Slashdot Mirror
Google Aids Indian Goverment Censorship
An anonymous reader writes "Google's Orkut has made a deal to provide IP addresses of posters of content deemed objectionable by Bombay police. They object, among others, to posts against certain Indian personalities, young women admiring Indian mobsters, and, amazingly, "anti-Indian words" (!)."
Finally, something we can be happy about getting outsourced...sorta.
....Whats that knocking at my door?
I'm usually in the "whatever, they have to do business" crowd with google, but this isn't in any grey area, it's downright black.
Well if Google doesnt bow to the Indian government they will lose money. The "dont be evil" mantra would seem to contradict this move.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
It's *Mumbai*, you anti-Indian clod!
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: slashdot.org
Address: 66.35.250.150
It hasn't been named Bombay in years.
/no-karma anon
Then again, that's not how you spell "Government" either.
Also - read the end of the not-so-fine article. Yes, undoubtedly there's evil at play. On the other hand, if something illegal was done (the police were involved, one can only sadly assume the 'posting of picture with derogatory comments' was of an illegal nature over there), there shouldn't be any reason for Orkut protecting the suspect perp. Though filing a subpoena for the information (thus not bypassing the judicial system) would be much preferable.
Great news. The sooner Google acts like a real corporation the better.
It's time to stop this "Don't be evil" BS and get on with its obligation to its shareholders.
Having said that, if DBE actually does bring in more profit, or BE brings down profit, Google is then expected to DBE.
In short, act like a business and protect the bottom line, not teh "line".
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
Interesting that the article puts such a positive spin on the ability of the cops to "nail" their suspects in this way.
Thats nothing. Read below the comments on the article, where police blame Orkut for helping organize a party where drugs were used.
Seriously. Orkut used to organize party = Drugs used at party = Orkut bad? I don't think so.
I thought India was atleast a pretend democracy?
Does Google leadership believe that "Do no evil" "Obey all laws"?
Or have they simply abandoned "Do no evil" in favor of, "Do not much evil, and even then only do it if you want to gain a foothold in countries with rapidly growing economies."?
I've defended Google's China policy, but it seems like they're just flat-out in the wrong on this one (assuming, that is, that we're getting the whole story here.) I am having a very hard time seeing what greater good is served here. In China they are withholding information their users want. Not great but they are at least servicing the users' requests, just not as fully as one would prefer. Here they are giving out information their users presumably expected to remain private, in direct opposition to their users' intentions. Bad Google.
What part of "Do No Evil" is difficult to understand?
Maybe you should hire a couple linguists to complement your thousands of engineers.
What about Sergei's recent public hand wringing that Google's deal with the Chinese Communist Party was a mistake?
8 39238
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/27/1
Shows how disingenuous that hand wringing was.
On the bright side, at least Google aren't just cutting deals with totalitarian governments. They're now making political censorship deals with democratically-elected governments too! A Googlestroika, if you will.
In addition to the fact that many Indians are not as urbane, tolerant, and well-educated as those one encounters in the US, one has to take into account the fact that India is much more diverse ethnically and religiously than the United States, and that many potentially hostile groups live in close proximity. While I don't agree with such censorship, I can understand the desire of the Indian government to keep everybody happy and avoid bloodshed.
17th century, actually: 1680.
Expect a similar move from the Turkish government soon.
Precisely. I am an immigrant Indian living in the US and I personally feel insulted by that bias, positive as it may be. It results in a weird kind of prejudice wherein if you do something outstanding people are like "well, duh, they're all like that. Big effing deal :P". And under achievement (relative to the OTHER Indians) is reportedly grounds for deportation in some IT companies. To be perfectly clear, I have experienced the first one personally. Since I don't work in IT (merciful Deus :P), I have only heard of the latter (probably hyperbole so please don't bore me by responding to it all at once :P)
It's quite simple - Gaussian distributions are fairly universal. We have our share of nut cases in India, as also religious fundamentalists that could make Pat Robertson blush (well, that's not possible, but you get my drift. Luckily, no one like Ted Haggard as yet =D), awful movies that seem to be cast out of an industrial mold, and idiots of every variety. Also of note are the "lazyass armchair historians" who feel that it is enough to have a rich heritage but who make no effort on their own part to build a better present or plan for a glorious future.
In short, India is just like any other country, including this one. There's good folks and bad folks. There's eminently sensible people on the one hand and the farking idiots on the other. Am I surprising anyone here? :P
More to the point, I am a member of the social site they mention (Orkut) and it's a little silly that someone actually sues Google for "anti-Indian sentiments". Sheesh, get a thicker skin FFS :P. Why would any sensible person be offended by the comments of some random hate monger? Too much time on their hands I suppose :P. Treat opinions like spam people. You just don't read them all. *roll*
The thing about the underworld dons is a horse of a different color. What non-Indians should know is that the "underworld" in India is NOT exactly analogous to the mafia here or the drug cartels in South America. It's a far worse problem than that. To be more precise, the specific don named Dawood Ibrahim can probably be characterized as the Indian version of Osama Bin Laden crossed with Al Capone. In other words, terrorism coupled with the usual kind of racketeering. And there's more noobs like this guy. The Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay) blasts of 1993 is a good example (I was actually in school near where they happened back then *brrr*). There's some more recent stuff as well, which I have not been following much in the news.
