Hacker News Reader

Comment by crop_rotation | Hacker News Reader

I mean this is just absurd.

> On Tuesday, the Karnataka High Court directed the Indian government to block Proton Mail, a popular email service known for its enhanced security, following a legal complaint filed by New Delhi-based M Moser Design Associates. The local firm alleged that its employees had received emails containing obscene and vulgar content sent via Proton Mail.

How does this make any sense. Would the court block gmail if the same happens via gmail?.

India somehow is stuck in the worst of all worlds. There is no freedom like democratic countries and there is no good government like China.

To any westerners commenting, this is not same as think of the children. Government or courts mostly don't even need to give such excuses in India (max they might say to counter traitors). There is obscene amount of corruption in the country at every step from the local to the highest, and it is internalized by the citizens so much that everyone knows and nobody cares.

Edit: good government above means competent government

View on HN

> Good government like China

This is a bad joke. For starters, China blocked Proton Mail years ago.

I am not claiming China is free or democratic at all, just that Government in turn is able to use it's authoritarianism to do stuff for the country.

Every government is busy with some form of "do stuff for the country".

It seems clear above commenters are referencing that China performs better at accomplishing certain tasks, such as large scale infrastructure development, that isn’t comparable to other countries that “do stuff”.

I’m always skeptical of what I will call the admiration of “despotic efficiency / accomplishments”.

I’m not sure how efficient or how long accurate their success / failure rates are.

Especially when blocking a service would seem to have no impact on it…

If that's what you really believe, then I'd say Chinese government propaganda is working as intended.

Have you ever really visited China? I would just say go to your preferred youtube channel and watch any chinese city and any indian city and then say the same thing as above.

Don't base your opinion of China on YouTube channels that show you a few modern places in Chongqing or the high-speed train and pretend that this represents all of China. They don't show you the homeless people, the abandoned half-built high-rises, the dirty parks full of plastic waste, the barred-up windows because break-ins are so prevalent.

And travel 30 minutes outside of any major city. You'll see people living in broken-down buildings without heating when it's below zero, roads that haven't been maintained in decades, and poor people trying to jump in front of your car for insurance money.

China is neither the technological wonder of the world portrayed in these videos nor a bunch of peasants. It's a vast, complex country with a lot of good and a lot of bad.

I would love to say the same of India but unfortunately India has all of those problems and even the best parts of India don't hold a candle to even tier 2 cities in China.

Exactly the same could be said about several 1st world democratic countries. The point is India level of development is far lower than its neighbor having a similar population size and having come from as far down, or worse than India. The difference is a government that provided (more) benefits to its population.

That's the cost of having people protesting, blocking and badmouthing govt, for example you are doing right now. Try something like this in China against CCP, your account will be blocked within hour and cops will visit you in a day.

I have traveled widely across both India and China. China is wealthier and better off across the board: HDI, GDP per capita, healthcare, you name it.

https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/india?sc=...

China has its problems for sure, but vast slabs of India remain mired in sub-Saharan Africa levels of poverty and squalor.

"But the trains ran on time."

For anyone who didn't get this reference:

'In fact, there's an old saying about Mussolini that goes something like this: "Mussolini made the trains run on time." In other words, even dictators have their good points. Sure, fascism is an often brutal model of efficient government, full of poverty and corruption, but hey, at least the trains were newly punctual.

https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/did-mussol...

The fact check goes on to explain:

"Italy's railway had entered into a state of disrepair after World War I, but after the war ended, there had been a number of measures implemented to boost efficiency. Mussolini, of course, liked to say he was responsible for those improvements. However, those changes actually took place before he assumed power, so technically, he couldn't really take credit (although that didn't stop him). More to the point, the trains didn't always run on time, either."

I mean the everyday people are happy and their GDP is high.

I have been under the impression that China has been lying about their GDP for years and years, I thought this was commonly known.

I have also been under the impression, for years and years, that it isn't a good idea to speak ill of the one-party regime, to anyone ever.

I highly doubt GDP numbers in China are falsified, but GDP per capita doesn't matter much when median household incomes in China remain in the $250-350/mo (EDIT: $400-500/mo, good callout, needed to update priors from covid) range according to Chinese government statistics.

This is why Chinese overproduction exists - incomes are too low for most Chinese consumers to purchase higher value goods that are made in China, because you aren't upgrading your cellphone or car every year when your household income is in that range.

maybe those numbers are right decades ago - now it is double that, in disposable income

https://www.statista.com/statistics/278698/annual-per-capita...

