India cuts internet around New Delhi as protesting farmers clash with police

India cuts internet around New Delhi as protesting farmers clash with police(cnn.com)

39 points by pendu 5 years ago | 14 comments

meibo 5 years ago |

Since authoritarian governments noticed that this is something they can actually do, it seems as if it's becoming more and more popular. Will be interesting to see when this first happens in an European or American country.

Nasrudith 5 years ago | |

It probably wouldn't happen (or at least shouldn't if they aren't complete morons) for the most amoral reason - how much it would cost.

The damage is in opportunity costs to businesses and after it happens the disruption causes them to lose/fail contracts and either go out of business or leave and flip the country on harsh terms as they are rightfully pissed at the large scale losses they took from them and to paraphrase George Harrison on Manilla "would only return to drop a bomb on the country." America and Europe would have more to lose not that it has stopped the latter before (WWI).

The wrinkles in such optimism are "Great Firewall" style more targetted systems and their own market clout.

A small scale example was pulled in America already almost a decade ago by BART pulling a Mubarak that disturbingly left open the option even as they rightfully rebuked them for breaking FCC law.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/barts-cell-phone-shutd...

2Gkashmiri 5 years ago |

someone who has been suffering for over 500 days now because of india's shutdown of my internet access, its only a matter of time that they taste their own medicine. internet clampdown in kashmir was and is being advertised as a fight against "anti national propaganda" disregarding the real world loss and suffering such blockades are causing but when it comes to themselves, its "protecting democracy". my ass.

ncmncm 5 years ago |

"... clash with police" almost always means "are viciously attacked by police".

slezyr 5 years ago | |

Have you seen the video? They are chasing the police with the tractors.

fakedang 5 years ago | | |

The funny part is how most of the whacko protesters doing such shit almost always turn out to be implanted members of the ruling party.

2Gkashmiri 5 years ago | |

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/delhi-police-on-cops-photo-i...

this looks like jousting to me, against unarmed civilians no less

vondur 5 years ago | | |

According to the linked article an Officer was attacked with a sword and seriously injured. These officers on their own accord came up with the armor and weapons, and it was later confiscated from them.

chanmad29 5 years ago | |

I am not pro-violence from any party involved, but I know that it is not always one sided, at least in India. We tend to back the David taking on the government Goliath a bit too vociferously.

villgax 5 years ago |

Coz screw everyone else in that vicinity studying/working/whatever with mobile internet.

villgax 5 years ago |

MPs from the ruling party were bemoaning when Twitter was enforcing ToS a few backs. And now they have no stance on cutting the entire access to internet just because of protests.

reacharavindh 5 years ago |

Is it another risk that needs to be factored into critical services? For example hospital systems that rely on network any essential medical services(like remote labs or such)..

known 5 years ago |

This is why in 1932 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._R._Ambedkar demanded a separate country to 300 million Aborigines in India;

https://www.quora.com/Which-caste-is-looting-India/answers/2...

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

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

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism)

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

1cvmask 5 years ago |

What do we do about the Internet companies who are also censorship platforms. Should India censor the censorers as well?

The authoritarian government of English Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to cut off the Blackbery messenger service during the London riots/protests.

https://www.prweek.com/article/1084907/david-cameron-comes-f...

The French government of authoritarian Macron (the aspirational dictator):

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/13/tech/french-hate-speech-s...

Google (Youtube) censoring an academic censorship conference:

http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/2021/02/04/not-the-onion-aca...

So we should have a discussion on authoritarian companies like we do on authoritarian governments like the UK and France and Germany where there is no free speech.

And lets not forget the authoritarian (under both Obama and Trump) US and UK governments in torturing the news publisher Julian Assange.