Slashdot Mirror
Indian Court Orders Google To Remove Content
itwbennett writes "A Court in Delhi, India has ordered Google to remove content that 'is said to mock gods worshipped in India,' according to an IDG News Service report. Mufti Ajiaz Arshad Qasmi, a private citizen, 'had filed a civil suit against Google and other Internet companies including Facebook, objecting to certain content on their websites.' While Google agreed to remove the content, citing a 'long-standing policy of responding to court orders,' other Internet companies named in the suit are likely to appeal."
Have gnu, will travel.
"No person, no idea, and no religion deserves to be illegal to insult." --RMS
This is India, not the US. Although I'm not familiar with the Indian government, I they don't follow the United State's First Amendment to the same degree we pretend to follow it her and in much of the West.
Although Religion may be outdated, we can thank it for many cultural and technological advances, even in modern fields such as genetics.
It just makes me ask, as an atheist, can I file a suit that says all references to God mocks my opinion and have Google remove those links from every search?
(Disclaimer: Devils's Advocate [no pun intended] only. I have no problem what you do with your personal life... just keep it personal.)
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
While we're at it, why don't we thank it for the Bush administration and it's stifling of scientific progress.
You mean, by becoming the first Administration to provide federal funding for embryonic stem cell research?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Google has to comply with the laws of the countries in which it operates. Texas is prevented by the bill of rights from passing laws that limit freedom of religion and religious commentary, so Texas could not legally issue a court order demanding that Google remove such content.
Saudi Arabia and India apparently can, though. Google's choice is to either comply with the laws of those nations or simply cease operations in those nations. Considering that no nation on earth has truly unlimited freedom of speech, let alone the US, it makes sense to make occasional court-ordered concessions by removing data accessible in those countries.
And we can thank science for WMDs, eugenics, pollution of the environment, human experimentation, and a list of other things far too long to put here.
Or maybe we can just put the blame where it belongs, which is on the people who actually do these evils and use science or religion as cover
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
This. I am a deeply religious person, and sometimes offended by the insults of unbelievers, but I will defend to the death their right to insult.
Meanwhile, was it really over a decade ago that the cult of scientology was forcing comments off of slashdot?
I am an Indian (live in the US now) and am a Hindu (by birth - I really don't care much for any religion personally) and I find your description to be biased and false. Just as Hindus in general, are laid back about most things, so too are the Muslims. I had the good fortune of studying in a Jesuit run school in a relatively poor, muslim neighborhood in Mumbai, and I had several close friends across many religions. Hindus are just as "against freedom of speech and expression" as are the Muslims. You are just deluding yourself if you think otherwise.
You need no more proof than to look at cases such as the artist M.F.Husain, who was pretty much exiled from the country by Hindu fundamentalists who were outraged that he depicted some Hindu deities in the nude.
"Or at least, barring some peaceful protest, they are at least not out to kill the heretics" - Yeah, sure, tell that to all the victims of the Gujarat riots at the hands of crazed Hindu fundamentalists (with complicity from the pro-Hindu state government).
Before George W. Bush, the federal government provided zero funding for any embryonic stem cell research. Under George W. Bush, the federal government provided funding for some embryonic stem cell research. You may not like the restrictions he placed on such federal funding, but he was the first President to provide any such funding. This source clearly lays out the timeline in the seond to last paragraph.
One of the things you will find is that a large portion of the "scientific community" exists within colleges and universities, which view anyone who believes that people are responsible for the consequences of their actions as ignorant heathens.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
A party should have a right to discuss such a law; it's that discussion that's being defended, not the law itself.
Let's see. USA has had:
- Government attacks on journalists.
- Government attacks on citizens who take video recordings of police in public, often because those citizens posted to sites like Youtube the evidence of police committing abuse and brutality.
- Government shutdowns of entire websites based not on convictions under the law, but of "indictments" based on one-sided presentation of carefully chosen and misrepresented lists of evidence, complete with fabricated and delusional accusations of "mass conspiracy" spun out of whole cloth with inserted accusations of "terrorism" and other things designed not to have any factual basis but merely to constitute an emotional appeal (read: "oh but think of the children", which always comes behind some censorship law or other).
Hell, you don't even have to be that recent. The "USA PATRIOT ACT" (what an Orwellian name!) has plenty to be worried about already. And then we have the DMCA and all the other chilling effects laws the USA has enacted...
Google obeys court orders in all countries where it has a presence, it does not selectively choose. There is no Google North Korea, and their site is banned there, along with, you know, the Internet, so Google has no reason or obligation to answer to the North Korean government. Abu Dhabi is a city, not a country, but assuming you were attempting to refer to the United Arab Emirates, yes, there is a Google UAE, and Google would respond to any court order from the UAE. Note that the UAE is a fairly progressive country, and not the backwater Islamic police state that only exists in your mind. And finally, there is no Google presence in Yemen, so Google would likely ignore any court orders from there. Now that I've properly answered your questions, feel free to return to spouting "Google is teh evilz" type nonsense.
They would, probably.
I mean, they complied to requests from Cook Islands, Solomon Islands and Sri Lanka, what makes you think other nations would be different?
Stop trying to ascribe personal qualities to corporations, FFS. There's no compassion, pride, ideals and so on, there's just profits and public relations.
"Lack of spine", "principles" and "do no evil" don't even come into this, you want to do business in a country, you abide the law of that country.
FB and Google already complied to the court order, others named will probably follow right after getting some press where they'll tell how they really don't want to do that (because they didn't pay their developers to implement region-based content filtering yet)
Afghanistan?
Not sure which one you're referring to, but yes, both were religious.
The Soviet-Afghan war was actually a civil war between socialist secularists and moderate-to-radical Islamists, with the first faction backed by USSR, and the second backed by Pakistan and USA. The primary reason for the war was that Islamists were offended at such horrible Soviet innovations as mixed-gender schools and universities.
The second war was against Taliban - 'nuff said.
Kosovo?
Definitely religious. Serbs are Orthodox Christian, Albanians are mostly Muslim. Kosovo itself is called "Kosovo and Metohija" in Serbian, and "Metohija" literally means "monastery lands" - because that was the historical seat of the Church in Serbia, and it's where most of its monasteries were. Then it also has Kosovo Polje, the place of the historical battle where (Christian) Serbian forces were defeated by the invading (Muslim) Ottoman army, after which Serbia was annexed into Ottoman Empire.
And yes, it also comes up in the fighting - Albanians burn down churches, and Serbs burned mosques.
Libya?
What, did you miss the jihad flag flying over Bengazi in the wake of rebel victory? Or that the country is transitioning to Sharia as its primary source of legislation?