BBC Modi Documentary Removal
blog.archive.org
blog.archive.org
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34512758
Looks like BBC wants to keep itself in control and not authorise unwarranted copies of the video around Internet.
Censorship, arrests, power cuts. India scrambles to block BBC documentary. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/25/india-bbc-na...
The BBC produces content and licenses it around the world in exchange for money. Is it really surprising that like other copyright holders, they want to control unauthorised copying?
This thread had 221 upvotes as opposed to the Elon musk focused thread with 72 upvotes and a fraction of the discussion.
As big as India is, it keeps being considered as the ‘next billion’ revenue generators for tech companies - but not sure when that day will actually arrive.
Teslas aren’t for sale in India, not that many will be afford it (besides the few virtue signaling billionaires / millionaires who might buy it after acquiring their dream Ferrari or whatever). Nor does India contribute to the supply chain AFAIK.
Pretty sure Indians don’t contribute to significant % of ad or subscription revenue for Twitter or other tech companies either (compared to USA or Europe - outliers being websites like Quora) given the low purchasing power. I recall New York and London together making more $$$ in a day for Uber than the whole of India
So not sure why tech companies are afraid of taking on India, especially Musk. Or maybe just doing what the India govt wants instead of fighting is another way of signaling that they don’t care what happens in India anymore
He's the one that made the incompatible promises that Twitter will be "free speech absolutist" but at the same time will follow the laws from your average corrupt and fascist government.
Er, is that what he claimed? All I've seen is:
> By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.
> I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.
- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519036983137509376
Which this is - for better or worse - in line with.
Ultimately, the conception of free speech is rooted outside of legal standards and closely related to universal human rights.
They are following Indian censorship laws for Indian IP addresses.
Not sure if that's the hill they went to die on, but sure there's an argument they should try anyway. Google tried to resist the Chinese gov early on then shut down the entire service there when that became infeasible (which went well beyond taking down a couple links).
Twitter probably has a long existing framework in place with each region legal system and the degrees to which they will listen to it. And India isn't exactly a North Korean type dictatorship where companies would normally disregard their demands out-right.
Maybe this will bring attention to that issue. I'm happy people are holding Elon Musk to account on free speech, even when most people are just doing just to spite him.
> ... Sorry to be a free speech absolutist
> Starlink has been told by some governments (not Ukraine) to block Russian news sources. We will not do so unless at gunpoint.
Any country? Such as the Principality of Sealand? Or Liberland?
I think the second approach is right even if the request were “innocuous”.
> Twitter even blocked Indian audiences from seeing two posts by actor John Cusack linking to the documentary. (They remain visible to American audiences.)
And links to the legal request on Lumen[0].
Here's tweets from the Information & Broadcasting Ministry[1] attempting to justify the block, and clarifying the directions:
> The directions to block content from @BBCWorld vicious propaganda were issued by Secretary, I&B, on Friday using the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021. Both @YouTube and @Twitter have complied with the directions.Governments in India.
> YT has been instructed to block the video if uploaded again. @Twitter has been directed to block tweets linking video on other platforms.
> Accordingly, @BBCWorld ’s vile propaganda was found to be undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India, and having the potential to adversely impact India's friendly relations with foreign countries as also public order within the country.
[0]: https://lumendatabase.org/file_uploads/files/5097820/005/097...
[1]: Senior Adviser, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, New Delhi.
"First I’ve heard. It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things."
Wow, strong "I take no responsibility" vibes from this
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:B96B9C1CD9A0332E82023FA934DDD4ACF94377DE&tr=http://tracker.trackerfix.com:80/announce&tr=udp://9.rarbg.m...
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:B96B9C1CD9A0332E82023FA934DDD4ACF94377DE&tr=http://tracker.trackerfix.com:80/announce&tr=http://tracker.trackerfix.com/announce&tr=udp://9.rarbg.me:2790&tr=udp://9.rarbg.to:2760&tr=udp://tracker.thinelephant.org:12710&tr=udp://tracker.tallpenguin.org:15790Being in tech, what is surprising is how powerful the post-truth era is and how such things can be hidden in plain sight by just knowing how to manipulate Google, Twitter, Wikipedia and all social platforms by using an organized army of trolls.
