movie, is what surprises me the most. There isn't a huge callback to the event with his mother later in the film, it happens mostly off-screen, and while it's a catalyst from his period of innocence to being taken under the wing of his father, they handle it with reverence. A more heavy-handed take would have involved Bambi facing a similar situation and showing catharsis from that moment (see Lion King).
But instead Bambi takes a more naturalistic approach. Highly suggest folks go re-watch it with adult eyes if they haven't.
Most of the Disney movies where they use animals have decently mature parallel plots. Finding Nemo and Finding Dory are basically about coping with disability. Lion King is basically Hamlet. Etc.
I was more commenting on the handling of the matters in the story structure. Bambi is extraordinarily subtle and multi-faceted. Lion King, Finding [Nemo|Dory], and others are way more explicit about what one key moral they want to hammer home with callbacks and explicit cathartic reversals of previous events.
For example, Lion King makes it very explicit at the climax where Simba overcomes his trauma of the gorge with a flashback when he's in the exact same situation. And the 2nd callback of "Runaway and never return" cements his position.
Bambi gets catharsis off-screen completely during his time with his father. And really the main lesson of the story is the cycle of life and the process of growing up, a much broader topic.
I'm trans, I watch LGBT cartoons to relax, namely Steven Universe and She-Ra. Cartoon Network had to censor Steven Universe in several countries, and I doubt She-Ra plays in Saudi Arabia. Cartoons are a sensitive subject abroad, since they're seen as needing to be "kid friendly" (even adult cartoons to some degree), and LGBT content is usually seen as immoral, even if it's just lesbians holding hands. If Netflix and CN had completely folded to foreign political pressure, I'd have no shows to help me relax. Until recently, no queer cartoons existed for exactly this reason.
Not for me - or anybody else - to tell you how to spend your entertainment hours, but I encourage you to read this webcomic and consider your own choices: https://i.imgur.com/2H8gZq5.jpg
Those power structures are responsible for causing widespread misery. Inaction is something you might feel comfortable with, but your children, grandchildren and beyond may judge you for it if you never thought about where the lines should be and acted accordingly.
If many people are substantially harmed by wasting their time and energy on distractions, then those who waste less time will outcompete them. Whether the mechanism is common wisdom analogous to "don't drink alone or before the evening", parents teaching their kids in certain ways, religions that consider much "wasteful" entertainment to be sinful, or genes that contribute to conditions perhaps resembling autism where colorful flashy video registers as annoying or even painful, the problem seems likely to create its own solutions.
One of the premises of "Brave New World" is that all children are raised by the State, and are forcibly (a) oxygen-deprived in the womb to limit their intelligence and (b) subjected throughout childhood to indoctrination and hypnotherapy to make them say "I'm happy and content with my life, and my only desire is to chase consumer goods". I'm not sure why so many people seem to forget this.
Brave New World is also fiction. I'm the first to agree that fiction can be insightful and teach truths, but the fact that some author came up with a concept proves nothing.
That's the same logic that leads to putting sweeteners in every processed food item and the resulting epidemic of diabetes. What people reflexively want and what they actually need overlap to some degree, but there's a lot of money in trying to maximize that, to the detriment of the consumer.
Oh, completely agree! And I certainly don't begrudge people needing an escape/relaxation.
Just a reminder that those in power are banking on others giving up and pointing out the issues at play. It's very easy to sink into an opiate-driven world.
> I expect they can make the claim that "family-friendly" and sanitized entertainment means never covering and exposing the "controversial" nature of the people in power.
FWIW, this is a show on HBO, which doesn't exactly give viewers the same expectation of "family friendly, sanitized entertainment" as some other Disney properties.
> This is a reminder that opting out of controversy means tacit approval of the existing power structures.
No it doesn't. There are quite a few reasons why you might opt out of having a position of a controversial subject none of them mean you tacitly approve of the status quo.
Let's say I make hats. If I'm selling a hat with a Swastika, and I get a lot of sales for it, can I really say, "I'm not tacitly approving racism and neo-nazis, I just make hats. What I actually approve of, is making money without taking any responsibility for the social consequences of the choices I make to make money?"
