I completely agree. By banning these networks, overall suppression of information will greatly decrease. With these platforms banned, it will be more easy for Indians to encounter information that challenges the dominant narrative of the elites. \s
Different localities have different dominant networks. E.g. Instagram Stories and Viber in Europe, vs Snapchat and WhatsApp in the US, vs VKontakte in Russia. Clearly, banning a global dominant network will only spur the creation and migration to a more local, but likely still centralized, network. (It might still be equally, or differently but to the same degree, censorious.)
> With these platforms banned, it will be more easy for Indians to encounter information that challenges the dominant narrative of the elites.
You assume the "free range" information flowing around is free from the influence of 'the elites'. It might not be by the elites you particularly resent, but rest assured it is still going to be a strata of elites, who have the massive resources to organize, build, publish, market, brand, filter, "fact check" etc what information is allowed to flow around with what credibility.
If you ban a massive centralized network, another one will take its place. It will certainly be smaller than Facebook, but no less centralized. And in this particular case, I would imagine that based on the Indian government's grievances with these American networks, information will almost certainly be less free on the replacement.
One of the elements missing in the intra-US debate is that a lot of the hostility that much of the country feels toward Silicon Valley is generated from a very similar feeling. To many, how culturally distant elites on the coasts are from those in "middle America" coupled with how much power the former has over the later ... it can, at times, make it feel like there's an element of foreign rule. Technology has made it a lot easier to project cultural power - once you have it. Once you lose it, it seems it's almost impossible to get it back.
(Plus of course what will actually happen is that Facebook and Twitter will comply, and Indian users of those platforms will be subject to both the whims of California-based moderators and the Indian government's current penchant for objecting to pictures of funerals and suggestions they might not be doing a wonderful job. The potency of control of information and ideas in action; nobody in the upper echelons of the Indian government cares about Zuckerberg's policy on the lab-leak theory...)
If your country is consuming information through the filter of the American coastal elite, then they are likely to come to believe in the things that the American elite believes, to despise the things that the American elite despises. We can meaningfully speak of individuals having a choice to believe this or that, but as a society, that kind of domination of information will predictably drive people to believe what they are told to believe.
It cares not in the slightest whether Indians get access to things Facebook cares to censor (which they can anyway, through the large majority of Indian media Facebook does not influence or seek to influence) but is determined to browbeat Facebook into removing evidence that the Indian government's handling of COVID might be suboptimal. This is the purpose of the policy. Reinstating posts on lab leak theories is not the purpose of the policy, and the American coastal elite (or Bangalore tech elite) will continue to censor stuff they want to on their platforms in addition to the more pervasive and more universal Indian-government censorship.
Takes a remarkable degree of dishonesty to make freedom of thought arguments in favour of the Indian government being able to prevent any material it does not agree with from reaching Indian eyeballs.
The reason for the ban is obvious. Twitter tagged propaganda by the government as fake news.
Email, Facebook, SMS, Twitter, and Discord are all massive networks that all can also facilitate small group conversations.
Bigger companies have much bigger kitty and clout and they can fight back when something unreasonable is being pushed down the throat.
Smaller companies will be completely at the mercy of the governments.
I am guessing that these companies are deliberately waiting for a court case.
2. The total number of people talking on all networks will probably go down.
The decrease in 2 is probably orders of magnitude larger than the increase in 1. I don't think that it's necessarily a positive change.
Not from India but personally I'd much rather my government not set such precedents and not have such power to block websites. Next thing you know they'll be blocking credible sites to spread their own misinformation agenda.
So yes, I have independent media, because I can access the entire world's media and choose what I look at.
> Next thing you know they'll be blocking credible sites to spread their own misinformation agenda.
I assume courts will act against it, So that is not really a complaint.
This is not a good assumption. I've seen lots of cases in the developed world where the courts do nothing.
The American media is NOT independent.
But because at least the American government doesn't ban and censor websites, I effectively have independent media because I can look at any non-American media that I wish.
That's why I cautioned to not wish banning or censorship upon your own local law, wherever you are. If they are allowed the precedent of banning Facebook, they can also ban Al-Jazeera or BBC or DW or Wikipedia or whatever you wish to actually look at.
Hence, the anger in the comments and downvoting by upper caste folks of Indian origin.