The minority hatred in India is now naked and public.
Possibly the BBC DMCA all content internet-archived, and the controversy about this particular content is a coincidence here?
Weather other sides carved to political pressure or where "tricked" by malicious DMCA notices (or non DMCA copyright take-down requests) or malicious flagging etc. or a mix of both is also an interesting question.
I can’t agree with this analogy, RT wasn’t banned before Russia started an invasion.
The difference is that prior invasion it’s a different opinions, after the shooting begins it’s part of the warfare and not a public debate activity.
For example it’s completely okay to claim that Zelensky should go and Ukraine and NATO caused the war, totally not acceptable to claim that Zelenksy left the country and requested amnesty in Poland. At war time yok can’t afford BS like that because the impact can have immediate and irreversible consequences.
There are people alive today who grew up in an India subjugated by the UK. It wasn't so long ago in the grand scheme of things.
Besides, everyone was once invaded by the British.
Objectively, the facts are that the UK once invaded India and some Indians alive today personally experienced that subjugation. But what any of that means or implies is subjective.
This doesn't mean that Indians shouldn't be cautious but gives them an opportunity for healthy debate thanks to input from outside. Because there's no immediate and irreversible dangers, they can counter the British arguments or get something from it to make their own position better.
Asians should flag the British media as foreign, can’t expect British do it for them.
The reporting in the west is certainly ideologically biased with lots of ignorance and naturally often steeped in sensationalism.
Russias reporting is very often an intentional hostile psyops directed by state forces. Whatever take damages western society most is getting air time.
Its the same with western NGOs vs russian influence campaigns.
Those NGOs were in Russia since the 90s and havent changed a bit. Its the russian state that changed in a way that those NGOs are now hostile and detrimental to the cleptocracy. Now they are all banned.
In contrast Russias support of extremist groups in the west has no ideological consistency and is only aimed at doing maximum damage.
Not that you're wrong, they're trying, but we are just so much bigger.
Youtube at least tags BBC videos with "BBC is a British public broadcast service."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20050...
Zelensky then decided to purge him and his entire party, charging him with treason. This led to Kyva making increasingly unhinged claims and recommendations. Among those were that Russia should nuke Ukraine, and that Zelensky had secretly fled to Poland. Some Russian outlets (I cannot find this story on RT, but perhaps I missed something?) ran this story such as here [2].
The article certainly doesn't state it as a fact. Instead it recounts the events in a relatively impartial way - two Ukrainian lawmakers said he fled. Rumors of something similar were spread shortly before the article was published and Zelensky rejected them while providing video evidence of himself in Ukraine. It also mentions that the US reportedly offered to help him escape Ukraine, and also that he rejected the offer. End of article.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illia_Kyva
[2] - https://sputniknews.com/20220304/zelensky-left-ukraine-for-p...
There is a a difference between someone operating as a news channel actively continuously repeatedly spreading misinformation with the intention to undermine a government and a documentation which seem to be mostly correct but unpleasant to hear information.
Also there is a difference between restricting availability in your jurisdiction (country, country union, i.e. case RT) and trying to restrict it beyond that.
While it is questionable banning BBC in India is well in the right of the Indian government, it banning BBC (content) outside of India is on the other hand not something which should be possible/allowed/tolerated.
akin to how Europe has banned RT
It's just that it's more about selective reporting and creating news in a way that people come to conclusions not backed by truth without making up information (tho in practice it's often not that much better then making up information as most people will be tricked into believing misinformation you just never wrote down).
Like for example a reporting about a demo consisting of a march and then multiple speech and announcements at a plaza being written highlighting that extremists taking part in it and making it look as if only a small number people took part in it. But selectively ommiting (or hiding in subtle formulations) that 80+% of protestors where "normal" people and that while the number of people during the march where small the number at the plaza wasn't.
(One of the most stupid parts is that the "independent state media" using such tricks often doesn't realize that this is perfect to convince people of conspiracies and "media is all lies" etc., e.g. in that example they did claim "they lied there where 20 times the number of people (compared to the march) here see picture of plaza" and then backed down later one to "we miscounted it where only 15 times" making many people believe that this (15x) is the truth and media is outright making up things (the truth was 3-4 times of people at the plaza compared to the march)).
Maybe people are meant to face these things straight up and be hard about them
Its all out there, and you' ve got to stay informed!
I think it is only fair to question if he lives up to hos own standards
Some of those I turned off after a few seconds, but I think I got the gist.
Personally - I'm willing to fight tooth and nail for the truth, and I'm sick of people acting like there's some kind of ambiguity here. The world has enough genocide as is without people being wishy-washy about it while it's happening.
If you have a problem with mass murder predicated on bigotry, it's time to take a stand, just saying.
Maybe people can learn in other ways that also don't subject them to harm.
I definitely agree with this, but in my perception the moving images themselves are secondary in effect to the audio. Tone of voice and emotive music in particular are very powerful methods of hacking emotions. When watching videos that I think are trying to be manipulative with music or tone of voice, I like to mute the audio and rely on subtitles. This is also one of the reasons that I read newspaper articles but avoid all radio and TV news broadcasts (the other reason being that newspapers hire better writers and provide more details and nuance. I read https://lite.cnn.com/ to stay in touch, but the writing there is abysmal.)
Tell me again how video is the ONLY means by which someone can educate themselves? Without using words.
Edit: In fact, by pretending that the ONLY means to watch this is a video which everyone in this thread admits is hard to watch, you are in fact helping to limit the knowledge that it shares.
In a way, you protecting Modi.
Share links to reading material that informs the reader without harming them, or admit that by your tortured logic, you are also "protecting" Modi.
This is what you are advocating for.
Rather than present other means to learn about this, you insist that this is the ONLY way to learn about this.
It's not education of the topic you are promoting, but hurting people. You are, in many ways, supporting Modi's cause by actively working to limit the spread of the knowledge of a chilling and depressing story of how an Indian politician uses communal violence to further his career and promote religious fundamentalist fascist ideology in India.
Why are you protecting this?
> mass murder predicated on hate crimes
choose one
Will this documentary cause its viewers to end whatever specific ills are shown within? I presume so, otherwise it wouldn't be getting censored.
Will it cause any specific person to effect that change? Probably not, most of us have no influence whatsoever over Indian politics or economics.
[0] or, if you don't like the word "evil", sadistic Machiavellian psychopathy
One should be enough mentally stable learning something about reality.
Have you ever heard about hoa mental health is going for people that have to moderate social networks for this shit?
Yes i even eat beef for example.
> social networks
Yeah i don't do that, THATS not good for your health, not knowledge.
Good one. Doesnt count if you've never been to a slaughterhouse and only ever see a steak wrapped a plastic at the supermarket shelf.
WARNING: First Kill is a deeply disturbing documentary about human nature in war (The Writer of Full Metal jacket and Apocalypse Now speaks too about his memory's in Vietnam), it's brutal and brutally honest, and the best explanation why you as a person should never ever go to war (if it's not absolutely necessary)...you have been warned.
The people who are into that admire the strongman, and don’t really care about the how and why. Understanding nuance or balancing interests is cast as weakness. Caveman clubs cavelady, ugh ugh.
Or maybe not. People who were actually tough and did things like fight in WWII may not have fallen for it. This stuff appeals to wannabes.
For better or worse, times are different but people are the same in terms of vulnerability to demagoguery. McCarthy played to postwar America’s fear and anxiety the same as people are doing today. As myko said, modern Russia’s influence operations are pushing a Soviet-like narrative without the communism. Stalin was pushed as a father figure, Putin was wrestling bears shirtless and doing other man stuff, etc.
How much of this was real, as opposed to hysteria?
> They could have rebranded Soviet communism as a tough
We had 'independance-loving' Nigel Farage admiring Putin
They could have rebranded Soviet communism as a tough no nonsense real man’s ideology and brought big chunks of the American right.