2024 - https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202408/t202408...

income of $300-ish vs disposable income of almost $3k are quite different things :)

That's 3k per 6 months, so about $500/month disposable income.

yup! a whole world apart from $250-ish income originally stated

Hence why I edited it once you pointed out the issue. But my initial point still stands.

The poverty rate in China declined even outside Chinese propaganda.

So there are benefits for the Chinese population.

You can disagree with their motives and methods but it's undeniable that the Chinese government is working incredibly hard for themselves and their citizens. The sheer manufacturing dominance of China speaks for itself, as does their presence on the global stage, as does their looming influence over geopolitics.

And yeah, they put out a shit ton of propaganda too. But it being propaganda doesn't by virtue of that fact make it lies. One would argue the more effective kind of propaganda is the kind that's verifiable fact, even if ideologically slanted in delivery.

And you know, I'm also biased as an American currently living under the "group of incompetent jackasses" administration, but I'd love for my government to do anything besides shutting down departments that make business owners mad and handing out tax breaks to the richest assholes here every fuckin day.

Yeah, but maybe it is a powerful country because it has a lot of hard-working people with improving conditions, not because it has a communist government. I mostly think that the Chinese government harmed Chinese development in the future with their shortsighted policies, like the one-child policy.

Also, does the government really work for its citizens if they are doing a genocide of one nation in the country?

Yeah, I agree that the Trump situation is frustrating and idiotic, however, we should not resort to shifting towards totalitarians. That's problematic thinking.

one child policy was disastrous, yeah.

It's a powerful country because of the leadership though. Policies and culture shape the country. China was extremely poor for a long time, and it wasn't because the people were lazy back then.

Pro-Chinese sentiment has increased lately here in the West it seems, and part of that must be because the Chinese have managed to put their best propaganda forward. But I don’t see how we can have any sane discussion when one side of the argument can be bad-faith dismissed off the bat.

I used to believe the western propaganda "they are all peasants" - then I went to see with my own eyes.

If you are going to parrot western talking points then it would be insane conversation.

> then I went to see with my own eyes

Exactly the same here. I went to see with my own eyes, and the reality is very different from what I hear in some news outlets and from politicians.

There are undeniably ways in which the command economy is simply more efficient. The party can decide that in 10 years they will be world leader in this or that, put resources toward it, and accomplish that goal. That doesn't mean the Chinese way is best for everyone, and there are certainly humanitarian issues, there are inefficiencies typical of a command economy, and there are unintended consequences, (tofu dreg, etc) but it's undeniable that they're currently getting stuff done.

Yeah, more efficient in making suboptimal decisions for everyone in the country.

With freedom of thought and markets, you get competition of ideas, which ultimately selects a better solution than any central planner can plan.

This is simply and verifiably false. How much new transmission infrastructure has China built in the last 2 decades? How much renewable generation? Say what you will about competition of ideas, but when it comes to getting the big iron projects completed and objectives met China has us beat, hands down. Building and maintaining infrastructure isn't working in the US right now.

And where are you getting your information? The most interesting thing is how U.S. politicians often use the phrase 'Chinese Communist Party' when talking about China, invoking Cold War-era connotations of communism. But everyone knows that the only things still 'communist' about China are the party's name, its symbols, and the flag.

I’ve been to both the U.S. and China. There's significantly more propaganda about China in the U.S. than there is about the U.S. in China. Stop blindly believing what others say—go see for yourself. In the coastal and Tier-1 cities, you’ll witness how a population the size of the entire United States enjoys a higher standard of living than the American middle class, with greater affordability, and clean, safe, and beautiful urban environments (with infrastructure that is way ahead of US).

FYI, a good term for this is "state capacity"

What’s the relevance of authoritarianism? Is it necessary for the good government or is it neutral or other?

You mean like the Stalin's 5 year plan from 70 years ago ?

Don't believe what any government pretend, especially communist ones. Chinese standard of living improved ? Absolutely.

Just like it did in previous emerging market, which were not ruled by communist party.

Protonmail did not comply with Chinese law. I can't say I'm a fan, but this wasn't targeted at Protonmail, it was the same with Google. China requires this because China is a target for U.S. imperialism and must protect itself. The internet, mainly owned by the USA, is basically like radio free asia dot com.

Protecting Chinese technology firms also allowed China to grow highly competitive national companies, a phenomenon we don't see as much anywhere US technology companies were allowed free reign.

> The applicable Chinese law is the China Internet Security Law which came into force in 2017. The law essentially stipulates that foreign companies which operate in China and process the private information of Chinese citizens, must store such data in China and make it available to Chinese authorities upon request. An example of a company which has had to comply with this law is Apple, which has extensive operations in China. A similar law went into effect in Russia back in 2015 (known as Federal Law No. 242-FZ).

https://proton.me/blog/clarifying-protonmail-and-huawei

Explain how the "internet [is] mainly owned by the USA."

The robust Chinese technology sector is no doubt a reflection of smart and industrious Chinese people. Those smart and industrious people include those in the CPC engaged in wholesale industrial espionage.

The largest technology companies are headquartered in USA and have extensive ties with the US state??? I don't understand how you can think Europe, Africa, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are unable to develop comparable technology, it's simply that the market opportunities are gobbled up by behemoths grown where the internet was invented backed by US diplomacy.

Anyways, you can read more here: https://www.amazon.com/Surveillance-Valley-Military-History-...

Chinese infrastructure is light years ahead of India and frankly a police surveillance state does make the streets safe.

> there is no good government like China

Here "good" means "is competent and calculating" I suppose. China's government wouldn't even blink blocking Proton Mail or any other non-Chinese technology without even giving a reason, though.

Yeah that is a good tradeoff (IMHO) if it gives the citizens a tradeoff of infrastructure and social services. Indian government can jump through hoops to do the same thing but somehow can never do all that when it comes to rapid infrastructure development.

> "[...] never do all that when it comes to rapid infrastructure development."

India is now building 100 km highway per day. It created 24,000+ km in the last 5 years. [0]

It has the second-largest road network in the world, second only to the US. [1]

[0]: https://pib.gov.in/PressNoteDetails.aspx?NoteId=151963&Modul...

[1]: https://www.financialexpress.com/business/roadways-indias-ro...

Yes the current government is doing some things well and that does include road development which has been extensive.

Isn't 100km per day their goal while their record is at 37km on a single day? That's impressive by itself, but it's not quite the same (and those 5 year numbers would take them less than one year at that speed).

Yes, "completely different from China's government" is really what's meant.

No, I did mean "competent"

I wouldn't consider ghost cities and wasteful expenditure on infrastructure to just prop up GDP as good governance. As the saying goes not all that glitters is gold.

Democracy is messy, but there is some kind of transparency (freedom of press) that brings up issues out in the open.

Let's not be impatient with Democracy lest we lose all that we valued without us realizing it.

Democracy needs patience and preserverence.

A lot of the ghost cities news has been debunked as of late. When the news stories were coming out, a lot of the cities were just recently built. A decade+ later, a lot of the areas have been filled in...

E.g. this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR4EYQ6JFUI

"A lot" isn't really doing much for your argument that the existance of ghost cities is "debunked", given that it implies there are still ghost cities.

Yeah, that would be like the football lobby forcing the blocking of Cloudflare just because someone used it for unauthorized football streaming!

people will get stuck on 'good govt china..' but I get what you mean. moving on to core message. Indian courts are some of the dumbest, red-tape laden, corrupt entities out there. for westerners, its common for basic things like property disputes or even divorces to run for decades (yes -s plural). In India the legal process is itself a punishment. plus there is no consistency in case law or precedent. people often perjure themselves and walk around like its nothing. it really is free for all with Indian judiciary so I am not surprised at-all that they will do something stupid like this.

> The local firm alleged that its employees had received emails containing obscene and vulgar content sent via Proton Mail.

How bad is the 'vulgar content' that it warrants banning of the service? This seems like extreme snowflake behavior

Interesting. As a Brit, I imagine (possibly ideally) by the time I'm an old man in 20-30 years that India will be a beacon of democracy and freedom in the East, given its historical Western ties and a large English speaking population.

But your argument against their ruling speaks for itself, IMO.

There will come a point where India has to lead on this kind of thing.

India's legal system is based on the paternalistic British judicial system from the mid-19th to mid-20th century.

India, Malaysia, and Singapore all share the same common judicial origins because they were forked off in the 1940s to 1960s, and never saw the reforms that the UK, Canada, Australia, and NZ saw in the 1980s-90s.

Furthermore, civil libertarianism is more of an American judicial innovation, and even European countries are aligned with the primacy of the state over platforms.

A pretty good starting point considering the USA constitution was based much off Scotland's enlightenment 200 years prior.

The Scottish Enlightenment never took hold in much of the UK though. That's why America was so "revolutionary" for the 18th and 19th century.

The British system remained paternalistic for a long time (eg. universal male suffrage only happened in 1918, collective bargaining was only legalized in 1945)

It definitely took hold. It was an act of political union, albeit the democratic vote was heavily biased towards a larger English population, but the Scottish influence is imprinted in UK law, US law and any ex-colony.

The works of Adam Smith and David Hume arguably shaped the modern capitalist world which India is part of and branched off from.

Maybe there are nuanced arguments why it's less of a democracy, but I'm fairly sure nowadays every democracy has similar arguments.

But from a judicial standpoint, most of the strengthening around civil liberties as mentioned in the Scottish Enlightenment only happened in the 20th century.

Indian (and Malaysian and Singaporean) jurisprudence largely forked off from British jurisprudence in the 1940s-1960.

A number of the reforms in jurisprudence that happened post-WW2 weren't incorporated in the judicial codes for most colonies at that point, so judicial norms remain paternalistic.

> Scottish influence is imprinted in UK law, US law and any ex-colony

In Canada sure (Scots were overrepresented in "anglophone" Canada), but not the rest of the Commonwealth.

You edited a bit but I appreciate your point and I'll defer to you as I don't know much about Indian Democracy or the behaviour of the current government. I suspect that the seed of self-determination has well and truly been planted though.

I thought this 20-30 years ago.

India is as the commenter said, the worst of both worlds. The government managed to drive a comedian into hiding, for a make a crude (non political) joke about sex with parents. The government drove another comedian into hiding, for making a political joke and closed down the bar where he was performing, for the sole crime of hosting him. The government regularly censors movies, bans books, censors speech etc. At the same time we get no development, the drain outside my house is still not covered. It’s just arbitrary authoritarianism on the most pointless use cases.

India should have just been given to a monarch who liked the country and its people unlike the British or the Mughals

Don’t forget the guy who had to flee India because he explained that the weeping statue of Jesus was not a miracle, but the result of capillary action from a nearby clogged drain.

Can someone please explain how the Karnataka High Court can order New Delhi (nat'l gov't) to ban a website? I'm not doubting their authority to issue the command, rather I am confused how a regional high court can issue a national ban. Does this ban only apply in the state of Karnataka?

That’s not how the law works in India. Any ruling by an Indian court on matters applicable to the entire country will apply to the entire country. There’s only one Supreme Court in India, and it cannot (and in many cases will not) handle all the cases relevant to national interest.

Very helpful! That sounds like this court is similar to the United States district court.

Can I ask: If someone wishes to challenge this decision from a regional High Court, do they petition the India Supreme Court?

Late reply: yes, if someone wishes to challenge a High Court order, they’d typically appeal in the Supreme Court. There are avenues for “review petitions”, but those don’t work well. The backlog of cases across all the courts is really huge.

People often underestimate how much impact the education of certain aspect (Infrastructure in China and Democracy in Westerner countries) has made to their values to a government, and meanwhile the education is controlled by the government to certain degree.

> Would the court block gmail if the same happens via gmail?.

I mean, G will happily cough up the data and so will other big corps. Proton doesn’t… unless they go through the Swiss relationship route?

But this decision is stupid and harmful regardless.

> no good government like China // good government means competent government

As someone that lived in China for 5 years, competent is the last adjective I’d use.

Sichuan Earthquake —> https://circa.art/ai-weiwei-recapturing-the-tragedy/

The Shanghai Lockdown —> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59890533.amp

Local Chinese government corruption —> https://thediplomat.com/2025/03/how-local-corruption-evolved...

Tai Lake pollution —> https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/taihu-green-wash-or...

Land seizures —> https://rightsandresources.org/blog/the-guardian-chinese-vil...

Xinjiang —> https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-musl...

One could call China’s government competent the same way one could say Stalin was a competent administrator. Nazis were also very “competent” and efficient. In no universe should that be considered “good government.”

For a moment I thought you might be the Brian Dear who wrote The Friendly Orange Glow (a fascinating history of the PLATO system).

It really is between 2 choices:

1. An authoritarian government that can actually do things but also mess up and be harsh against anyone opposing it - China

2. A democratic government that can’t get anything done, citizens can’t rely on police for any crimes, courts for any justice, politicians for any development, where the politics of the nation just constantly seeks to divide on basis of caste, religion, language etc, and the nation as a whole wallows in mediocrity.

This is such a deeply simplistic and childish way of looking at the world.

Easy for you to say, I presume you don’t live in India

What is special about India that condemns it specifically to these two choices? There are other countries (which aren't China) which somehow manage to have democratic governments that aren't incompetent.

I agree. The fact that India is so behind China while not being a free country is just horrible. Add to that massive amounts of pollution. People cannot breathe and no clean water.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com