Social Media Watch Thread

[chetak]

how long do you think that this guy manish maheshwari, is going to last, the way things are going.

how do you think that his family is holding up.

how much longer will some court will continue to stay the orders.

would this lesson have been possible if twitter had been banned by the GoI

do you think that google, facebook, instagram and the US embassy in dilli are not watching with dismay, all this sordid drama play out in the public domain, due to the bad publicity being generated for the ameriki big data companies

jack on crack has quite needlessly, brought down all this fire and brimstone upon himself, by defying the Indian govt. He has gained zilch in the process. twitter, and the others, are getting their arses kicked in many countries.

why are his employees in India being forced to pay the price while he is very comfortable, sitting far away in the communist paradise of california

what happens if some crazies gather outside the twitter India offices, demonstrate, and maybe, just maybe, set alight a car or two or three or pelt stones and break windows

just like the much vaunted black ameriki lives matter, equally, our own brown Indian lives also matter, right

[sudarshan]

I'd like to request folks here to stop using google search as much as possible. There is an upcoming search engine called DuckDuckGo (a pun on the game Duck Duck Goose I guess), which is built upon the principle of not tracking user data. The site does show a lot of ads (they need revenue after all), but the important point is that these ads are random, and not "customized" by some algorithm based on tracked user data. The search results are also displayed in a more natural order (I guess based on number of hits?) and not ranked by some politically-motivated algorithm.

This search engine still can't compete with google in terms of number of queries, and probably also doesn't have the resources yet to thoroughly crawl the web and cache results, like google does. So the quality of some searches might not be up to the mark set by google. If one is dissatisfied with the result of certain searches on DuckDuckGo, one can always use google just for those searches. The idea is to promote the new search engine and encourage the emphasis on non-tracking and eliminating algorithm-based decisions, taking traffic away from google as much as possible. Divert more revenue and build up the number of hits for the site.

Make DuckDuckGo your default search engine please.

[mappunni]

And adding on to using Duckduck Go, I use Brave browser with duckduckgo as my default search engine.

Even if you use google as your search engine, use brave browser which blocks ads even on Youtube or Tubi.tv which is a free cable cutter for those in the US.

[Tanaji]

Kaivalyaji,

Thanks for the link. It is detailed, but still does not answer the question of what happens if a company simply has no presence in India. Yes, technically they would be in violation of those laws but short of blocking, there is no recourse for GoI.

This filling of FIRs will have no effect if there is no nominated person at the Twitter India office, which is going to be the case.

[Ambar]

What stops Indian IT giants from doing what Chinese companies have been doing much of 2000s ? i.e. pick up small and medium sized companies and build upon their IP. Market cap of Infy is nearing 100 billion USD, a small software company like DuckDuckGo or the unloved Mapquest can be the perfect targets for acquisitions for our IT giants.

[Tanaji]

It works in China because the government actively prevents their western competitors from competing using a combination of measures such as outright bans, forced IP sharing and lax implementation of anti piracy laws in favor of local outfits.

Such a regulatory environment does not exist for Indian companies. Plus Infy, TCS types are quite content in being players in business markets rather than playing Twitter type games.

[ManSingh]

A lot of mid-sized Indian software firms have been buying up semi-conductor(VLSI/ASIC/FPGA design) firms across the globe over the past year.

I don't know what the angle is but it seems acquisitions are very targeted and seems to be in a very specific sector. These acquisitions will add very specific skillset( not that there is zero skill at the moment ) to the Indian software engineering companies.

[Kaivalya]

Kaivalyaji,

Thanks for the link. It is detailed, but still does not answer the question of what happens if a company simply has no presence in India. Yes, technically they would be in violation of those laws but short of blocking, there is no recourse for GoI.

This filling of FIRs will have no effect if there is no nominated person at the Twitter India office, which is going to be the case.

