Why was an Indian man held for sending a tweet? | Hacker News Reader

Why was an Indian man held for sending a tweet?

bbc.co.uk

84 pointsyati41 comments

This story leaves me feeling helpless. What can I, living in the United States, do to change this statement:

  In reality, [Section 66A of the IT Act of 2000] is more often used by 
  the state as a weapon against dissent. In each such case, police action 
  has been swift and harsh.

I'd love it if someone would comment, or better, write a blog posting with a list of actionable steps that I can take to improve things.

Whilst a laudable sentiment, you might be better off putting your energy into ensuring a similar law is never passed in the US.

We have have a very similar law in the UK, Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, and I'm sure it won't be long before something similar is proposed in the US after the 'innocence of muslims' debacle / tragedy (which is exactly the kind of thing that the UK law was brought in for, but has been similarly abused by the authorities).

We also have rather interesting laws surrounding libel in the UK... India seems to be a bit more sane on that front at least.

It's not easy to take action by authorities if such acts were done by or repeated by many.

Your best bet is to make a really stinky fart. If that fart reaches across the world, and certain people smell it, it might stop them from doing what they do.

That's your best chance of effecting any change in India from the US as a private individual.

The same thing happened here in Bolivia.

Samuel Doria Medina, tweeted that President Evo Morales had sex with a minor (17 years old) and she was pregnant. The following day the mother of the minor (a political person of power in Evo's cabinet) files for jail time among other things.

This was about two months ago and to be honest, media died down on it, and I have no idea what happened to the process. Was she in fact pregnant? Was the president in fact involved sexually with a minor? Lots of questions, no answers.

I wouldn't say it's the same thing - Doria Medina is a politician himself, and opposed to Evo Morales.

Apparently, he was forced to apologize, and he's been very vocal in other accusations too (for example accusing Evo of illicit enrichment).

Not tit-for-tat- same thing, but same ballpark. A tweet accusing someone in power of doing something wrong.

17 years old is not a minor. And you don't tweet about other peoples' sexual (or reproductive indeed) lives. If person C tweets about the sexual life of B and A, then C is a bad person. They should not have done it.

P. S. I live on another side of the planet.

As is the case where the person you are replying to, where I live, a 17 years old is a minor. You claim to be living on another side of the planet ... then you should restrict to comment about things you know about on "your" side of the planet.

A 17 years old is not a minor. You can call them "sexually restricted" but biologically and socially they are grown up and capable. Minor is somebody who is still growing. 17 years old is grown up. 17 years old might be already studying in an university thoudsands of kilometers from home. Or they work and earn money. By calling 17 years a minor and trying (rather unsuccessfully) to restrict them sexually you are trying to violate human rights and therefore a bad person.

P. S. I see the downvote rally is going on. Bring in relatives and friends! Suffering for truth is sweet.

Minor: "a person under the legal age of full responsibility."

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/minor?s=t

Then we are all minors because I don't see how we are allowed of full responsibility. For example, we don't seem to be allowed to own and use drugs.

And how does having sex with a person under the legal age of full responsibility (which may not come until like 35 when you're allowed to apply for certain political positions in some jurisdictions) allows a third party to tweet away the details of your sex life? I'm all for the freedom of speech, but anyone who does that is a very very bad person. You might have a right to tweet about other peopes' sex life without their consent (if we aim for absolutely free speech), but using that right marks you a very bad person indeed.

Every society sets different ages for when sexual activity is acceptable. You may not agree that a 17 year old is a minor, but it isn't your decision.

I would recommend you do not go to Bolivia, have sex with a 17 year old, and try to argue that a 17 year old isn't really a minor.

Maybe the headline should be "Why were 2 men arrested and convicted for tweeting in the UK?"

Actually, it was for creating a Facebook event. Arguably even more private.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/16/facebook-riot-calls...

That's a different case. Details for the Tweets below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/9431677/Twitte...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/09/matthew-...

My bad, worth a mention though.

This one's a little more outrageous :|

Eh, the story there isn't really anything to do with social media. It's about riot-related crimes being treated more harshly.

But, the rioting there never happened. It only ever got as far as a Facebook event, seen only by their own friends. (And a friend of a friend, who obviously panicked a little)

It was in the context of riots elsewhere in England -- if you read the whole article, there was a nationwide directive to treat rioting related incidents far more harshly than is the norm. (I'm not defending this!)

Some other examples from the article were jail sentences for small thefts, such as a single bottle of water. Like stealing a bottle of water, calling for a riot (regardless of whether anyone shows up) is a crime. The real story here is the general pattern: harsh prosecutions for crimes that would normally be forgiven.

So it's legal to plan a riot, as long as the riot never materializes?

You aren't allowed to plan a murder, even if you never actually murder someone. It's the same thing.

Unfortunate, but real state of affairs in the so called "India Shining" story! Corruption is ingrained in public and private offices. And my biggest concern is that it's become a way of life and people are indifferent to it.

This indifference is but forced. It seems that here, the "authorities" need to be appeased to get them do the job they're paid for. If you cannot appease, you are screwed.

It is unfortunate but change is difficult too. Countries , like companies , have to be crafted thoughtfully and carefully (Google <--> US) otherwise they end up being mess like ( India <--> Yahoo ). I feel same for both Yahoo and India. They both were amazing but now in a state of mess.

Things like this one happened several times in Bangladesh. The government imprisoned several people over time for posting statuses against the prime minister on Facebook.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index

STUPID HUMANS!

because India is a corrupt mafia run state?

Corrupt, yes. Mafia-run, no. There are limits to the insults we will take.

Come to think of it, implying that some of our politicians were smart enough to be mafia would be highly insulting to the mafia.

Some are wannabe mafia, though. They're the ones we try to avoid. The others are corrupt, but often their motives are fairly aligned with public interest. For instance, they take cuts on all infrastructure projects, so our infrastructure tends to improve at a fairly good pace - though obviously not as fast as it theoretically could.

"so our infrastructure tends to improve at a fairly good pace"... not quiet. The politicians get HUGE kick backs from the contracts. Where does the money come from? By sourcing cheap sub-standard materials. This leads to shit infrastructure with everything crumbling within couple years of construction. I have seen pictures of N. Korea and they seem to have better infrastructure.

LoL

Indian politics is corrupt, not India.

Each family is a mafia. It exactly describes India.

And the limits go quite deep. Right?

The UK arrests people for tweeting too. Were the tweets distasteful? definitely. illegal? often not.

You're also not allowed to demonstrate anywhere near parliament or shout at the prime minister.

Mafia!! Not anymore. They left that profession and are politicians now.

And I just don't mean it as a joke.

If you were from India, you could also face jail. Why you insult the mafia by comparing these politicians (Indian). Mafia also have limit for earning money but if you just read the amount of fraud / corruption in last 5-6 yrs of ruling Congress party, no one can even imaging, India is a poor & developing county.

If that was true, the mafias do not need to become politician.

Ambiguity of English. India is not a corrupt, mafia run state, but it indeed is a state which is run by a corrupt mafia. Things are changing, but the change will not manifest itself at sufficient scale unless the established negative forces are eradicated. Which is hard. NP hard.

Russia would probably be an example of a corrupt mafia run state. India is just corrupt or rather indian politicians. And at that population & diversity (given the limited resources), that's pretty much inevitable. It's just human greed. Is there a solution? I don't know but education and trying to curb the population would be a start

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