I had to laugh at this one. I'm neither a fan of social media nor the current Indian government, but this article is either ridiculously out-of-touch, or is aimed towards an ivory-tower audience nicely cosseted within universities far away from the country they're writing about.
There might've been an idealistic Silicon Valley in the 1990s-2000s, but if it ever existed, it's gone now, replaced by high-growth corporations whose goal is the same as all high-growth corporations, ie money and growth at the expense of everything else. The way they will make the most money is by amplification of whatever ideas governments and companies will pay money to amplify. The valley is not against the Indian government, it is with the people who will pay it the most / will amplify it's use the most. Political discussion will keep people within the social website bubble for longer times, so such discussions is what people will see. Administrative or legal action are side effects, and just fun-and-games as usual for both the SV companies as well as the customers (not users!) of the products, to ensure that they get a better deal for their side, in ways they've mostly always used throughout history.
The author also seems to neglect mentioning that every major SV company has fairly sizable employee presence across India and recruits heavily from India's best education institutes. These employees are some of the highest-paid in the country. A lot of people at upper levels of these companies' headquarters in the valley are of Indian origin. They know how the country works; they know how fiercely angry the people get at things they perceive as slights to their identity; they know what kind of leadership the BJP has, and they definitely knew what kind of person Modi is. If they still got in bed with him, it's due to their greed and lack of respect of the same values they seem to identify with.
> ...TikTok ban came into play, that the app had become an easy-to-use arena for conscientious citizens to counter mainstream media censorship, spread the word about protests, and give voice to Indians of different castes, gender and sexual identifications, and ethnicities, many of whom found themselves under attack from the BJP’s Hindu nationalist government
This is ridiculous. Anyone who used TikTok even for a minute in India knows that the app was far away from what this author seems to describe. It was nothing but people dancing around and making goofy videos. I am not sure how the app's design would have helped to do anything as serious as "spreading word about protests" in a consistent way.
I'm all for serious discussion of autocracy, of stifling free speech or spread of inflammatory rhetoric, but this is the flimsiest article I've read about it. It seems to side with the people responsible for amplifying these issues in the first place, and mindlessly bashes what it feels as working against those companies. IMO banning FB's Free Basics was unequivocally a good thing. Banning TikTok has almost no losers other than TikTok and some influencers.
Social media was supposed to be a way to keep touch with family and upload cat photos. If it got used for something far more sinister at global scale, it should expect some sort of pushback, regardless of the people doing the pushback are right or not.
There might've been an idealistic Silicon Valley in the 1990s-2000s, but if it ever existed, it's gone now, replaced by high-growth corporations whose goal is the same as all high-growth corporations, ie money and growth at the expense of everything else. The way they will make the most money is by amplification of whatever ideas governments and companies will pay money to amplify. The valley is not against the Indian government, it is with the people who will pay it the most / will amplify it's use the most. Political discussion will keep people within the social website bubble for longer times, so such discussions is what people will see. Administrative or legal action are side effects, and just fun-and-games as usual for both the SV companies as well as the customers (not users!) of the products, to ensure that they get a better deal for their side, in ways they've mostly always used throughout history.
The author also seems to neglect mentioning that every major SV company has fairly sizable employee presence across India and recruits heavily from India's best education institutes. These employees are some of the highest-paid in the country. A lot of people at upper levels of these companies' headquarters in the valley are of Indian origin. They know how the country works; they know how fiercely angry the people get at things they perceive as slights to their identity; they know what kind of leadership the BJP has, and they definitely knew what kind of person Modi is. If they still got in bed with him, it's due to their greed and lack of respect of the same values they seem to identify with.
> ...TikTok ban came into play, that the app had become an easy-to-use arena for conscientious citizens to counter mainstream media censorship, spread the word about protests, and give voice to Indians of different castes, gender and sexual identifications, and ethnicities, many of whom found themselves under attack from the BJP’s Hindu nationalist government
This is ridiculous. Anyone who used TikTok even for a minute in India knows that the app was far away from what this author seems to describe. It was nothing but people dancing around and making goofy videos. I am not sure how the app's design would have helped to do anything as serious as "spreading word about protests" in a consistent way.
I'm all for serious discussion of autocracy, of stifling free speech or spread of inflammatory rhetoric, but this is the flimsiest article I've read about it. It seems to side with the people responsible for amplifying these issues in the first place, and mindlessly bashes what it feels as working against those companies. IMO banning FB's Free Basics was unequivocally a good thing. Banning TikTok has almost no losers other than TikTok and some influencers.
Social media was supposed to be a way to keep touch with family and upload cat photos. If it got used for something far more sinister at global scale, it should expect some sort of pushback, regardless of the people doing the pushback are right or not.