India is a democratic country. The government controls the media and internet connection. But isn’t India a democratic country?
In the article How Lies Become Truth in Online America,
Saslow talks about how Christopher Blair, an American, started a
Facebook page in 2016 to make fun of the right extremists’ ideas and create faux
stories. “Blair had made up stories about California instituting sharia, former
president Bill Clinton becoming a serial killer and former president Barack Obama
dodging the Vietnam draft when he was 9”. I’m not going to argue for Blair but I’m
definitely going to be scared if Blair was an Indian and spread a similar rumor
about Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, and was thrown in a detention
camp or even secretly executed for it.
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| Mr. Narendra Modi |
The Prime Minister of India recently passed a new citizenship
law which included a list of all the religions that are “allowed” to immigrate
from other countries but calculatedly left out one minority group which led to
a widespread protest all over the country. To thwart the younger generation
organizing and leading the protest, the government started blocking
technological sources such as simply shutting down the internet in certain
cities. Additionally, they passed more laws to make their “democracy” more convenient.
Now the government of India can call any citizen a terrorist without any reasoning
and can hold them in contention. All social media apps such as WhatsApp (text
and audio) and Facebook Messenger and telecommunication companies such as
Airtel and Jio must give all their data of a user to the government if they ask
for it. To add to it, all the news channels and websites are controlled by the
government and hence, no one has a clear picture of what’s happening around
them.
The government is responsible
for deciding what’s right and wrong and now with the thriving technological
advancements, we need them to keep a check on the mistreatment of technology. I
understand that the Prime Minister of a country with a population of 1.35 billion can’t
be purely ethical since he has to protect the people from outside threat but
to use technology to alter citizens’ ethical values in order to promote a particular
religion is just wrong.
India used to be a democratic country and maybe ethics used
to exist.
This is some really interesting insight into the current situation in India. It's outrageous the lengths that some, supposedly, democratic leaders will go to to enforce their ideals. I, however, had trouble linking the relevance of Blair's Facebook group to the current state of affairs in India. Are you arguing that Facebook groups like Blair's are dangerous because they can spread false information and gain support for immoral leaders? Are you claiming that it was Facebook groups like these that got the Prime Minister to power? I think this blog could benefit from some clarification in this regard.
ReplyDeleteI’ll second that this is some really cool insight into what is going on India. I wonder if this is a problem which exists because of Internet technology, or if this is a problem which would have existed with the government potentially controlling traditional media anyways. Reading through the article, I would have wanted more background on Narendra Modi. I also think the transition from the first paragraph to the second was a bit sudden.
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