Or if I sell cigarettes, can I say, "I'm not tacitly approving of cancer, What I actually approve of, is making money without taking any responsibility for the health consequences of the choices I make to make money?"
I think that when you do a thing to make money, and it has consequences, you are tacitly saying that you approve of the consequences.
I think that when you do a thing to make money, and it has consequences, you are tacitly saying that you approve of the consequences.
The problem is this logic is too simplistic and leads to purity spirals. If I sell food to someone who I know is a nazi, am I tacitly approving of the consequences of their actions?
> Let's say I make hats. If I'm selling a hat with a Swastika, and I get a lot of sales for it, can I really say, "I'm not tacitly approving racism and neo-nazis, I just make hats. What I actually approve of, is making money without taking any responsibility for the social consequences of the choices I make to make money?"
Who are you making the hats for? If you are making replica SS uniforms that are used in films and TV then probably not.
In Thailand there isn't the historical baggage of the Swastika. When I was over there I saw "HFC" literally "Hitler Fried Chicken", I don't think they were neo-nazis. I think something got lost in translation.
> Or if I sell cigarettes, can I say, "I'm not tacitly approving of cancer, What I actually approve of, is making money without taking any responsibility for the health consequences of the choices I make to make money?"
The smoker is quite capable of making his own choices. I smoke a cigar from time and time but I don't chain smoke cigarettes. Lets take a less extreme example, when you are selling a pint of beer at the bar are you "tacitly" approving of alcoholism. Obviously not.
> I think that when you do a thing to make money, and it has consequences, you are tacitly saying that you approve of the consequences.
> The smoker is quite capable of making his own choices. I smoke a cigar from time and time but I don't chain smoke cigarettes.
The fact that smokers are capable of making their own choices is irrelevant. I also smoke cigars, and if I decide to sell cigarettes or cigars, I am tacitly approving of some portion of my customers getting lung cancer, throat cancer, whatever.
That's literally what the word "tacit" means: Implied by or inferred from actions or statements.
I sell cigarettes, you can infer quite reasonably that I approve of a world in which some of the people ho give me money wind up with cancer.
Period, full stop. Why are we working so hard to give people wiggle room on this?
When it comes to firearm sales, pro-gun people will tell us that it's a shame about all those dead kids, but the greater good is served by having the freedom to own firearms with few restrictions or impediments.
Those people have no problem understanding that we make choices, and some of those choices lead to unpleasant outcomes, but we tacitly approve of those unpleasant outcomes as part of approving of some other outcome we value more.
They at least approve of a system where the exchange of currency for carbohydrates is a good system, especially since they gain wealth from it. They also agree with a system where if you have enough money they will sell you whatever you want at a set price. And yeah, some small portion of that population may get diabetes or become obese, and they are OK with that.
Versus, say, rationing and strict diet control from some other authority. Or all carbs are free. Or any other variety of other systems.
It doesn't mean they encourage poor outcomes, since typically poor outcomes is bad for business. Nor are they responsible. But they do approve that this system is good and participate in it.
And you can make your own judgement call if you think this system is "good" and one you want to participate in.
No, but they do tacitly agree that the economic exchange of currency in exchange for a liquid which will cause a changed chemical state in the imbiber and may (due to various factors and differing chances per person) lead to poor decisions, health issues, and addiction in said imbiber is a completely OK system.
Those who refuse to sell and/or consume alcohol don't believe it's an OK system.
Therefore, actions indicate belief and agreement of a system, in this case exchange of money for alcohol. Or, tacit agreement with the system.
> Those who refuse to sell and/or consume alcohol don't believe it's an OK system.
And? That is their belief. Which is fine. There is a middle ground of accepting that some people can live their whole lives having no problem with it while other people can't.
> Therefore, actions indicate belief and agreement of a system, in this case exchange of money for alcohol. Or, tacit agreement with the system.
No they don't because you are stretching the definition to the point where it doesn't really make sense.
The proper meaning of a tacit agreement is something like "They put a playstation in the break room, but everyone knows they shouldn't be seen playing it when the boss is in the office".
Not this "By not taking action against a system you are agreeing with the existing system". This is completely ridiculous because using your logic you can always define being almost completely passive as support for whatever you aren't acting against.