Suffice to say, if Indians wanted to establish something akin to the Patriot Act, these are the dudes who'll be first on the dinner menu :P. So, not SO crazy in this PARTICULAR instance. I would suggest that they not try to close them down though. Illegally hacking into them and monitoring them might be more profitable in the long-term ;-). What are Intelligence Agencies for anyway? LOL
For using the anglicised colonial name for Mumbai. The fact that 'Bombay' is not found in the article makes this transposition appear to be a purposeful and hostile action.
Can anybody find sources other than the Indian Express reporting on this? If the article is accurate, my overall impression of Google will be substantially decreased, but I'd like to make sure the information is solid. Right now the only sources I can find are the Indian Express or other sources re-reporting it.
Kinda reminds me of George Orwell's Animal Farm, where the revolutionary sheep are initially chanting "four legs good, two legs bad", but after the corruption has set in, and the head animals are enjoying human comforts, the chant changes to "four legs good, two legs better".
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Clusty has the best clustered results by far. I think if they can speed up their engine speed for faster response they can be a legit competitor to google overtime.
This move by Google has left me really worried. Orkut has become extremely popular in India, and politicians and the Government are not happy with it. The reason : people creating communities which they feel are 'anti-Indian', fake profiles, etc. Every day here i see stories about how a police complaint, or a law-suit is filed against such an orkut community. While the so-called 'illegal' communities are mostly pranks, the government acts real serious about them. I'll give you a small (and to me, truly horrifying) example : A few students in my sister's school opened up their school community, and started posting 'lies' about the school authorities (which in reality are the bitter truths). A police complaint was filed against those students and everything - and now if Google is so ready to comply with such people, then i guess it pretty much means game-over for free-speech on the internet in India.
/.
PS: Hope that Google doesn't provide _my_ IP address. Or even
Its not a troll.
List of nifty little phrases that have bitten their speakers in the ass:
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Mod parent +1 (or at least 1 :P)Insightful.
Let the moderators do their jobs; they don't need your 2c.
Rule # 1 - Do no evil
Rule # 0 - Make money
So much for those Bollywood jokes on Conan!
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Well, China has Google filtering search results. Now Orkut is giving IP info to Mumbai officials to ensure that "anti-Indian" speech is not propagated through the "tubes". What's next, the American government spying on their own citizens and abusing the law that was put in place to allow them to do it?
Wait a minute...
"The only constant in the universe is change." - Unknown author
How the hell is this censorship? the police are asking Google amongst others to share information about people who may be linked to mafia organizations. They were already blocking these sites as they appeared you realy might want to do a bit more research before you start having knee jerk reactions every time Google does something involving an authority. PS Supporters of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawood_IbrahimDawood_ Ibrahim are who they are interested in. Doesn't seem like a very nice guy
PSS How fucking clean does Google have to be before you people will be happy? Really for god sakes get a hold of yourselves their a damn corporation they do have certain obligations to something other then the set of morales you seem to think they should have when you cant even maintain such a clean lifestyle.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
So far Google has caved when secular governments have gone after people for civil disobedience.
I wonder what they'd do in an officially Muslim like Iran if someone posted a blog saying, "I was a Muslim but I converted to Christianity", and the government demanded that Google turn over that person's identifying information?
If Google refused, then they're giving up on the broad claim that their presence a blessing to a country regardless of what censorship / person-finding they assist with. If they went along with it, then they show the true vacuousness of their "moral" reasoning.
I don't want such a test case to arise, but I'd be (morbidly) curious to see how it plays out.
Keep in mind that the Chhatrapati retaliation thing was done by a small group of nutjobs (Sambhaji brigade), and the worst they did was raid the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune. No lives were lost, although there was property damage. It was a response to that racist turd James W. Laine publishing a defamatory tirade against Chattrapati Shivaji (one that had precisely zero historical validity or credibility by the way). Also keep in mind that Chattrapati Shivaji is a vital and iconic figure to most Marathas. He was the first warrior in medeival Maratha history to unite the clans into a Confederation that rivaled and eventually exceeded the Mughal Empire in extent and glory. By all historical accounts he was learned, articulate, a brilliant military tactician, a religious pluralist (he revered both Hindu saints like Tukaram as well as Sufi Muslim pirs like Yacob Avaliya) and significantly more tolerant towards different religions than that Islamic Fundamentalist genocidal iconoclastic lunatic Aurangzeb in the Mughal Empire, the inventor of guerilla methods of warfare, an accomplished equestrian etc. All this has created a whole ethos surrounding Shivaji in Marathi culture, much like Robert Bruce in Scotland or Charlemagne in France. If somebody made fun of Robert Bruce in Edinburgh, there would be thousands of Scotsmen in kilts chasing him right off of Arthur's Seat or wherever. So while one can't approve of Sambhaji Brigade's actions, one can certainly understand it in the broad context of human behaviour over cultural icons.
And compare this little spat over Shivaji to the worldwide riots by Muslims over some otherwise insignificant cartoons of Muhammad (incl our Mujahid friends in Kashmir), and you will see that it really was not that big of a deal.
