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Indian Gov't Bans Bulk SMS, Investigating Social Media

Posted by timothy on from the man-vs-the-state dept.

saiful76 writes "Following mass exodus of people belonging to north-east states India from southern states of India, specially Bangalore, allegedly due to the threatening messages, the government has asked relevant agencies to scan all social media platforms to check for inflammatory and offensive content, following which, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DIT) has issued an advisory to all intermediaries in terms of provisions of IT Act and Rules to take action for disabling all such content on priority. Cellphone operators have been told to block all bulk SMSs and videos — so nobody can send a message to more than five people at a time."

14 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. And... by Lord+Maud'Dib · · Score: 2

    What do we expect from their control freak government?

    1. Re:And... by myowntrueself · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What do we expect from their control freak government?

      Well people from SOME cultures are VERY easily offended and take this perceived offence VERY seriously.

      So its not just that this government is a 'control freak' its that the government is well aware at how hair-triggered large portions of their population can be at what to us in the West might seem incredibly minor things. Very simple words and phrases can cause widespread rioting with commensurate property damage, loss of life and livelihood. So in this sense the Indian government HAVE to be 'control freakish'.

      IMO its just dumb of these cultures to be so fucking incredibly oversensitive and it really does them no good at all it just makes them look like complete dumbasses to the rest of the world. "What, so you killed someone because he called you a son of a bitch? Riiight thats just totally justified." while within that persons social context it WOULD be 'totally justified'. Doesn't make it right, it makes that persons social context FUCKED RIGHT UP.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    2. Re:And... by narcc · · Score: 5, Funny

      In your haste to submit your bigoted and hateful post, you forgot to check the demographics. India is overwhelmingly Hindu.

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    3. Re:And... by RabidReindeer · · Score: 3, Informative

      A sensible approach to this would be to keep drawing Muhammad and whatever else until these mud people completely exterminate themselves.

      Unfortunately, our culture has its own major flaw: "tolerance."

      Of course Islam describes itself as 'a religion of peace and tolerance' but I'm not sure exactly what Arabic words get translated as 'peace' and as 'tolerance', there seems to be some... misunderstanding involved.

      The Arabic word for "peace" is "salam". And yes, it's the same root as "islam".

      There are probably many more peaceful/tolerant muslims in the world than there are Christians, but it's the "Fred Phelp's" groups that get all the attention, not the Lutherans down the block.

    4. Re:And... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      The Arabic word for "peace" is "salam". And yes, it's the same root as "islam".

      Roots can have a lot of different meanings, I've yet to meet a Muslim who would translate "Islam" as "peace", though, same root or not. The conventional translation is "submission" (to God). I've met one quite devout Muslim who made a point of always translating it when he talked about it (which was, ahem, a lot), and that was the translation he used as well.

    5. Re:And... by narcc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And you can't do the math.

      No, I think I can handle basic arithmetic. What you want me to think, of course, is "Holy Shit! Millons of very scary Muslims! In INDIA!!!"

      Let's not play pretend that the purpose of that first paragraph was something other than pure rhetoric. You can keep your klansman-style propaganda, we don't need it here.

      As for the supposed threat of Islamic terrorism, I'm not even a little bit concerned. See, here in the US the big threat isn't Muslims -- it's hateful bigots. You'll find that here, virtually every act of terrorism in the last decade was committed by a Christian. Typically white and, more often than not, by someone who shares your hateful beliefs about Muslims.

      Enjoy living in fear in your imaginary hate-filled world. I recommend that you avoid reality -- you'll find that the monsters there look a bit too much like you for comfort...

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    6. Re:And... by myowntrueself · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And you can't do the math.

      No, I think I can handle basic arithmetic. What you want me to think, of course, is "Holy Shit! Millons of very scary Muslims! In INDIA!!!"

      Let's not play pretend that the purpose of that first paragraph was something other than pure rhetoric. You can keep your klansman-style propaganda, we don't need it here.