It is a ridiculous usage of the term. I shouldn't be surprised tbh as you completely engage in newspeak. I won't be replying to you again as you are quite clearly dishonest.
From my perspective opting out means no change. And no change means structures stay the same. Therefore, they persist and are maintained with your (weak) approval.
This is different from not taking a side on a subject. You can be open to and encouraging healthy debate. I recommend most rational folks to elevate the conversation and not hold strong affiliations for most topics! But removing yourself entirely to me seems to be an act that allows the status quo to persist.
Many people may not think it is their place to speak. Some people may think they wouldn't be the best person to advocate. Others might think other people speak better about it. Other people might not be in a position to speak about it.
In the UK we have many people who claim to talk for the "working class" that as one of my friends put it "looked like they have never done a day of heavy lifting in their life". I wouldn't speak on behalf of the working class, I do a white collar job.
> From my perspective opting out means no change. And no change means structures stay the same. Therefore, they persist and are maintained with your (weak) approval.
Does it? Many structures fall in under their own weight, many organisation reform from within. You are assuming the world and people within them around doesn't ever change. There is a whole bunch of assumptions you are making. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to do nothing.
I used to cycle to work every day. That was more effective to get my coworkers cycling in than any amount of advocacy I may have done verbally. Just yourself being the change you want in the world is sometimes sufficient.
> In the UK we have many people who claim to talk for the "working class" that as one of my friends put it "looked like they have never done a day of heavy lifting in their life". I wouldn't speak on behalf of the working class, I do a white collar job.
Let's take this rhetorical pattern for a spin around the block.
Here in the USA in the 19th century we had many people who claimed to speak for slaves who looked like they'd never been black a day in their lives. I wouldn't speak on behalf of slaves. I'm a free person.
Here in the UK during the Potato Famine we had many people who claimed to speak for starving Irish people who looked like they'd never been starving or Irish for a day in their lives. I wouldn't speak on behalf of the starving Irish. I'm well-fed and English.
Here in Wherever we have many people who claim to speak for sexually harassed women who look like they haven't been a woman for a day in their lives. I wouldn't speak on behalf of women. I'm a man.
Your example was also fatally flawed because it buys into the notion that white collar work is not working class.
White collar laborers are labor; they are not capital.
I make a couple hundred thousand dollars per year. I have far more in common with a nurse or a teacher or a store clerk than I do with somebody who was born with $10MM in a trust fund, and who makes as much as I do (by selling my full-time labor) just by buying and holding VTI.
Blue collar work means physical labour typically. White collar means office work and traditionally office work has been done by the middle class and the elite.
I will concede that In the last decade or those definition probably don't make any sense.
So maybe I should have said "traditional working class" to make the distinction.
To your first point (don't feel equipped/proper place), that's definitely true. But that doesn't mean you can't support those who are better advocates instead.
In your example, by ignoring the "working class" and their issues, you implicitly leave the existing (both good and bad) structures in place.
To the second (things change anyways), structures and the world reform due to pressure from individuals within and without. So, yes, perhaps you can hope the system changes without your input (and honestly due to human limitations you really shouldn't have involvement in every issue) but my point is ignoring the issue isn't purely neutral. You are instead offloading the responsibility of change to others. So my point is to point out how being "passive" is actually an "active" choice with consequences.
Interestingly, by cycling, many would argue you made an actual statement by your lifestyle that influenced others on a topic. This is why people use the term "everything is political." Your actions, as you noted, spoke louder than any verbal advocacy and changed people's lives. This leads to a similar statement, "be the change you wish to see." Because verbal advocacy is often easy and simple and valued much less persuasively than actions and lifestyle.
Does that make sense to you? Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding your positions? These are great questions and good examples!
> To your first point (don't feel equipped/proper place), that's definitely true. But that doesn't mean you can't support those who are better advocates instead.
And it doesn't mean I have to either.
> In your example, by ignoring the "working class" and their issues, you implicitly leave the existing (both good and bad) structures in place.
No I don't. I neither leave it in place or remove it.