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
After reviewing the articles I've come to the conclusion that while I don't condone investigating people for hate-speech against India that I see no problem with investigating the source of a mob boss fan club. Even applying the U.S. constitution (which of course India is not held to) I would see no problem with this. The police can and should investigate something like this. If it turns out it's someone not connected to the criminal then that's fine. But if it turns out that it's part of a conspiracy to drum up public support and poison the jury pool then that is an entirely different matter. Who's to say that this anonymously submitted article is not part of that conspiracy?
I believe Google did the right thing by turning over records to the police. Anonymity is not sacrosanct. Freedom to say what you want is, and if that is not allowed in India then that should be changed. However, impeding a criminal investigation is not a good way to bring about change.
I wish I could point out a specific attribution but it's not a new concept that one must work within ones societal rules to change society for the better. I believe it is mentioned at least a few times in the new testament and most likely in other religious and philosophical texts as well.
What's so surprising about this move? Google like any other company aims to make money. Like I've been saying all along, this "don't be evil" mantra is an elaborate ploy to make them look like angels and ask no questions.
Remember how we supported microsoft against IBM a few decades ago when IBM was considered the oppressor and microsoft the liberator?
If it hurts their bottom line, they will toe the line. Google has a huge dev center in Bangalore, and many other cities in India. If they screw with the government, they are in for it. That's the bottom line. That's why they are bending over backwards and opening their thighs for the cops.
Don't be evil (to white people living in western nations.)
-GiH
I fail to see the point made by people proclaiming this move is not censorship. It violates the principle of free speech by giving the state the right to prosecute someone who has different opinions. This *is* censorship - not enforced by google, but rather one enforced by the fear of being prosecuted. And this is where google comes in - they are doing all they can to put you behind bars if the govt. asks them to.
..%((_$$ NO CARRIER.
Four legs good, two legs
From what I can tell, the reason their response is slow is because they're pulling in results from other search engines. In fact, how can they compete with Google when they depend so thoroughly on it?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
So, should they stop their UK operations as well, since UK is a 'surveillance society'? Should they close their French and German departments, because these countries censor pro-Nazi and revisionist websites, among other things? Should they abandon Russia because Putin is building his 'vertical of power' with sometimes questionable methods? Should they say goodbye to the United States as well because the US is the world's largest aggressor, and has killed millions of foreign civilians in the past 50 years? FACE IT. All governments are evil. That's not good, and that's not bad: it's a fact of life. A government cannot behave like a Barbie-playing girl. Governments are there because they have might, and as soon as they lose their might, they are displaced by a revolt or an invasion.
As far as your comment like "The rest of India, is as smart as the cow." goes I would like to share some interesting things: India produces average 300,000 Engineers every year. India produces more than 400,000 science graduates every year. Getting an education in arts is a shame in India.If you are an arts graduate it is a shame. Indian Engineering Services is very tough to clear. Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad is the toughest B School to get into. Indian engineering entrance exams are tough and JEE is very very tough to crack. I suggest you go and solve I.E.Irodov Problems in General Physics now. Indians who clear JEE to get in to IIT, solve it in SCHOOL. Indians are very good at maths. If you think they are not then go and solve the complete paper of Pre Engineering Maths. Please check how many countries borrowed rocket engineering from Germany and then implemented it. Indians did on their own. To become an IPS Officer(Indian Police Services) you need to clear UPSC which is one of the toughest exam for administrative services anywhere in world. As a NATION India has every right to do what it feels is correct for it.
Then change the system, don't hold on to the old days when the real world didn't know about the internet.
I come from the BBS era and as such have gone through that magic time when the internet was just for techies. Nobody knew about it and it was a grand time. No ads, no spam, no leet speak, just men, real men and stuff geeks cared about. (Star Trek ASCII Porn mostly)
And then things changed, more people found out about it and with them came the coorperations, the criminals (often hard to tell the difference) and finally the politicians.
The early days of the net are over, no longer is it free and unregulated because nobody knew about it, it now has to live in the real world.
What you describe above has always been illegal, good or bad, that is the way your country is run. For a couple of years the internet was a safe heaven, a new playground were the rules were not yet enforced. Great BUT it sadly has made many of us think that this was going to last forever or even worse, that this was a normal state of affairs. That somehow it is NORMAL for there to be a HUGE and PUBLIC yet totally unregulated segment of daily life.
Simple example, child porn. Trading it in the real world has been illegal for decades in most countries, if you were caught sending it through the mail you would be prosecuted and the laws for the police to be able to check the mail are well established. I believe in the US they even got a special police force for doing that. NOBODY seems to protest this capability. Your postal mail CAN and will be checked, customs officials especially can open any package they want. When was the last time you succesfully protested your luggage being seached? Hell, they can even do a full cavity search with absolutly no evidence of wrong doing.
Yet somehow, for a period of time we could send digital data across the globe without anybody paying the slightest bit of attention. It was great but it was not going to last, sooner or later the real world would notice it and demand that the same laws that apply in the physical world be applied to the digital world. That email should be able to be checked in the same way as regular mail.