Tanaji - sorry about that.I thought the article talked about it. Here is the language from meity draft with public commenting on the importance of having a senior officer with a registered office. I will post the actual law passed when I get my hands on it.

https://meity.gov.in/writereaddata/file ... newsletter

Added actual rules ( In hindi ) :https://www.meity.gov.in/content/notifi ... termediary


Here is a comparison of a similar intermediary law across countries

https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/digital-med ... 01599.html

[jamwal]

I'd like to request folks here to stop using google search as much as possible. There is an upcoming search engine called DuckDuckGo (a pun on the game Duck Duck Goose I guess), which is built upon the principle of not tracking user data. The site does show a lot of ads (they need revenue after all), but the important point is that these ads are random, and not "customized" by some algorithm based on tracked user data. The search results are also displayed in a more natural order (I guess based on number of hits?) and not ranked by some politically-motivated algorithm.

This search engine still can't compete with google in terms of number of queries, and probably also doesn't have the resources yet to thoroughly crawl the web and cache results, like google does. So the quality of some searches might not be up to the mark set by google. If one is dissatisfied with the result of certain searches on DuckDuckGo, one can always use google just for those searches. The idea is to promote the new search engine and encourage the emphasis on non-tracking and eliminating algorithm-based decisions, taking traffic away from google as much as possible. Divert more revenue and build up the number of hits for the site.

Make DuckDuckGo your default search engine please.

I've been using DuckDuckGo for 3-4 years and it is 70% as good as google in terms of search results. Don't see as many ads as google though. Additionally, google search results, atleast the first page are all full of sponsored and heavily manipulated low quality pages.
With duckduckgo, you can just add trigger words in the search query to get it to shift to other search engines. For example if you are searching for "skullknight" on ddg and don't like the result, just type "skullknight g!" in ddg's search bar to shift to google, add b! for Bing and y! for yahoo.

[EswarPrakash]

I've been using DuckDuckGo for 3-4 years and it is 70% as good as google in terms of search results. Don't see as many ads as google though. Additionally, google search results, atleast the first page are all full of sponsored and heavily manipulated low quality pages.
With duckduckgo, you can just add trigger words in the search query to get it to shift to other search engines. For example if you are searching for "skullknight" on ddg and don't like the result, just type "skullknight g!" in ddg's search bar to shift to google, add b! for Bing and y! for yahoo.

I have completely moved to DDG and Brave now. It feels so much more cleaner, faster and less intrusive. I like DDG's open architecture with that cross-search support. This and Linux is a great combination.

[chetak]

I've been using DuckDuckGo for 3-4 years and it is 70% as good as google in terms of search results. Don't see as many ads as google though. Additionally, google search results, atleast the first page are all full of sponsored and heavily manipulated low quality pages.
With duckduckgo, you can just add trigger words in the search query to get it to shift to other search engines. For example if you are searching for "skullknight" on ddg and don't like the result, just type "skullknight g!" in ddg's search bar to shift to google, add b! for Bing and y! for yahoo.

I have completely moved to DDG and Brave now. It feels so much more cleaner, faster and less intrusive. I like DDG's open architecture with that cross-search support. This and Linux is a great combination.

64 bit browsers seem to be a memory drag on 64 bit operating systems, especially if you have many tabs open as I mostly do.

I often find that the 32 bit versions of many browsers perform better under the same circumstances.

If you use a script blocker, many ads simply do not open but if not used to a script blocker, it can be a very irritating experience.

of course, as always YMMV

[anmol]

I have completely moved to DDG and Brave now. It feels so much more cleaner, faster and less intrusive. I like DDG's open architecture with that cross-search support. This and Linux is a great combination.

64 bit browsers seem to be a memory drag on 64 bit operating systems, especially if you have many tabs open as I mostly do.

I often find that the 32 bit versions of many browsers perform better under the same circumstances.