> To the second (things change anyways), structures and the world reform due to pressure from individuals within and without. So, yes, perhaps you can hope the system changes without your input (and honestly due to human limitations you really shouldn't have involvement in every issue) but my point is ignoring the issue isn't purely neutral.
Sometimes things literally do stop existing when you don't pay attention to them e.g. I don't watch broadcast TV because I don't want to pay the TV license for something I barely watch anyway. I live my life as if it doesn't exist. So as far as I am concerned it doesn't exist unless I choose to pay attention to it.
> You are instead offloading the responsibility of change to others. So my point is to point out how being "passive" is actually an "active" choice with consequences.
Who made it my responsibility to change anything? Again there are a bunch of presumptions you have made in that statement and I don't think you even know you made them.
> Interestingly, by cycling, many would argue you made an actual statement by your lifestyle that influenced others on a topic.
There you go again. You are inserting assumptions in with the term "lifestyle". It wasn't a lifestyle. It was just cheaper and quicker to cycle.
> This is why people use the term "everything is political." Your actions, as you noted, spoke louder than any verbal advocacy and changed people's lives. This leads to a similar statement, "be the change you wish to see." Because verbal advocacy is often easy and simple and valued much less persuasively than actions and lifestyle.
No people use the term "everything is political" because they want to make everything political because it benefits them and their political agenda to make something that is apolitical, political.
>> To your first point (don't feel equipped/proper place), that's definitely true. But that doesn't mean you can't support those who are better advocates instead.
> And it doesn't mean I have to either.
Correct. Never said otherwise.
>> In your example, by ignoring the "working class" and their issues, you implicitly leave the existing (both good and bad) structures in place.
> No I don't. I neither leave it in place or remove it.
I think this encapsulates my point and where we disagree. Non-action means leaving what exists in existence and is an active choice.
> Sometimes things literally do stop existing when you don't pay attention to them e.g. I don't watch broadcast TV because I don't want to pay the TV license for something I barely watch anyway. I live my life as if it doesn't exist. So as far as I am concerned it doesn't exist unless I choose to pay attention to it.
Hm, to quote Momento, pretty sure the world still exists when I close my eyes. I get you're making a bit of a "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it" argument, but by choosing to ignore broadcast television it 1) doesn't mean it doesn't exist to others and 2) you are actually removing attention/power/money from broadcast television. So I'm not sure that's a particularly good counter example.
>> You are instead offloading the responsibility of change to others. So my point is to point out how being "passive" is actually an "active" choice with consequences.
> Who made it my responsibility to change anything? Again there are a bunch of presumptions you have made in that statement and I don't think you even know you made them.
OK, perhaps not my best wording. Nobody says you have the responsibility, or perhaps a better term is obligation, to change anything. But you do have the inherent opportunity, and by opting out you surrender that opportunity to others to do as they see fit.
My point isn't to say go out and do EVERYTHING. I'm trying to draw out the notion that inaction isn't completely void and has zero effect on the world around you. So, in effect, you have an opportunity cost of what things you act on and what things you ignore. I'm trying to draw awareness to those choices of things you ignore as still having an effect.
Here's the thing though, if I'm not already an effective political actor (i.e. someone with a lot of money, or a significant network of people who listen to me, or in a position of control over an institution with proxy access to either of those), the opportunity cost of doing nothing is basically zero.
The assertions that "inaction is a choice" or "political disengagement is a privilege" are coming from a place of naive idealism about the reality of affecting change in modern societies. There's an enormous threshold of activation energy one has to cross to be an efficacious actor against existing large scale power structures, and anything short of it is basically not going to make a difference.
The reality of scale in our world as currently configured is that one private individual could do all the conscientious things - boycott the right things, recycle the right things, vote for the right things - and nothing will change. Even a thousand or a million such individuals randomly distributed doing the exact same things, still wouldn't make a significant difference. Only by acting in coordinated networks would change come about, and it would be driven by the powerful individuals or organizations doing the coordinating, having expended enormous energy to do so. Most people aren't suited to or interested in expending that kind of energy to lead such efforts, and we shouldn't be made to feel guilty for just wanting to go about our lives without trying to "make a difference".
Definitely agree on these points! And I'm not trying to shift people to feeling guilty or pushing to "make a difference" as much as examine how inaction is also a choice that can matter.
As you point out, though, as an individual against the powers and machinery of society and businesses, often our single lives actions seem trivial in making a measurable difference.
Thus why others argue the correct solution is organization and coordination. Join party X! Donate to organization Y! Spread the word to your friends to boycott Z! etc etc. Then you are a part of the effort and your actions magnified, even if you aren't necessarily the leader expending all that energy.
Granted, the counter-point is usually that such organizations can become corrupted and serve other values such as self-existence and thus must also be seen with suspicion... but I won't go down hat rabbit hole.
Personally I think even a small personal live's difference does matter, even if only to myself. A bit of a Thoreau view. But that's just my personal take and I don't begrudge those over whelmed and burned out, nor those who continue to flood my newsfeed with calls to action for their causes.
But my takeaway is opting out is still a choice that has an effect. It lets what exists persist due to inertia, or at minimum gives away your vote to others who are more motivated. That is neither good nor bad, but another tool to remind yourself that you have.
> Hm, to quote Momento, pretty sure the world still exists when I close my eyes. I get you're making a bit of a "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it" argument, but by choosing to ignore broadcast television it 1) doesn't mean it doesn't exist to others and 2) you are actually removing attention/power/money from broadcast television. So I'm not sure that's a particularly good counter example.
No it is a very good example. By me not doing anything in this case the existing system (the BBC in this case) will simply become irrelevant (which is actually happening). I didn't have to say anything or do anything. The world simply changed around it (Netflix and Youtube basically) which is what I said previously.
There is nothing active about it. You are engaging in newspeak. You are trying to define not doing something as doing something.
> Non-action means leaving what exists in existence and is an active choice.
What sort of newspeak is this? Non-action is an active choice. Next you will be telling me Freedom is Slavery or I am actively resting my posterior on the sofa.
This is newspeak and what you are trying to do is drag me into participating in how you define things. I am not playing that game.
> By me not doing anything in this case the existing system (the BBC in this case) will simply become irrelevant (which is actually happening). I didn't have to say anything or do anything. The world simply changed around it (Netflix and Youtube basically) which is what I said previously.
Conversely, if you and enough people did watch the BBC, it would stay relevant, right?
No. Because there are younger people that grew up with better alternatives. The world has moved on.
You keep on assuming the rest of the world is static. Even if the numbers in my generation stayed that watched broadcast TV until we died. Once we are dead there isn't likely to be the same number of people replacing us is there? Nothing our end needed to change but the world did anyway.
I'm actually assuming the world is incredibly non-static, and your choices make a difference.
"The world has moved on" to me says enough people decided collectively X was better than Y. Great! It's amazingly fascinating that somehow each of these individuals somehow chose the alternative. They chose alternatives due to preferences! And those choices included not watching broadcast television (or at least ignoring it). And you're one of them. Congrats, you're part of "the world."
Similarly, we could create a static world with exact numbers of population and some % always watch broadcast TV for X hours. But we seem to not like that and instead choose differently.
Obviously this doesn't stack up all the way. The world has a funny way of inserting chaos beyond our control. But by and large a lot of society is controlled by a lot of individuals making either consciously or unconsciously making choices to act or not act. And thus my point, not acting is itself a choice that has consequences.
> But by and large a lot of society is controlled by a lot of individuals making either consciously or unconsciously making choices to act or not act.
You can't unconsciously make a choice. This is patently ridiculous.
> "The world has moved on" to me says enough people decided collectively X was better than Y. Great! It's amazingly fascinating that somehow each of these individuals somehow chose the alternative. They chose alternatives due to preferences! And those choices included not watching broadcast television (or at least ignoring it). And you're one of them. Congrats, you're part of "the world."
I was clearly speaking about "the world" as things outside of my control. You again have failed to address the specific scenario I made in an ingenious manner.
This is very much like the motte and bailey tactic of argumentation.
I'm sure their motivations are primarily profit, but if appeasing Indians appalled by the idea of criticism of their government was their sole concern, they didn't have to put it on YouTube...
This isn't exactly a democracy-crushing deal as most people paint this to be, nor is this Disney trying to be family friendly. HBO shows, including ones which definitely aren't family-friendly/politically correct, are on Hotstar Premium, which is a paid subscription that costs about $15 a year. A majority of the people don't use Premium , they watch a lot of hostar videos for free / pay a smaller amount for sports, and neither of these options have HBO. A lot of people have seen the Modi clip on Youtube already.
Personally I don't even think there was anything new in the episode, most of it is common knowledge in India and the show is geared towards an American audience which might not know the full picture. I guess it's just Hotstar being ultra-safe, which IMO they don't need to be.
> The law helps State-sanctioned-persecuted religious minorities from neighboring countries
If I recall the law in question correctly, it helps members of certain religious sects, while managing to exclude the one religious sect that is actually being actively persecuted by its government on a massive scale--the Muslim Rohingyas in Burma.
persecuted by government and persecuted by State-sanction(Constitution) are different. One government could decide it hates X group and persecute them, it doesn't mean the constitution of that country supports it.
> Bold claim considering radical Islam is responsible for most of terrorist acts in the world.
Using https://www.start.umd.edu/sites/default/files/publications/l... as my data source, I don't think radical Islam is responsible for a majority of terrorist acts. A plurality, yes; but they don't cross the 50% threshold I think. Note that half of the organizations responsible for more than 100 attacks each are not Islamist organization.
This is ridiculous. India is a democracy. Spirited debate and criticism is salutary and necessary. I am deeply disappointed by this decision. It only strengthens those voices in the subcontinent that equate critique to betrayal.
That makes it sound like it's a binary thing. There's an ever-mutating spectrum that all countries are placed on. There's always some "democratic" countries that have so little generational experience being one that they still don't quite understand how to behave like one. Corruption and authoritarianism comes so easily. Arguably the same is true for the other end of the spectrum: countries that have relished the pleasures of democracy for so long that they forget why it's a big !@#$ing deal to protect free speech in all its forms.
You end up with countries with a natural inclination to shut John Oliver up and other countries who don't realise they need to be very upset about, and resistant to the forces that push for that.
So Hitler doesn't have as negative a connotation in india and most of the non-western world just like Churchill doesn't have as negative a connotation in israel or the west as he does in india or the rest of the non-western world.
History is much more complex than we are told it is. It isn't black and white. That's why traveling is so important. You realize that everyone is living in their own little bubble.
Please tell me exactly how India’s stance on prioritizing Christians, Buddhists, Hindus etc is worse than the US stance of prioritizing just Christians
Both are bad? I'd think most people who disagree with Modi's government's policies also disagree with the policies of the Trump administration. Both countries are pluralistic democracies without state religions.
The state does not always have to directly constrain speech to create an environment hostile to free expression. Though they've certainly censored media connected to controversial topics like Kashmir before. In a sense, this sort of voluntary self-censorship is even more concerning, because it reflects a certain political temperature.
I believe they shut down all internet access in Kashmir, for months, following the conversion of Kashmir from a State into a Territory. Internet is now "back", in the sense that only 300+ white sites are now accessible again.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/world/asia/kashmir-intern...
So yeah... India is a troubled democracy with a tenuous relationship with freedom of speech.
So how to draw the distinction between this sort of self-censorship and the self-censorship that has often been seen as a positive outcome by those who defend it with the rational that the company is a private organization and isn't beholden to offer any concepts such as freedom of speech?
If you are one interested in the Trump visit of India or Indian socio-political dynamics and haven't watched John Oliver's latest episode, I implore you did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVIXUhZ2AWs.
It ranks amongst his best and he presents a powerful summary of the current Indian political dynamic.
Oliver introduces Trump's visit to India against the backdrop of a blithe Indian media that seems more interested in figuring out whether the US first lady and the President will make an unscheduled visit to the famous Taj Mahal. The Indian TV reporter describes the Taj Mahal as the "enduring symbol of love". There are also quick depictions of throngs of (Modi accolytes) fawning at the US President's arrival and Trump's total lack of understanding of recent Indian history vis-a-vis Modi's complicity in the Gujrat riots - Trump calling Modi the great unifier and father of India (face palm).