Just because the Internet operated in a grey area doesn't mean that this has become the law.
Think of it like this, if a black market operates in your area and stays unnoticed/unhindered for years that does NOT make it at any time legal, when the police after a decade finally moves in it is NOT a valid defence to say, "but we got so used to it, please let it stay the way it is".
We are now faced with the reality that real world laws are finally being applied to the net, no longer do we have this safe heaven that the police hadn't figured out yet.
We can now do two things, cry about it, pray that the police will somehow loose their memory and forget about the internet once again OR change the laws. Not just the laws regarding the internet but ALL laws that affect us.
Don't fight for the right of bloggers, fight for the rights of ALL journalists. Don't protest against snooping on email FIGHT against ALL snooping laws.
There was a time when you had publicly available usenet groups were people openly posted child porn without even bothering to hide were it came from. That era is past us. It would do a pedofile absolutly no good to protest an arrest because the internet should be free. If a pedophile wants to do what he does he should change the laws in the real world, just because the internet has given them a safe heaven for ten years does not mean that is going to continue.
Change the world, don't hang on to the past.
Game over for free-speech on the internet in India? No, it was game over for free-speech in India long ago, the internet just gave you an excuse to ignore it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Who sets the rules, then? Did Google do a referendum or even a poll and determine that, indeed, the vast majority of Indians vote for "we want to be censored, thank you very much"?
Now I'll admit that I have no experience with India or Indians, but I do have some first hand experience with the USSR (back when it was called that way) and eastern europe, and have co-workers from all over that area. Plus some from various arab countries. And I can tell you that so far I've yet to see major differences. People are people everywhere. Yeah, there are cultural and education differences all right, and even culture clashes when you put people from different cultures together, but at the end of the day most people want the same things.
Even the exceptions are, strangely enough, not much different from our or your exceptions. E.g., if you want to point out some of the religious fundamentalist nutcases from some area as somehow representative, I can point you to religious fundamentalist nutcases in the west (e.g., southern USA) which are strangely similar. For every Khoran-thumping "we should bomb America/Israel/whatever for Allah" nutcase, there'll be a Bible-thumping "we should nuke the Middle East for Jesus" nutcase on the other side.
Even if you want to point out some resistance to new ideas in some areas, I can point out at people ranting about the "good old days" and rejecting the new in the West too. There is the same resistance to change everywhere, some just got a head start in accepting it. But if you let them have what they want, overall all societies tend towards the same thing. E.g., for all the Party's moaning about western decadence, China tended to adopt Western consumerism and other supposed bad habits very very quickly when it had a half a choice.
Etc. As I was saying, I've yet to see any evidence that people are fundamentally different anywhere.
And more importantly, to get back to Freedom Of Speech, I've yet to see any evidence that people from any area actually cheer at the idea of having the police watching over their shoulder.
Sure, there'll be plenty who want to tell _you_ what you can and can't say. (Same as in the west.) But they'll tend to not appreciate when someone tells _them_ what they can and can't say.
And sure, group-think exists everywhere. Doubly so if you can bully them into an "if I say I disaggree, the others will think I'm a pervert/criminal/whatever and ostracize me" state of mind. You have them chest-thump and proclaim any idiocy just to seem like popular/responsible/whatever members of the community. (Again, in the west too.) But again, move them out of that environment, and they'll tend to snap out of it in no time.
In fact, the funny thing is, a lot (maybe most) cultural clashes with immigrants tend to be centered around their snapping out of it too fast and too far. People coming from areas where they have to watch out what they say or do all the time, often seem to turn to a sort of a "woohoo, here I can say and do _everything_ I want to" state of mind, and proceed to appear thoroughly impolite and disruptive to the locals. If you will, they end up appreciating the whole freedom ideas a bit too much, and not knowing where to stop exercising them.
So based on those impressions I'll go and say that the freedoms probably _are_ universal truths that all humans can appreciate.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I agree with parent. Why mark this troll? The truth is that a majority of the Indian public isn't as smart as what the average American encounters. In a democracy, it is always easy to mislead the public.
Why do Americans always want to force their own stupid ideas on other countries? What is next? Eating beef? Meeting girls without parent arrangement? Having names of only two syllables?
It seems to me that you all think that the Indian police are incompetent and evil. The way it's *supposed* to be is: Police = good guys. So helping police = good move. But we've all become cynical (probably with reason), and now helping police/governments = evil move. The real question is whether Google says in "Terms and Conditions" whether they are allowed to do it, and if they are, well, you "signed" it. This whole thing depends on what Google are willing to give, and what the Indian police are doing with the information. So from Google's point of view they are giving information (what their main aim is), what's being done with it is the Indian government's responsibility. Same as when you use Google to search for how to make a bomb... You're the evil one not them. As a side note... it says no-where that Google are getting paid for this, and I have no reason to believe they are.
The Indian police asked for information about some account holders which it suspected of doing something illegal and Google co-operated. I think I have read about similar stuff before. What was it? Right, MPAA and RIAA asking ISPs to turn over account info and traffic logs for IPs it suspected of "distributing" copyrighted content. Personally I would have preferred that the facade of anonymity was maintained in both the cases but when most of the people have started treating ISPs fully cooperating with RIAA and MPAA as totally normal and justified then why all the excitement over information being provided to Police?