Russia has a lot more difficulty subverting the left in the US, though they do fund the more radical elements (which have very little power compared to the centrist dems and extremist right). The Mueller report goes into a lot of Russia's efforts in this arena.
Everyone in India knows about Gujarat 2002, Babri Masjid, and the whole discourse and context around this, but not necessarily foreigners.
Btw, plenty of BJP voters (like my extended family) detest the anti-Muslim shit they do, but have no other choice because in a Parliamentary system, you are voting for your MP, not your national leader. I seriously hope the BBC brought that point up.
I don't see it. Most people outside India do not have enough interest in India's politics to want to spend enough time to develop a nuanced understanding. I don't see the value in people in other countries develop, for lack of a better word, a "John Oliver" level of understanding of my country's internal affairs.
>because in a Parliamentary system, you are voting for your MP, not your national leader
That is almost entirely opposite the case with Modi though. Most BJP voters vote directly for Modi (and BJP's electoral campaigns reflect this) because they like him and have trust in him, even if they don't particularly like/care about the local candidate of BJP. Modi has been quite successful in turning Indian elections quasi-presidential. Forget general elections, BJP goes even into state and even local municipal elections asking for votes in Modi's name.
With regards to your second point, it's plain wrong, at least in the state my family is from. The only reason they and the rest of their district vote BJP is because the INC MLA is a bootlegger who shot 2 police officers in 2019 and has open connections with heroin mafia types across the border in Punjab. Delhi is far away and our state still has extreme autonomy (and we tend to have a superiority complex over other states tbh). They don't care if Modi or Rahul or Kejri become PM, because at the end of the day, actual decisions in our area come down to the Panchayat, the MLA, and the CM. Btw, every tehsil except ours flipped to INC because of the complacent Modi worship you mentioned. It may play in states like UP or Bihar where margins of victory are massive, but not in states where an election can be changed by 1,000 votes.
Edit: thanks for the negative votes Desis on HN. This is why Paharis prevent non-Paharis from getting residency in our state - https://himachal.nic.in/WriteReadData/l892s/13_l892s/3618435...
They openly say he showed muslims their place. One guy who claimed he wasn't a modi supporter at first later just casually told, "the muslims started it first so they got back in full"
That just seems like a super charitable 4D chess interpretation of capitulating to despotic censorship.
Made me think of Mary Poppins https://youtu.be/1Pu1adxqUAg
It’s nice to read that the spirit of criticism and science is still alive somewhere
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/asia/story/india-among-world...
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencie...
There is a trade deal pending with India that is supposed to help undo the damage done by Brexit (it won't), but even the Conservatives wouldn't bend over that far to try and save face.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/02/09/how-do-indian-ameri...
It's interesting how people can compartmentalize their right-wing nationalism
When a nationalist from India comes to America for economic reasons, why would they fall in with American nationalists? They're an Indian nationalist, not an American nationalist. American nationalism is contrary to the interests of an Indian nationalist living in America.
I think the mistake that might make this surprising is if you assume somebody votes Democratic because they oppose nationalism categorically. But it's easy for an Indian nationalist to oppose American nationalism specifically and not nationalism generally.
Actually I don't think this is necessarily true. In the West you sometimes see nationalist parties from different countries finding some common ground, e.g. some right-wingers in the US have expressed admiration for Orbán's government in Hungary.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44926417
There's nothing inherently incompatible with the statement "American government should focus on solving problems for American citizens" and the statement "Indian government should focus on solving problems for Indian citizens"
And "hating Muslims" is surely something Hindu nationalists and Christian nationalists agree on. Finally "American Nationalists" doesn't even make sense, it's a tautology since 1789 or the War of 1812. The US right wing is (partly) Christian Nationalisy. Nationalism means excluding someone from a nation based on religious, ethnic, or other basis. It's trying to make the nation for Hindus or Christians or the local population or whatever. "Indian nationalism" mean separating from the British. Muslims and Hindus are both Indians.
I don't assume all of them are, nor did I suggest it. I know that many of them are, because that's what opinion polling reveals.