This introduction is then used by Oliver in what is a complete 15 minute virtuoso rout of any shred of reverence, esteem or dignity for both Modi and Trump. Something to behold. Oliver does this with crucial evidence showing Modi's divisive Hindu nation-state ideologies linked absurdly (only because it is true) to Hitler's Nazi ideologies! It is simultaneously comical, absurd and terrifying. Then there are revelations of the ruling party's (BJP's) systematic attempt at revising Indian history in school curricula - excoriating the proud history of India's secural founding "fathers" in favour of aspects of bizarre creationist style text about the origins of different races! (I balked).
This episode stands out as one of Oliver's best because he crafted the best "shit sandwich" argument I've seen in a while. He neatly folds the absurd proposition made by Trump that Modi is a unifier of the people. But only ironically for the opposite reason! The Sunday punch lands with "Because India, home of this enduring symbol of love (points to the image of the Taj), frankly deserves a lot more than this (points to the mugshot of Modi) temporary symbol of hate."
>Authorities used sedition and criminal defamation laws to stifle peaceful dissent. In October, police in Bihar state filed a case of sedition against 49 people, including well-known movie personalities, for writing an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing concerns over hate crimes and mob violence targeting minority communities. Following widespread condemnation, authorities closed the case within days.
>Journalists were harassed, even detained, for their reporting or critical comments on social media, and faced increasing pressure to self-censor. In September, police in Uttar Pradesh filed a criminal case against a journalist for exposing mismanagement of the government’s free meal scheme in government schools. In June, police arrested three journalists, accusing them of defaming the Uttar Pradesh state chief minister.
The article states that what would be the responsible government body [0] was not involved in the decision. My guess is that this is on Disney alone, just them avoiding controversy as a general rule.
I'm not familiar with India's laws either but if it's anything like the US than they are free to censor whatever they want, they are a private company, not the government.
[0] A spokesperson of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, the governing agency which regulates information, broadcasts, movies and the press in India, said the government was not involved in any censorship discussions.
At least Modi/BJP have to live with it being available on YouTube. If they try to block it, it'll get much more publicity amongst his supporters who won't see it otherwise. There are few to none Disney subscribers here in India.
Somewhat important clarification from the headline: Disney blocked the episode in India. Having not watched LWT in a while, I was confused about how Disney could stop HBO (not owned by Disney) from airing an episode.
This article title is disingenuous since its a previously Fox owned Indian broadcaster decided to block something the Indian government might not like, which is broadcast on HBO. I highly doubt Disney even cared or even paid attention to it until the clickbait headline.
The other big thing here is Amazon censored/removed a Madam Secretary episode that talks about religious extremism in India. At least with John Oliver's episode, Hotstar might have feared retaliation from Modi but the Amazon thing is bizarre.
Other than pointing out the fact that Hindu nationalists are hateful violent supremacists who remove citizenship from Indian Muslims and are already building concentration camps for them.
Assuming good faith I invite you to try and learn more about the CAA (law in question). I don’t know why people keep saying it takes away citizenship of Indian Muslims when it only provides citizenship to persecuted non muslim minorities from neighbouring countries because of the promise made when the partition on the basis of religion was done. The minorities are living in hell in Pakistan (girl kidnapped from her marriage ceremony to be forcefully “wedded” to a Muslim guy) and to a lesser extent in Bangladesh. Minorities dropped from 20% to less than 2%. While in India it rose from 14M to 200M.
It also doesn’t give citizenship to people who have already not entered India before 2014.
On the issue of non inclusion of Muslims, it’s just practically not possible when you have more than 30,000,000 illegal immigrants from Bangladesh according to 90s figures, unless you want to just give citizenship to everybody.
India has extremists of every religion like everywhere else. Some people only ever see Hindu extremism. They are either removed from reality or have an agenda.
Radical Hinduism more dangerous than radical Islam? No way. Have you lost all critical thinking?
We are protesting this because india is a secular country that is on its way to become a theocratic Hindu nationalist country. We say that modi is making India a Hindu Pakistan.
You see, we consider that derogatory. Pakistan is derogatory. It's because Pakistan is already a theocratic country, and even with CAA and NRC, India is better for its religious minorities.