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
As far as your comment like "The rest of India, is as smart as the cow." goes, I would like to share some interesting things:
India produces average 300,000 Engineers every year.
India produces more than 400,000 science graduates every year.
Getting an education in arts is a shame in India.If you are an arts graduate it is a shame.
Indian Engineering Services is very tough to clear.
Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad is the toughest B School to get into.
Indian engineering entrance exams are tough and JEE is very very tough to crack.
I suggest you go and solve I.E.Irodov Problems in General Physics now.
Indians who clear JEE to get in to IIT, solve it in SCHOOL.
Indians are very good at maths. If you think they are not then go and solve the complete paper of Pre Engineering Maths.
Please check how many countries borrowed rocket engineering from Germany and then implemented it. Indians did on their own.
To become an IPS Officer(Indian Police Services, yes the same police that was referred to in the arcticle, you need to clear UPSC which is one of the toughest exam for administrative services anywhere in world.
Indians are smart people.
Indians are facing terrorism for last 20 years and they are doing what they should be doing. They are avoiding spread of hate via these type of forums. Whats wrong in that?
I think avoiding riots and hate is better than allowing riots to happen or hate to spread.
As a NATION India has every right to do what it feels is correct for it.
"No One like Ted Haggard"?
You obviously haven't heard of Zakir Naik (just google for him), who rails about "the prophet Muhammad being predicted in the Vedas" and demands that Islamic Sharia law be enforced in India or Ahmed Deedat (in South Africa actually, but Indian born), who denies the holocaust of Jews by Nazis, demands that "idolatrous Hindus" mass-convert to Islam under the point of gun and says that all Christians are "Bible-Thumpers".
Plus, Ted Haggard, for all his nuttery, never blew up trains like in Mumbai last July by the Students "Islamic" Movement of India (somebody should give those bastards a real Qu'ran lesson), not to mention the Samjhauta Express bombings just last month.
No, we in India have way too many crazies running around with bloodlust in their hearts to have the kind of unrestricted literalist interpretation of "Freedom of Speech" that the west enjoys. That will come only when we are developed enough to eschew all violent religious fundamentalism within our society.
However, always remember that we are by far the most democratic country in the developing world DESPITE all this censorship issues and book-bannings and what have you. Just compare the status of Free Speech in India with our neighbours to the North and West, or any other developing country.
I challenge anyone to give me the example of ONE developing country in the world that is more democratic than India (FYI, Taiwan , Korea, post-apartheid South Africa, Mexico etc. are no longer "developing" but essentially "developed" on the global HDI scale).
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
Anonymous Coward :)
How come outsourcing came into this discussion. BTW outsourcing is economy driven rather than "Who has smarter cows".
No doubt every country has smart cows.
"So, should they stop their UK operations as well, since UK is a 'surveillance society'?"
Yes, especially if they are forced to do part of the surevilling. And why the heck not? When faced with a choice like this, with moral implications, a person can either decline or participate in the evildoing. Most people would refuse to participate in evil.
Most corporations will, of course, go ahead and do whatever brings them profit. Anyone who believes this is fine and dandy would apparently sell their own mother down the river - there are no two ways about it. Either profit is all, or there is still room for moral choices to be made.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
Not best for the people living off the river that hypothetical corp is dumping waste into, no?
The "no liability" concept is the root of the corporate corruption. Think of a person who feels no guilt and fears no consequences of their actions: there's your serial killer, child abuser, tyrant ruler.
Freedom without liability is why Merck could market a drug they knew was going to kill people. Best of WHAT both worlds?
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
The groups with banners like 'I hate India' are clearly enganged in hate speech. Tracking them down and stopping them is not cencorship, but is rather required of any responsible government. It is really disappointing to see a portion of usually enlightened slashdot crown defending hate speech or being flippant about it.
Being a democracy does not preclude a country from tyrannous behavior. This was well known by the founders of the United States which is why the US constitution includes so many checks and balances. They haven't always worked here (and we have some pretty large black stains in our history that were popular at the time), but we're better off than if we didn't have them despite the inefficiencies that they cause. It makes me wonder whether "emerging democracies" such as Turkey and India have sufficient checks and balances in place or whether they are just sufferring "growing pains."
And incidentally, being the "World's Largest Democracy" means you have extra challenges because democracy works best in small, homogeneous communities (and India is much less homogenous than the US). To make it work in large countries requires extra effort. It's still better than the alternatives, but the risks for tyranny are high.
It is not evil to search for how to make a bomb. It is not even evil to make a bomb, or to set off a bomb. What's evil is to set off a bomb where it will hurt people or their property.
Assuming you do it with appropriate precautions in appropriate places and times and with appropriate permissions (per local laws), making big booms is good, clean fun.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Google = Microsoft 2.0?
;)
Sadly in today's corporate world it is hard when companies are encouraged to abandon ethics in the wake of profits.
Maybe Google can do like Halliburton, and when we get pissed enough at them, they commit treason and fraud or they get involved in anti-trust issues, they can just move to India.
