Indian Nationalists Forcibly Censor Orkut

starkravingmad writes "The Economic Times is running a story on Hindu nationalists in India threatening to wreck internet cafes that don't block parts of Orkut that the vigilantes find offensive. From the article: '"Orkut is used by many destructive elements to spread canards about India, Hindus, our gods and cultural heritage," said Abhijit Phanse, president of Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, the student group. "We are gently telling Internet cafe owners that it is their responsibility to see that surfers do not use their facility to carry out such hate campaigns ... Or else, we will have to do that job for them." Last week, dozens of Shiv Sena workers vandalised some Internet centres, saying they were not stopping their customers from accessing Orkut groups involved in sending hate messages.'"

Comments

why bother?

[ILuvRamen]

Why do these censoring countries and the groups in them even bother? They're just going to be twice as pissed when 13 year olds find ways around it lol. The harder you try and block it, the harder people will try to unblock it and then you look like the bad guy for trying to block it.

Re:why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

This has got absolutely nothing to do with religion.

This is just another vote bank tactic to gain the votes of the poor and middle-class by using these "campaigns".

The internet penetration is so low that nobody in India really cares about Orkut or any other site for that matter. This just a show to the larger middle-class population that they are taking steps to "preserve the culture".

Are you *kidding* me?

[metlin]

Shiv Sena? RSS? Those guys are a bunch of nutjobs.

These are the same who vandalize flower shops on Valentine's Day and threaten couples if they are seen doing anything they consider "obscene" in public.

Personally, I think that these guys need to have a good drink and need to get laid a little.

Orkut is used by many destructive elements to spread canards about India, Hindus, our gods and cultural heritage

I thought it was all about tolerance and forgiveness and all those good things? Pursuit of truth and enlightenment? No? I guess it doesn't quite have the same ring as terrorizing innocent people and flauting your ideologies about.

Jerks.

Re:Are you *kidding* me?

[Omkar]

You've pretty much got it. The Shiv Sena and RSS are Hindu chauvinist thugs that aren't taken seriously by anyone educated. Imagine someone like Jerry Falwell in a country as chaotic and mob-ruled as India (I've lived in India for a while and LOVE it, but this is hard to deny).

dear sensitive religious types

[circletimessquare]

hindus upset at orkut, muslims upset at muhammed cartoons, christians upset at crosses in pee, etc:

i believe that your religion is strong and powerful and moving

apparently, you don't

for if you did, you would not be so threatened by such random fluff

or, alternately, if these stupid offenses affect you, your religious faith is shallow

you do not honor god/ allah/ shiva/ whomever by being moved by the most contrived of offenses that even a child could shrug off and roll his eyes at

when you do, you make a mockery of what they stand for, by showing that some of your religions followers (you) are of small easily swayed faith

you're a shame to your own religion, and your cheap outrage cheapens your religion

signed,
people with faith and maturity

Re:omfg, are you retarded?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Dear, AC, thanks for your concern about my mental health. For your information, I'm not retarded. Bravo for not only hiding behind the AC option but for starting your reply with an ad hominem attack.

The US, whether you like it or not, is one of the few countries in the world where someone's religion dictates whether or not they can seriously run for office.

Polls have been taken on the subject and, when asked, something like 52 percent of Americans have said that they would not vote for an aethiest. That alone shows how much of a ceiling your religion (or lack thereof) poses in the US. Neither of the two main political parties would even consider nominating a non-Christian candidate because his/her religion alone would lose them the race: policies and job suitability wouldn't even factor into it.

Compare that to anywhere else in the developed world. I live in the UK, and I can tell you that we wouldn't give a fig what religion someone was before voting for or against them. We certainly wouldn't be using religious litmus tests as you do in the US.

Creationism? Abortion? Seperation of church and state but "One nation under God", and with the motto "In God we trust"?

As for politics and policies, I can give you clear examples of how serious political debate has been stifled in the US post-September 11th. Perhaps you missed the instances of TV shows being cancelled because of comments people made questioning what was going on and why it was happening? Or how any voice raised in dissent was shouted down as anti-American? Don't you remember any of that?

What was wrong with asking why the US was attacked in the first place? Are you seriously telling me that that's been questioned by anybody outside the fringes?

It's only now that this shit has been going on for years and it's cost the lives of over 3,000 US troops (hey, let's not think about the 100,000s of dead Iraqi civilians - they clearly don't count) that serious questions are given more than short shrift by the mainstream media.

(Still, though, the lunatics running the asylum see nothing wrong. And the lunatics wanting to replace them aren't any better: the eight Republican nominees were asked whether knowing what they know now if they would have done anything differently in Iraq, to which none of them had the common sense to say "yes". Even after seeing the disasterous consequences of the path that they've travelled, they'd still go down that road again.)

Elsewhere, District Attorneys are being fired for political purposes. But, of course, when it's discovered, the people in charge have "no recollection" of what happened.

I won't even talk about voter disenfranchisement. Go read up on that before you comment again though.

Of course, I'm sure you'll say that none of that counts. To be honest, if it wasn't helping to screw the rest of us, I wouldn't give a shit. But it does, so I'm telling you, as a friend, this shit is happening, and it does you no favours to be lecturing the world on religious and political freedoms when your own country's record in that area is far from perfect.

The politics of the US aren't any better than that of anywhere else. If you, like the person who I initially replied to, truly consider the US to be a place where religious and political freedoms are respected then you're looking through rose-tinted glasses.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong and how. Just save the "retard" tag, OK?

Violence, Retardation, Religion.

[crhylove]

Of COURSE these ignorant butt-plugs want to censor stuff. The only way anybody can keep talking to imaginary men in the sky and believing in that kind of nonsensical clap trap is to keep the blinders fully on. A quick reading of every wikipedia article for every religion shows how ludicrous every religion really is.

Go ahead, god squad, mod me down, but the days when society lacks the information to see through your horse shit philosophy systems is at hand. In a few generations, only real Luddites or actual retards will worship invisible men in the sky.

Information wants to be free. And humans want information. The days of praying to "holy ghosts" and multi-armed gods of war and love are ending. I just wish they would end sooner, like before we have another catastrophic global war, or completely destroy the environment.

*sigh* Seems unlikely though.

rhY