If you use a script blocker, many ads simply do not open but if not used to a script blocker, it can be a very irritating experience.

of course, as always YMMV

Check out "The Marvellous Suspender" extension, it suspends the tabs you are not using. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... emoa?hl=en

[RajaRudra]

Guys, What is this duckduckgo..

I tried "www.duckduckgo.com" getting the below output

"Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. Please contact administrator for more information. "

Just machine is in India, VPN from different country.

[chetak]

64 bit browsers seem to be a memory drag on 64 bit operating systems, especially if you have many tabs open as I mostly do.

I often find that the 32 bit versions of many browsers perform better under the same circumstances.

If you use a script blocker, many ads simply do not open but if not used to a script blocker, it can be a very irritating experience.

of course, as always YMMV

Check out "The Marvellous Suspender" extension, it suspends the tabs you are not using. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... emoa?hl=en

much obliged.

[EswarPrakash]

Guys, What is this duckduckgo..

I tried "www.duckduckgo.com" getting the below output

"Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. Please contact administrator for more information. "

Just machine is in India, VPN from different country.

They stopped DuckDuckGo?

That is weird!

[chetak]

Guys, What is this duckduckgo..

I tried "www.duckduckgo.com" getting the below output

"Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. Please contact administrator for more information. "

Just machine is in India, VPN from different country.

They stopped DuckDuckGo?

That is weird!

It's not blocked. I can access DuckDuckGo easily. No problem.

you could try clearing your browser cache and restarting the browser.

I have multiple browsers, (some with VPN and others without) on my computer.

That works for me

[chetak]

This is your chance

Date extended till 15th July




we seem to have missed this

[RajaRudra]

Guys, What is this duckduckgo..

I tried "www.duckduckgo.com" getting the below output

"Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. Please contact administrator for more information. "

Just machine is in India, VPN from different country.

They stopped DuckDuckGo?

That is weird!

Issue is I missed the https
URL should be https://duckduckgo.com/

i tried before - www.duckduckgo.com redirection is triggering with out S(May be Redirection should happen if http got used, its not happened)

[EswarPrakash]

Issue is I missed the https
URL should be https://duckduckgo.com/

i tried before - http://www.duckduckgo.com redirection is triggering with out S(May be Redirection should happen if http got used, its not happened)

Brave has a feature which forcefully takes from http to https. A tiny little feature, but pretty handy in cases where you might accidentally end up in a hacker redirect or some dodgy site with the same DNS name.

[disha]

^I am surprised that this thread has gone from rona-dhona whine fest (previous pages) where the sole thrust of argument was 'mudi must rezine' to an it-vity thread.

Can we go back to the rona-dhona (cry-rinse & repeat) at the very least?

BTW, Fbook came in support of MEITY. Time to file few more law suits on Twitter. Their MD must rezine.

[rsingh]

This is your chance

Date extended till 15th July




we seem to have missed this

Ah blank , depressing, useless, grey sq over the standing committee for women, children and education . Grey sq is a good metaphor for the work of standing committee . I have to stop reading between the lines pictures.

[m_saini]

Brendan Eich, founder & CEO of Brave Software inc (parent company of Brave browser) has a pretty interesting past. He denied the effectiveness of face masks and lockdowns in combating Covid-19 and apparently called Fauci "a liar". In 2008, he made donations to Tom McClintock, who supported Proposition 8 and questions the role that human activity plays regarding climate change, arguing that the "climate has been changing for four and a half billion years,", voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, denies face masks effectiveness against Covid-19; and more gems like these.

One of the investors in Brave Software is Peter Thiel, who is a member of the Republican party, donated to Trump and was a member of his transition team, has his own PAC which is which is committed to supporting political candidates who support stricter border control, restrictionist immigration policy, funds for veterans, and isolationist foreign policy. He is also a self-described Christian and a promoter of Christian Anthropology, participates in Veritas Forum, is a member of steering committee of Bilderberg Meeting.