For the MS crowd, this is good news, it proves even the so called good companies can be evil.
I can remember when Sun was a 'good' company, and Oracle was a 'good' company, and AOL was a 'good' company, and even a time when MS was the anti-establishment and was the 'good' company.
Life moves on and we all learn that most corporations suck, and even if they don't try to suck, they either have a few bad apples in the company or they purposely suck and let their marketing machine spin them as the good guys anyway. Strange how Apple leeching off the OSS world, comes to mind on the last one.
Did you pass JEE yourself? If you did, be proud of that. If you did not, why be proud that "there are some Indians who passed JEE the world's toughest entrance examn?" Dah, JEE is open only to Indians. It is a ranking examn. Somebody must come out as the topper ok? So why are you proud that others are solving Irodov Problem in high school? If you solved it be proud. If not dont brag "my brother's neighbour's uncle's sister-in-law's driver's son can solve" it.
About India doing rocket sciecne on its own. May be it did. Why are you proud of it? I can be proud of it. I was in the aerodynamics design team for India's cruise missile. I got through JEE. I am not going to share the glory with you
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Woah there, don't go attributing that to me. I said almost exactly the opposite. You are exactly correct that the police should be the good guys and that helping them should be good. I am myself somewhat cynical but I am definitely not in the "G00gl3 is teh 3v1l!!!" camp on this one.
A left-wing socialist government creates a bunch of speech codes, in order to "promote social justice" and "stop hate" and a bunch of other vague progressive sounding goals, not dissimilar to laws that are in effect in Western Europe, Canada, etc.
An American company then obeys those laws, as they are required to do by the laws in those countries as well as the laws in the United States (which require U.S. companies obey the laws in the countries they do business).
So then leftists in America blame the "evil corporation" for following the laws of India - while at the same time praising those laws and demanding those same sort of "social justice" and "anti-hate" laws to be passed in the United States.
And you know, if American companies didn't follow the laws in India, the Slashdot news story would be "American company breaks Indian laws to protect hate criminals!!!" and the same people would be just as outraged.
Now, I can respect people who have radically different world views from myself - but I expect that even those who disagree with me have some sort of internal consistency to their ideology. I understand that they might have a different viewpoint from me, but I expect them to not have a paradoxical viewpoint. I would say that since the fall of the Soviet Union, and resulting unpopularity of Marxism, that the left isn't really an ideological position - pretty much they are completely ideology free - they are more a purely emotional counter-reaction to anything in reality that they find emotionally disturbing. The left is becoming less and less of an ideology, and more and more of a neurosis.
I mean, get your shit straight. Either hate speech laws are good, and companies should follow government regulations, and American companies should respect the sovereignty of the countries where they are doing business... Or hate speech laws are bad, companies should ignore regulations they don't agree with, and U.S. companies should use their economic power to influence those countries. If you feel one way, or another, I might disagree with you - but we can rationally discuss your ideas, and I can respect your ideas. They have value to everyone in a democratic society, even if everyone doesn't agree with you. But the vast majority of the new left flip back and forth on issues like some weird political schizophrenia.
I don't see Apple quickly discontinuing security updates for older versions, so it's hardly necessary to upgrade.
Hell, the DST patch for Windows XP is the exact same patch as the one Microsoft is charging $4000 for for Windows 2000. It took me all of an hour and a half to whip up two DST patches, plus foolproof installers, for Windows 95, 98, and Me, and Windows NT4 and 2000. That includes the research time to figure out exactly what I needed to do to fix it. Yet Microsoft refuses to do it, and even the XP patch they did release, which would work just fine on 2000 and NT4, was specifically coded to crap out with an error on anything other than XP.
While Apple certainly has their flaws, they aren't even in the same league as MS.
When Netscape was charging for their Web browser, things were a little different in the software marketplace. Even now, MS doesn't give away IE for free, regardless of what it looks like to the average layman.
IE is forced upon you for part of the price of Windows. The licence for IE says you're not allowed to run it on anything other than Windows, which means you have to buy Windows to be able to run it legally. That means it's not free. It's a forced bundle.
If I could download IE and run it legally on Wine, or - heaven forbid - there was a Linux native version, then you could successfully argue that IE was free. But there isn't, so you can't.
Before you mention the Mac and Unix versions.....these were discontinued quite a while ago, and even when they were actively developed, they weren't bug-compatible with IE for Windows, so they were essentially a completely different browser.
The old and buggy WordPerfect? What exactly does that mean? I own a copy of WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS, and in some ways, it's still a more modern word processor than Word 2007. I've never had it crash, I've never had it do something stupid that I didn't want it to. And yes, I do still use it on occasion. I've also got a copy of WordPerfect Office X3. One of the nicest suites I've ever seen. And not even remotely old.
Here's one for you...back when I only had version 6.0 of WordPerfect, a buddy of mine sent me a file he'd saved in WordPerfect 2000's native format. I could open it no problem. Sure, there was a bit of formatting that was screwed up, because of newer features that mine didn't support, but I could still read it. Try that with Word.
Now, how exactly is Linux useless? I've been running my business on it primarily for several years. Hardly seems useless to me. I'd hardly call it insecure, either, as I've had servers online for all of that time, and never been hacked.