      As for the supposed threat of Islamic terrorism, I'm not even a little bit concerned. See, here in the US the big threat isn't Muslims -- it's hateful bigots. You'll find that here, virtually every act of terrorism in the last decade was committed by a Christian. Typically white and, more often than not, by someone who shares your hateful beliefs about Muslims.

      Enjoy living in fear in your imaginary hate-filled world. I recommend that you avoid reality -- you'll find that the monsters there look a bit too much like you for comfort...

      FUCK!!

      Its not about Hindus or Muslims or Christians!

      Its about people who just can't contain their rage when they get insulted!

      THATS what is DUMB!
      THAT is what is FUCKED UP!

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    7. Re:And... by bhagwad · · Score: 2

      Let Indians be oversensitive. I don't care. But they have no right to express that "oversensitiveness" in violence. The government in India is way too tolerant of riots and people going on rampages without punishing them and making them pay for damage to property. THAT is why protesters in India are so bold. Enforce the law quickly and see how violence ends.

      As for plain ol offence...well, no life is lost just by being offended right?

  2. Alleged cause? by donaggie03 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What is the extent of this "mass exodus"? It seems to me that if the mass is so large that it gets the attention of the national government, then the cause of the peoples' plight would be better understood than "allegedly due to threatening messages." Who is doing the allegations and why isn't there confirmation? So are these people leaving thier homes because of threatening messages or not? Is there even actually a mass of people leaving thier homes? What do THEY have to say about thier reasons?

    --
    Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
    1. Re:Alleged cause? by donaggie03 · · Score: 2
      Nevermind; it looks like most of my questions were answered in TFA. I still think the use of the word "allegedly" implies some question about the causes when there really isn't any. Also, I before reading the article, I had the mindset of someone who couldn't understand how a mass of people could take a threat like that seriously. Then I realised the threat was targeted towards entire ethnicities (and people are already dying in neighboring states) so the threat would seem legitimate.

      I don't see how someone could be arrested for spreading rumours. Isn't one person's "spreading rumours" another person's "spreading the word about an imminent threat"? It's not thier fault that an attack hasn't actually happened (yet). Or is the actual charge "knowingly spreading false rumours, in order to cause a panic" or something like that?

      --
      Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
    2. Re:Alleged cause? by gopla · · Score: 4, Informative

      You already seem to have a grasp of the situation here in India.

      People of northeast of India have a mongoloid features, which marks them as different from rest of Indians that have aryan features.

      There is some ethenic violence going on in Assam, a state in notheast of India, between Bodo (ethenic Assames people with mongoloid features) and Muslims. So other Norhteastern people living in rest of India are therened by Muslims.

      Most of these people are students and migran labours. Their parents got worried about their safety and called them back. Mass hysteria got generated when evey norhteastern person just started exodus from rest of India back to their hometown.

  3. Few corrections by gopla · · Score: 5, Informative

    The ban on bulk SMS is for 15 days at the most. This is not censorship, but an effort to avoid mass hysteria.

    Those of you who know India will understand what I mean. Even before the era of mobile phones it was somhow easy to spread roumours and generate hysteria in India. For example read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_milk_miracle/ for one hysteria of 1995 regarding idols that drink milk, or 2006 where sea water turned sweet.

    These efforts are to help crub the new hysteria. But I am doubtful about its effectiveness.

  4. The exodus is subsiding by gopla · · Score: 2

    Form here, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/exodus-of-north-easterners-from-bangalore-shows-signs-of-subsiding/989967//, so may be the ban has had some effect.

  5. India - China by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 2

    Everybody knows China isn't free

    Everybody knows that the communist government of China does not allow its people too much freedom

    And the way I look at it, India is doing its best to copy China - they copied everything, including the bad stuffs

    Tracing sms to Pakistan is but a lousy excuse to restrict freedom for the over 1 billion people inside India
     

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !