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US Officials Rebuke India's Request To Subpoena Facebook, Google
hypnosec writes "U.S. officials have told the Indian Government that they will not be able to serve summons to the executives of companies like Google and Facebook because they are not convinced that the content hosted on these sites can cause violence and that these summons impact 'free speech principles.' The reply comes as a response to India's request to the US to help serve papers to 11 Internet companies accused of hosting content on their sites that was meant to fuel communal hatred and violence. The U.S. authorities said that there are limitations when it comes to protection on free speech — when the speech comprises a true threat or provokes imminent violence — but in this particular case there is not sufficient evidence of either of these."
Seems the appropriate tags should be "pot", "kettle" and "black".
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
The problem is not the speech but the Muslims, who take offence at anything. Someone says "Muhammad was not a true prophet" and they riot, while they say Jews, Christians and Hindus are animals and worse themselves.
Unless it's about copyrights or patents, of course...
I am from India. My country is a democratic country ( with many, many flaws, but still democratic)
The Government is always worried about 'something which will offend the minorities' and spark communal violence.
I am a member of a minority. The most important and neglected minority in India.
I am a normal ( well not too normal, I'm on Slashdot! ) rational guy who can look at an idiot trying to make people of community A hate community B for political gains and ( very likely ) personal gains through political gains.
As simple as that.
And I'm not buying his/her/their BS on this matter and I'll gladly call it out. On his/her/their face(s)
Unfortunately I'm a member of such a minority. ( sadly rational people who want to live their lives in peace are a minority )
The Government is duty-bound to protect the rights of minorities. Protect my rights to free speech. Realize I'm grown up enough to realize when someone is trying to provoke someone in the name of religion/language/caste/color etc.
While hating anyone or group usually serves little use and is often as much to the detriment of the hater as the hated; I think the 'freedom to hate' is probably the most important to protect. The 'freedom to hate' is also the the very same freedom to have your own mind, form your own opinions, be truly able to love, and be a whole person with agency. Yes its shameful how many people use that agency so badly but the right answer is not to try and take it away from them.
If I don't have the freedom to say "I think the world would be better off without $GROUP" I am not really free to speak or think. We can't have go trying to have a list of approved thoughts and ideas; that will be far more anti-human than anything any hate group has ever done.
There is a big difference between having opinions and acting on them. Its action where the line should be. We should never loose site of that.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
The freedom to hate ... The only freedom no one seems interested in taking away from people in the US.
It's called Freedom of Speech. The reason it has to be Constitutionally protected is not because anybody ever had to protect popular speech. Without it there would have been a time when saying "Negroes should be equal to white people" would have been censored because it would incite hatred.
It isn't hypocrisy, but it isn't what it appears on the surface. This is good old fashioned protectionism. Ain't nobody going to mess with a U.S. based company except the U.S. government.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Words are absolutely powerless to compel anyone to act violently. Censorship is just the authoritarians' attempt to control thought and conserve their power. Now, if you're saying there is no free will, well that's a another matter entirely. The only proper way to deal with 'contrary' speech is to make an effective counterpoint, more speech, not less.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
China blocks facebook with some success. Surely it's possible for other governments to only filter/block facebook ads. Even if its not 100% successful, it would be disruptive enough to facebooks revenue stream to encourage facebook to fall into line.
Does it go on forever?
Was going to mod, but decided to post instead.
It isn't hypocrisy, but it isn't what it appears on the surface. This is good old fashioned protectionism. Ain't nobody going to mess with a U.S. based company except the U.S. government.
This has nothing to do with protectionism, and everything to do with deflecting (figurative) bullets aimed at the wrong targets. On a site as massive as Facebook, it's absurd to hold the company accountable for every idiotic, hate-filled keyboard-vomit poured onto the site by its users. If the Indian government has a problem with something that was posted, they should take it up with the person that posted it, not the business that runs the service said user abused.
Disclaimer: I despise Facebook, and have disdain for so-called "social media" in general. But let's at least approach this rationally instead of knee-jerk "zomg protectionism!" reflexive nonsense.