Silicon Valley thought India was its future, now things have changed

This is a theme that will apply in a variety of different areas, well beyond Silicon Valley. There was a sense in the late couple of decades that India will become a faithful follower of US practices (if not policies) with its easily accessible population for everything from movies to ecommerce, food chains to apparel brands and more. The implied sense was that the rapidly growing middle-class would want to mimic (or at least, consume) American lifestyle and values. This did hold when the numbers were small. When this number becomes a few hundred million it is absolutely unsurprising that this mass of users will have their own views and not blindly adopt what others say. Clearly the changing political landscape has a role to play, but then the cause and effect are usually reversed. The reasons why the political landscape changed, why the current party came to power, are the more fundamental reasons why things are changing.

As India finds its own voice, as a substantial economy, market and an independent identity lots of companies and countries will have to rebevaluate heir views. Good or bad, who knows, but the change is inevitable.

This seems to be very related to the other article on first page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27488950

Seems like US tech companies were exporting US politics and values to India (whether by design or by simply forgetting that not all the world is US) and the government decided that doesn't fit their own goals. I see more of this starting to show up as US citizens demand that tech companies take active part in political censorship which will inevitably lead to clashes with cultures who don't fully agree with currently popular stances.

This goes double for more authariatiran right-wing governmenments. After all, even previous US administration lashed out at tech companies when it decided it didn't like content removal and fact checking.

This downward trend has long been in the works.

The current government came into power riding on a wave of popularity, largely driven by their "IT cells". Now comfortably in power, they are probably dismantling the path, to avoid others who might try to follow.

The government is not just in a stand-off with big-tech companies. It continues to view its own citizens as adversaries with frequent internet shutdowns [1].

[1] https://internetshutdowns.in/

After the tech giants' activities in the 2020 US election, damn right the Indians should be muscling in. These companies are basically foreign media companies deeply integrating with the population in a way never before seen. They will eventually move against conservative governments politically.

If anything, the Indian government doesn't understand the threat being posed to them.

OMG the world is shrinking for SV.

As US gets deeper and deeper into its Cultural Revolution more and more countries with strong cultural identity do not follow and become more and more selective in adopting US model - China, Iran, Russia, India, Europe...

It’s sad to see well intentioned people adopt the narrative that freedom of speech is just some western value, unfit for India.

People under oppression need your solidarity, not their circumstances being explained away.

I want to call out that while the implication in the title might be true, nothing in the article provides any proof. By proof, I mean something like a quote from a big tech honcho to the effect of 'I don't see a future in India'. The article just spouts recent tech happenings in the last 3 years or so (chronologically beginning with Facebook's troubles pushing Free Basics on the Indian market, rightfully rejected)

I don't like the crazy Hindu nationalism of current India at all. But the premise of this article is wrong and arrogant. India is a sovereign country and it has every right to define what is legal political discourse and what is not. The idea that the authority on this are some US companies or another outside force is absurd.

Media and free speech is regulated all over the world including in the USA. Outright racism will be banned within seconds on US social media, and you guys even banned your former president. As an outsider I might disagree with this from a theoretical perspective but I have no say in it, the formulation of these limits lies with the nation state, in USA as in India.

This needs to be understood in the context of a cultural onslaught of American values. More than just social media, services like Netflix, Prime, Disney are streaming live into millions of households in India.

India has its own authentic identity that is under severe threat. If you look at China / East Asia - it is culturally and aesthetically like the West, mostly America, other than language and deference to authority.

India has been traditionally liberal through the ages, it has more diverse cultures embedded in society and has fought much fewer internal wars than any ancient civilization. Few other cultures have outright pacifist icons such as Buddha or Gandhi. It has been able to absorb external influences gradually while maintaining its own distinct identity.

The backlash we see is not as harsh as China or the Islamic world, but India will need its own gradual pace to accept changes. It is more than this core liberalism that connects India to the West. While India and America are not geopolitically aligned, Indians in America have formed deep cultural roots that connect the two cultures. Technology leaders like Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella are role models for every child in India, so is American VP Kamala Harris.

The article in my view is not wrong, but takes a very narrow view of things. Other than the few 100 posts that Indian authorities have removed, there are 100s of thousands of critical posts that are still widely circulated. The government inadvertently makes "own goals" and add fuel to fire when it does stupid things like this. The farmer's protest blew up in their face and this is not the end.

There is a lot more to be hopeful about India rather than expect it to follow narrow nationalism of China or fierce capitalism of America.

That's two over-a-billion population dysfunctional autocratic regimes in Asia.

Fun times ahead.

I see this as a propaganda piece.

The unique problem with India is that, a decade ago, it had a small but highly educated, privileged urban population, spread across a handful of cities, who are the most vocal in national media and social media. This was the situation when SV companies made inroads to India.

Then came the mobile revolution and the availability of smartphones coupled with dead cheap internet. The rural population jumped on the bandwagon. Then social media saw a lot of voices being raised against perceived in-sensitivity of liberals (I too agree that there is a disproportionate bias in news, towards one political leaning) or portrayal of India in international arena.

This is when SV started complaining.

And when the population speaks against SM, the elected representatives will act.

Take the most recent case of raids against Twitter. Twitter did a major mistake by labeling a piece of content "mis-information", while there was an active investigation was underway by the highest investigative authority in India on the same content. That is blatantly illegal. It should have said something like "these facts are being investigated" or something like that.