American nationalists and Indian nationalists may have some commonalities, like hating Muslims, but American nationalists have no love for Hindus either so it would be weird for Indian nationalists living in America to cozy up with American nationalists.
Right wing is fundamentally self serving. So it shouldn't be surprising that they are conservatives when they are the majority, but liberals when they are minority.
I know this won't make him any less popular in India but nice to see at least people outside recognize how problematic he is for once.
If anything, the documentary should make him more popular in India. The modi supporters support him because of his role in the riots, not despite it. The documentary might help him become popular amongst the youth who might not be aware of his past.
I am surprised that the govt even tried to ban it in India. This documentary is not even aimed at the Indian population, it's meant for the western population. Banning it in India only creates streisand effect for the rest of the world through posts like this one.
The reason I say nearly fake is that Indians were using archive.org to access the documentary, and that was a good thing. But it's copyright that's suppressing information that is unfavorable to India's current administration. Absolutely pointlessly, by the way, as it was ultimately produced by the British license/tax payer.
edit: happy there's a fake story being whipped up about BJP, hopefully that means they're feeling real political pressure on some level.
[0] https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/students-deta...
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/05/asia/bbc-india-documentar...
but it is on Amazon Prime
search j5oydmf for more info, won't link it in case there is some ignorant law
I think the link provided is notable just due to the fact that the BBC overextended themselves and wasted taxpayer dollars on using DMCA against the Internet Archive - something outside of their responsibility (why is the BBC going above and beyond for censorship?), and possibly not even violated any copyright 'DMCA'.
This link provides clarity that the request actually came from the BBC, for whatever reason, not the Indian government. And that's probably why this discussion in the short time it was up generated more comments than the others all combined from a few days ago...
part 1 on peertube. lets see stupid DMCA take this one down
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=BBC%20Modi%20Documentary%20Rem...
"The Rise of a Hindu Vigilante in the Age of WhatsApp and Modi"
https://www.wired.com/story/indias-frightening-descent-socia...
I assume the topic is fairly similar (I haven't watched the documentary)
The copyright holder has zero right to the link, and I should be free to say, sing, or write it, and distribute that work.
Says little ol' me.
What about a link to a link to copyrighted material? Is tinyurl legally responsible?
I did have this happen to me once when I linked to a non-infringing page that had a link to an infringing page. It was a black mark on my record and I guess it was my fault for not verifying that none of the pages linked to from the page I linked to had any infringing content.
What about a page that links to a page that links to a page with infringing content? :)
https://magnetdl.unblockit.ink/i/india-the-modi-question/se/...
Proxy link needed for people behind ISPs blocking certain sites, like the bar I'm writing this from.
India invokes emergency laws to ban BBC Modi documentary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34511831 - Jan 2023 (31 comments)
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/01/23/indias-blocking-bbc-docu...
- https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2041149094
it’s funny how Bilibili who listed on NASDAQ has so many copyrighted video…
Streisand Effect in full display.
The BBC also licenses their content for audiences in different countries, and streaming services. The BBC own the copyright to the programming they produce and sell the rights to it.
bbc.com is the commercial arm of the BBC.
It's a bit strange though because DMCA doesn't even apply to the UK or India.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-leaked-internal-mess...
The documentary relies on Jack Straw who lied about WMDs in Iraq. I am sure he is correct now /s
Also compare and contrast with censorship and removal of stories on Hunter Biden.
I remember when the Second Gulf War started in 2003, Al Jazeera was removed from cable channels. They were forced to start a completely new organization, called "Al Jazeera America" to 'comply' with local laws. So much for freedom of speech, eh?
And don't even get me started on RT. Edit: HN "discussions" of RT getting banned: https://ibb.co/VtyBSCn
BBC and their racism and racist roots are well known.
Pointing out BBC's racist bias is not "whataboutism".
Western countries have no problems with banning entire channels like RT and Al Jazeera, but God forbid that a biased piece of shit "documentary" be banned from a propaganda outlet; then the heaven is falling!!
RT, for example, takes direction directly from the Kremlin and is nothing more than a propaganda hose.