Now Bilderberg Meeting/group is a whole another level of crazy. Their theme seems to be to "bolster a consensus around free-market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe". In 2001, Denis Healey, a Bilderberg group founder and a steering committee member for 30 years, said, "To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."

In 1957 they also received contributions, $30,000, from Ford Foundation. The contribution was repeated in 1959 and 1963.


Not that any of the above matters or prove anything but we should really be careful of thinking that any free product is ever truly free or cares about our privacy. Don't even want to go into details about DDG search engine but unless and until we have our own domestic Indian alternatives, privacy or unbiased treatment remain far-fetched dreams.

[EswarPrakash]

Not that any of the above matters or prove anything but we should really be careful of thinking that any free product is ever truly free or cares about our privacy. Don't even want to go into details about DDG search engine but unless and until we have our own domestic Indian alternatives, privacy or unbiased treatment remain far-fetched dreams.

Not sure about the politics behind all of this, but for me it is pretty simple. (1) Lesser of all the evils (2) Open source (which means I can build the browser from source) (3) Less chance of the browser turning into a massive spyware unlike Chrome or Edge (4) A decent browser for Linux (5) Better than Chrome/Edge/Firefox. Unless there is a truly Hindu/Indian/SDRE browser, I am sticking with alternatives like this.

[m_saini]

I agree, yeah OSS(open source software) do seem to be lesser of the evil but it's very subjective.

Take Shellshock for example. The vulnerability had existed in Bash for 25 years before it was discovered in 2014. And Bash has been open source forever yet no-one seemed to discover it or (conspiracy hat on) they discovered it and used it to attack linux distros while the users were under the false sense of security of OSS.

For me, I just automatically assume that anything I do online can be tracked and there is no privacy. Sure Google can steal my data and sell it to 3rd party advertisers but they're also extremely unlikely to leave any security vulnerabilities fester for over 2 decades, the same security vulnerabilities that any motivated dev can find out considering the nature of OSS.

[EswarPrakash]

@m_sainiji - We are probably going OT with the discussions on OSS. I am sure we can pick it up in a different thread. For the context of the thread, I wholeheartedly support going away from absolute and proven offenders like Google / Facebook / Twitter to alternatives such as DDG and Brave. The primary goal is to reduce sending telemetry and other data to the big three and then we can think of solving the next problem of which browser / search engine is best for the Hindus and India.

[m_saini]

We are probably going OT with the discussions on OSS.

Agreed. Also very much agree that everyone should move away from google,fb,twitter trio. The ideal case would be to move towards indian alternatives but OSS aren't that bad in the absence.

[Thakur_B]

M_saini ji, Peter Thiel is a very interesting character. He is also a close friend and employer of Eric Weinstein.

[m_saini]

I somehow missed that, good catch Thakurji. Interesting characters indeed.

[vijayk]

VADIRAJ C S Flag of India
@vschanna Jun 30
NCERT Textbook committee for 12th standard History book.

Out of 20 members, 6 from JNU, 2 from AMU, 3 from DU, one bloke from Telegraph, Distortian Guha and one ROP bloke from US ....

Then we wonder why we never read about our own history and honest one ...

[darshan]

Not to mention that the textbook event was out for more than two months but not picked up by the facet that feels proud of not changing a single word while in power and not stopping a single change while not in power.

[Tanaji]

As per dishajis request, back to rona dhona:

Neither originator, nor publisher; writ petition not maintainable since we’re US-based: Twitter to Delhi HC

https://indianexpress.com/article/citie ... c-7387509/

Twitter is unfazed and is so scared of Ravi Shankar’s absolutely final, last, ultimate, super duper warning.

Dishaji, not everything is Modi related. If you think Ravi Shankar Prasad and his ministry has done a Sterling job, then we must agree to disagree.

[disha]

Not to mention that the textbook event was out for more than two months but not picked up by the facet that feels proud of not changing a single word while in power and not stopping a single change while not in power.