OpenOffice, I'll give you, isn't for everyone. However, just like Linux, I've been running my business on it for several years. Hasn't failed me yet. I haven't yet set it up for anyone that thinks it's "craptacular" either. Have you even used it?
As compared to the Microsoft th
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
But please don't feed me that BS about Free Speech in India. That just means that the Government does not censor you. Buddy, when I lived in India, it wasn't the Government I was worried about :P (to a point of course - police beatings of journalists get routine after a while, who cares? :P). It was the self-appointed loonies policing morality on the streets and the Government NOT doing anything about it. It would be as if the fundies in the US were allowed to run amok and the Government refused to act. THERE is your freedom of speech. And I gottta tell you, self-censorship in India goes a long way. At least the fundies aren't allowed to get away with murder in the US (just everything else upto that point :P).
And what the hell is this talk about "most democratic developing country"? People are making ranked lists now? How do you even prove such a thing? It's just a meaningless cliche (i.e. not falsifiable) being traded in the self-congratulatory spam being traded these days or possibly in a politican's speech. Also, if you compare India with the rest of the banana republics on the subcontinent, well of course it's great! Duh!
And what do you even mean by "most democratic"? The word "democracy" just means that we elect our leaders, period! You're either democratic or you're not! How could you be less or more? If you rig the polls, you're not democratic; *cough* which happens A LOT in rural India especially. Proxy voting is another fine example of democracy :P. ANd I'm sure the North Indian states are glowing examples of law-abiding democracies (I think I'm gonna cry :P). I'd sooner go live in Saudi Arabia than in a hellhole like the state of Bihar - well alright I didn't mean that, I may be crazy but I ain't stupid :P. That's why I love the name "Democratic Republic of Congo". Some folks need a friggin dictionary before they name their countries :P. I wish someone would make a nation out of MS. Heck, I'd wanna immigrate =D. LOL.
That will come only when we are developed enough to eschew all violent religious fundamentalism within our society. Geological timescales perhaps? Religion doesn't permit the absence of violence. The arguments for believing that peace and religion can coexist are akin to "guns don't kill people, people kill people". As long as there is religion, there will ALWAYS be a jagoff with a bomb wanting to enter friggin Paradise. The militant muslims just have a monopoly on that at the moment. Competitors will catch up no doubt. So, do we abolish religion then? *Bzzzt* wrong answer - we can't. Only option - get used to it...most definitely not Google, and certainly not the Constitution of the United States of America.
Corporations are not on a moral crusade to change the values of the world. They exist to create financial value for their shareholders. They do not exist to impose the values of their country of origin on every culture with which they want to do business.
If the people of India don't like the rules of their government, it's their responsibility to change them, India being a democracy. It's not Google's responsibility. Now if there are totalitarian regimes out there whose rules are simply too far from the international norm and whose people have no say in changing them, in those cases the "Do No Evil" mantra comes into play a bit more and the moral imperatives are much clearer. If Google were to start doing business in North Korea (work with me here), then it's worth harping on them for it.
--- JurassicPizza
About communication: speak.to
People seem to take the romantic "american hero" role Hollywood have always talked about when "americans" are involved anywhere in the world, as something real, that has to be enforced.
We would all love to see there is democracy, civil libertirs and free speech in India, but it's up to the Indians to do it, not Google.
I don't have a sig.
I don't as much have a problem with Google, at least not in this topic, as with moral relativism run amok. The notion that maybe, you know, in other parts of the world they're so different from us that they actually want to be censored and oppressed. And that it's so unfair that we try to judge them through the goggles of human rights and freedoms, when they clearly don't want those.
And all that I'm saying is that it's a load of bull. People are people everywhere. If you took an American, a German, an Indian and an Arab (starts to sound like a joke already;) and put them in the same situation, free from group-think and peer-pressure influences, you'd discover that while there _are_ cultural differences in their views of the world do exist, ultimately they tend to end up wanting the same things. That's all I'm saying.
That said, as a completely tangential point, I have trouble viewing any country as a _true_ democracy if they're not free to criticize their government or their country. I don't care if they have an electoral farce going on, if you're given only the filtered, rose-coloured-glasses half of the story, you can't possibly make an informed choice there. Democracy isn't just about going and checking a random box on a ballot, it's about, yes, the power of the people to change what they don't like about their government or country. If it's illegal to even talk about what's wrong, on what would you base such a change? How would you even know that there's any need to change anything? That is ultimately what stuff like "freedom of speech" or "freedom of press" are for. Because without those, you might as well not even even bother with the rest of the farce, because a farce and a mockery of democracy is at best what you can get.
Once you can't say "India sucks", or, like in Turkey, Allah have mercy on you if you dare "insult turkishness" or even mention that Kurds even exist, how would you expect democracy to function? How would you expect the average Turk to even know about the problems of the Kurds, if it's illegal to even mention them. So who's going to risk their neck to tell them about it? Which politician is going to put any Kurd-related problem in their electoral platform, if it means being summarily being thrown in jail at the mere mention of it? (They did throw at least one member of their parliament in jail for even mentioning Kurds, btw, so it's not a fictional scenario.) It's simply put a whole domain which has been from the start excluded from any democratic process or debate.