When an investigation is going on, media is not supposed to pass judgements. Twitter fumbled and India govt. took the opportunity.

Now you have Twitter agreeing, in writing, that it will follow the law of the land.

Silicon Valley is pushing limits. India, as a developing country with a mass of gullible rural population and culturally sensitive to perceived dominance of foreign culture, has ample number of politicians who will make use of every opportunity to gather followers.

The sad part of this is that we've know these kinds of trends were going to happen since the advent of the computer and automation. Computing and automation leave the average physical and intellectual ability behind. Someone born in the last 20 years could be forgiven for thinking that Science Fiction is only about dystopian stories of despair. Why? Because one cornerstone of SciFi is that the average IQ is worth less every day and is being replaced by technology. Those left behind will revolt. This easily explains Trump's appeal. Average people are feeling more irrelevant ever day. Trump is proof that even the worst of con men can tap into that despair. Andrew Yang ran his Presidential campaign in part on this theme, but UBI does nothing for helping people feel relevant or in control of their lives. The title of this article could have easily been, "Silicon Valley thought the US was its future, now things have changed." The disaffected are only becoming more disaffected every day because those in the technological advancement industries don't care.

>But this quickly disintegrated, and the bargain tech execs drove in embracing an already-notorious figure like Modi became much harder. In 2016, India blocked Facebook’s “Free Basics” initiative, an attempt by the company to offer free internet access through a network of Facebook-approved sites, out of concern that the program would have created unfair tiers for internet access;

I wonder why author thinks that "free basics" was a great idea that was crushed by Modi.

I had to laugh at this one. I'm neither a fan of social media nor the current Indian government, but this article is either ridiculously out-of-touch, or is aimed towards an ivory-tower audience nicely cosseted within universities far away from the country they're writing about.

There might've been an idealistic Silicon Valley in the 1990s-2000s, but if it ever existed, it's gone now, replaced by high-growth corporations whose goal is the same as all high-growth corporations, ie money and growth at the expense of everything else. The way they will make the most money is by amplification of whatever ideas governments and companies will pay money to amplify. The valley is not against the Indian government, it is with the people who will pay it the most / will amplify it's use the most. Political discussion will keep people within the social website bubble for longer times, so such discussions is what people will see. Administrative or legal action are side effects, and just fun-and-games as usual for both the SV companies as well as the customers (not users!) of the products, to ensure that they get a better deal for their side, in ways they've mostly always used throughout history.

The author also seems to neglect mentioning that every major SV company has fairly sizable employee presence across India and recruits heavily from India's best education institutes. These employees are some of the highest-paid in the country. A lot of people at upper levels of these companies' headquarters in the valley are of Indian origin. They know how the country works; they know how fiercely angry the people get at things they perceive as slights to their identity; they know what kind of leadership the BJP has, and they definitely knew what kind of person Modi is. If they still got in bed with him, it's due to their greed and lack of respect of the same values they seem to identify with.

> ...TikTok ban came into play, that the app had become an easy-to-use arena for conscientious citizens to counter mainstream media censorship, spread the word about protests, and give voice to Indians of different castes, gender and sexual identifications, and ethnicities, many of whom found themselves under attack from the BJP’s Hindu nationalist government

This is ridiculous. Anyone who used TikTok even for a minute in India knows that the app was far away from what this author seems to describe. It was nothing but people dancing around and making goofy videos. I am not sure how the app's design would have helped to do anything as serious as "spreading word about protests" in a consistent way.

I'm all for serious discussion of autocracy, of stifling free speech or spread of inflammatory rhetoric, but this is the flimsiest article I've read about it. It seems to side with the people responsible for amplifying these issues in the first place, and mindlessly bashes what it feels as working against those companies. IMO banning FB's Free Basics was unequivocally a good thing. Banning TikTok has almost no losers other than TikTok and some influencers.

Social media was supposed to be a way to keep touch with family and upload cat photos. If it got used for something far more sinister at global scale, it should expect some sort of pushback, regardless of the people doing the pushback are right or not.

>Silicon Valley Thought India Was Its Future

I'm a bit skeptical. I'd imagine SV thought India was one country out of the 200+ their services are available in and if one of those 200 changing governments pass bad laws then whatevs, a developing countries manager can do a press release or something.

Lmao, SV will know first hand what it means "don't play with fire". They thought they had another US, well they helped create another China.

When US will learn that only Europe can be considered their ally in this world?

India somehow had stumbled and took a turn towards the Hindu right wing majoritarianism/ultra nationalism. It has certainly caused long term effects, the pace of reforms has slowed down considerably. Major policy decisions seems to be stuck in limbo for years, for example regarding Walmart: atleast for 10 years Walmart trying to start retail operations in India, but government hasn't given clarity on policy. Similarly in many many other fields and subjects there has been policy paralysis for last 10 years if not for more.

Not to mension the amount of repression etc the present ruling party indulges in..

15 years ago India looked like it would evolve into a country and society with liberal western values, but it hasn't made progress in recent years, but rather it has regressed.

Not crazy about the ambiguous/meaningless title

One of my favorite comedy group from Nigeria has an apt skit

https://youtu.be/Z1yBM1mheU4

We are just so addicted in America to these platforms we just can't collectively even start to imagine how the whole world does not want the same addiction.

Oh good. Maybe they can come back to India and develop the indigenous software industry.