Nonsense Darshan'ji. GOI is figuring out ways to correct the rot set in NCERT. It is like a hydra growing from augean stable of opposition politicos, babooze, jholawalas and the wokosos all in bed together. It is going to take time. If you are going for "chop the head" strategy, that is not going to work. For every rakta beeja, 1000s of wokosos, jholawalas, babooze and opposition politicos will find employment and relevance.

Best is to study it properly and slowly modify it from the root itself. It will take time. Here Javdekar'ji has actually done immense work.

[disha]

As per dishajis request, back to rona dhona:

Neither originator, nor publisher; writ petition not maintainable since we’re US-based: Twitter to Delhi HC

https://indianexpress.com/article/citie ... c-7387509/

Twitter is unfazed and is so scared of Ravi Shankar’s absolutely final, last, ultimate, super duper warning.

Dishaji, not everything is Modi related. If you think Ravi Shankar Prasad and his ministry has done a Sterling job, then we must agree to disagree.

Well, twitter can do whatever petitions it wants to do. It has filed for a writ petition at Delhi HC. Let it explore that course. All they are saying is that twitter is a US based company and hence Indian laws do not apply. Let it have its day in court.

It is reminds me of the famous SVP of product management coming personally into my office and dancing on my table (not literally, but figuratively) and giving me all kinds of threats.

In comparison, twitter is so small and GOI so big, that it makes all sense for GOI to ignore twitter dancing on its table and let the law takes its course.

Here is what everyone is missing. Twitter is doing this nanga dance to gain attention. The more it gains attention, the more outrage it creates, the more eyeballs to its bordello, the more it can sell ads. It pays twitter to be controversial. And here all the rona-dhona to chop of Twitter's hydra head will create more controversy which twitter will exploit and laugh its way to the bank.

[Tanaji]

Dishaji,

That is one way of looking at it and it has merit as well. The other aspect is that to be respected, power needs to be projected. People dont obey police out of the goodness of their hearts, it is because they afraid of getting a danda up their nether regions. Twitter is small as you say, but the forces that Twitter enables are bigger. By cocking a finger at GoI they get emboldened.

I dont want Twitter to be banned. But there are other ways: financial pressures on its India arm (delays in funds being transferred), arbitrary and random squelching of its bandwidth to its parent servers, mysterious power outages in local caching servers, child ***** allegations on content… there is a lot that can be done.

Instead we have Ravi Shankar Prasad saying “ok, absolutely final last warning plizz to behave”.

I leave with this:

[sanjaykumar]

Absolutely brilliant.

Devious Brahmin Bania.

[vera_k]

My thoughts are that Twitter is small fry but is useful to setting up a heads I win tails you lose situation via the courts.

If the courts are to hold Twitter blameless, they necessarily have to hold parts of the First Amendment as being unconstitutional or carve out a free speech exception for social media. Either of these steps will allow for criticism of all types of regressive practices that is currently verboten on public order grounds.

On the other hand if the courts require enforcement against Twitter, Twitter will leave or have to be blocked. Which in turn will open up space for other entrants who will invest in better compliance measures.

Government needs to be patient and keep up the pressure through the courts.

[jamwal]

Seems like that jihadi Raheel Sharif or whatever was his name entrenched a rabid lslamofascist team in twitter and it has stayed back even after his departure.

[Pratyush]

Delhi High court has told the twitts of Twitter to comply with the IT rules 2021. If they wish to continue to function within the country.

[chetak]

whatsapp forward

Swami Lakshmanandha Saraswathi worked for the Adivasis of Odisha and bravely fought off conversion mafia.

Was shot dead by missionary naxals.

No media covered it.

But naxal stan swamy who plotted to kill PM and supported Pahalgar lynching is hailed a martyr.

RIP journalism.

[chetak]

BJP government's response arsenal in every situation.

(Adapted from @alok_r's original idea)





Then again, yogi is the only one who actually takes action, from boli 2 goli