Nicely abusable too, because such a poorly defined limitation is vague enough to cover any kind of dissidence. You spoke against corruption in the government? Weell, now, that looks to me like insulting your country and people. Round them up, boys.
But, yeah, ok, it's up to India to deal with it. Fine by me. Just don't tell me that whole cultures actually want to be oppressed and suppressed, because that's one thing I don't buy. If Google doesn't want to actually put its money where its motto is, fine, I can deal with that. But don't tell me that somehow, see, over there probably black is white and evil is good, so they're really happy that we hand them over to the authorities. That's all I'm saying.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
|People are making ranked lists now
Yes. See the US Congressional reports on India, and compare them to other countries in the region.
|How do you even prove such a thing
Easily. We have checks and balances in our political system that other developing countries do not have. Democracy CAN be quantified and relativized.
|I'd sooner go live in Saudi Arabia than in a hellhole like the state of Bihar
Really? True that Bihar is rampant with Naxalite/Ranvir Sena lawlessness, but Saudi Arabia chops your hand off for stealing a loaf of bread and beheads you for watching movies.
|If you rig the polls, you're not democratic
Then no country in the world is a democracy (remember Florida?). That's a pointless argument.
|The militant muslims just have a monopoly on that at the moment
They've had a monopoly on that since the rise of the Khilafat al-Rashidun a millenium and a half ago. No other society has even come close (don't cite "the crusades" plz, the crusades were not nearly as violent as the Islamic conquest of India)
Overall, your arguments make no sense, and remind me more of anarchist absolutism than anything else. It's a question of the best that we, as a developing country can do, given our circumstances. We have done the best that we can do so far. India could easily have become like the middle east violence - wise , but hasn't. It still could, of course. If you don't like the government "doing nothing to stop the loonies" then vote for a new one. It's you people who voted for the likes of the UPA who let the "human rights" mafia led by that terrorist Arundhati Roy spare Mohammed Afzal and repeal POTA.
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
|I'd sooner go live in Saudi Arabia than in a hellhole like the state of Bihar Really? True that Bihar is rampant with Naxalite/Ranvir Sena lawlessness, but Saudi Arabia chops your hand off for stealing a loaf of bread and beheads you for watching movies.
Quoting just half of my sentences is intellectually honest I suppose :P. Read the original sentence. Also, consider for a moment which is scarier: a corrupt and extremist government that represses its own people or a populace that manages quite well on its own which is the point I was going for with Bihar. That was one scary place in the news during my childhood. Besides, I actually DID live in Saudi Arabia for a while a decade ago and as long as you stay away from the Arabs (:P. We lived in an Indian camp) it's quite safe and not quite unpleasant. Again, Read the original sentence. Further, when people tell you to make a choice between two horrible things, perhaps it's ok to decline them both ja? See the last paragraph in this post.
|People are making ranked lists now Yes. See the US Congressional reports on India, and compare them to other countries in the region. |How do you even prove such a thing Easily. We have checks and balances in our political system that other developing countries do not have. Democracy CAN be quantified and relativized.
The "other countries in the region" are a bit of a joke when it comes to democracy. Precisely my point - if that's all that India aspires to, it's striving for mediocrity and I know it can do better. Yes, apparently you can quantify democracy. I'm saying I don't buy the efficacy of the indices! As for "relativizing", I don't know what you mean by that :P and I'm sure the OED doesn't as well.
If you don't like the government "doing nothing to stop the loonies" then vote for a new one. It's you people who voted for the likes of the UPA who let the "human rights" mafia led by that terrorist Arundhati Roy spare Mohammed Afzal and repeal POTA.
Are you deliberately ignoring things I said? Did I not say that I don't live there anymore and that I haven't followed the Indian news in gory detail? And please don't presume to know who people vote for. Perhaps if you stopped labeling people as "anarchists" and trying to divine their voting preferences based on one post and one issue, you might stand a better chance of going beyond cliched arguments. Arundhati Roy is a well-meaning nut who, as all well-meaning nuts do, lost it one fine day and became a rebel without a cause :P. The Michael Moore of India :P.
They've had a monopoly on that since the rise of the Khilafat al-Rashidun a millenium and a half ago. No other society has even come close (don't cite "the crusades" plz, the crusades were not nearly as violent as the Islamic conquest of India)
Oh FFS, not this tired old thing again. If you notice, YOU brought up the crusades :P. I should say that I AM proud of India, because we have NOT wasted our time in rehashing THOSE old sins and carrying out retaliatory wars in the present. Most of the regions of the world that conspired to pillage India in those days are mere shells of their former selves - dirt poor and starving to death. The great Persian Empire has been reduced to a country that can barely be called alive. Are we now quantifying and "relativizing" the bigotry of different societies? I'll save you the time and stipulate that any society built upon a religion is doomed to extremism. It's evolution. Every religion starts out with moderates and extremists. The former, by their very nature and the inherent systemic flaws in any religion, breed themselves out of existence, leaving the radicals behind, who of course spread like a plague. One can't use the crusades as an argument precisely because the governmental structure that created th