India shouldn't discriminate her citizens based on religion that is understandable but to expect that she must also treat Muslim and non-Muslim citizens of Islamic countries as equally suffering refugees would be a discrimination.
>excessively critical of Modi outside of Oliver's usual needling shtick.
I don't know why you left that particular key context in the sentence out of the quote, because Oliver wasn't excessively critical of Modi. I think you are mistaking my comment for defending the BJP, which it's not.
I did mention that Oliver was ripping into the BJP, which is the nationalist party you mention.
And the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) is just bunch of misunderstood non facist folks who love khaki uniforms and absolutely have no agenda against the Muslim citizens of India.
Can you please point that out? Your previous statement is factually incorrect. The law in question (CAA) grants a one time amnesty to religiously persecuted minorities from neighboring countries of India. Heck, even Sri Lankan Tamils (Hindus) are not included since that was a sectarian conflict. And that amnesty is one time for anyone who came in before December 2014. For the rest, the existing path to naturalize in 11 years remains. It does not affect any existing citizen whatsoever.
Regarding NRC, it was a supreme court mandated exercise which was hastily done in Assam without a well thought out process. There has been no proposal issued about a nationwide NRC and what it would look like. The govt also clarified there are no plans to execute NRC anytime the future.
I thought this forum is more on facts and less on rhetoric. I abhor the banning of anything critical but we should be wary of misinformation at the same time.
I assume you're speaking of the Communist Party of China, and not the Community College of Philadelphia?
Richard Gere has publicly stated that Hollywood extends courtesy censorship for things that may "offend" the ruling government of China. His claim (which I am in no position to validate or invalidate) is that this comes from a combination of Chinese investment in global films, as well as the value of distributing films in China.
He says his own career vanished when he chose to speak out on the subject of Tibet.
I'm surprised they air John Oliver's verbal diarrhea there at all. It's highly US specific, and moreover US liberal specific. I don't see why Indians would be interested in much of what he says _before_ it was banned. Now they'll probably watch it though.
It's like some crank in Germany thought that Merkel was literally Hitler, and spoke about it every night. Would you watch this in the US? I would not.
It's not always US specific, Oliver has had pieces on other world leaders such as BoJo and Brexit, and Bolsonaro to name a couple.
A lot of the feature pieces are US-centric but a fair bit of US politics still applies on the world stage, plus it is interesting to learn how many US systems like healthcare and pharmaceuticals are completely broken.
I disagree. Oliver seems to have a pretty international audience (and a personal ancedote, I have cousins in India who watch him). He covers international current events quite often and HBO content is widely distributed internationally, not to mention YouTube etc.
The same criteria you use to identify a "white nationalist", use that to find among your upper caste Hindu software counterparts and poke them on minority rights, Islamophobia and so on. They are the inventors of bigotry and racism through their caste system.
Learn for yourself. And as they say, the truth will set you free.
No, that's just... not true at all. Yes, there are some bigoted people -- of any race/caste/socioeconomic class -- but to automatically assume that all, or even a significant number, of my Indian co-workers are like that is just bigotry on your part.
I talked about Hindu bigotry and you counter with "look at Muslims...". This is called "Whataboutery", is there a link on Reddit for that as well?
You and your brethren - the Hindu savarna crowd - invented bigotry and racism through your varna caste system, centuries before a white man came to know about a continent called Africa. And now like the British before you, you have transformed yourself into harmless software programmers wearing a suit and boot. But you are nothing but a cauldron of hate and bigotry.
Living in land where your own rights are protected by US constitution, and then you want exact opposite to minorities in India.
So, the US government should pass a law that would, I don't know, fine or sanction some company because they _didn't_ release some tv show or movie? In a jurisdiction the US doesn't have any control over? That in itself would have some weird first amendment issues.
I don't see any indication that the Indian government censored this. It appears to be Disney curating it's own platform and making marketing decisions about content.
A more recent incident is about an actress showing solidarity with students against violence in JNU, a left leaning university. The next movie ratings were grounded.
Bias of Indian media houses makes Fox feel like champion of truth and journalism.
In a nutshell, nothing to do with Disney, it must be pragmatic decision by Indian subsidiary to play safe.