Ha, good question. "Indians", as it's used in such contexts, is really a euphemism to refer only to India's Hindus. A word trick when describing an undesirable behaviour prevalent mainly in one community but without fixing responsibility for that behaviour on that community. It's so common that even a disapproving critic like me ends up using such code words unthinkingly.
Cringeworthy strawman. But also demonstrates the kind of rationalization and whitewashing that's prevalent in the minds of millions of regular Indians, not just those working in FB.
"religious violence fomented in India across Meta’s platforms.”
"Facebook allowed a Hindu nationalist conspiracy theory to flourish on its platform"
"One video of an extremist preacher calling for Hindus to rise up and kill Muslims racked up 1.4 million views but was not deleted"
"Facebook banned a Hindu extremist group under its terrorism policies—but left most of its pages online for months after that ban, allowing them to share content"
"In Facebook posts and public appearances, Indian politician T. Raja Singh has said Rohingya Muslim immigrants should be shot, called Muslims traitors and threatened to raze mosques. [FB employees] concluded Mr. Singh not only had violated the company’s hate-speech rules "
"The company’s top public-policy executive in the country, Ankhi Das, opposed applying the hate-speech rules to Mr. Singh and at least three other Hindu nationalist individuals and groups flagged internally for promoting or participating in violence, said the current and former employees."
"team took no action after BJP politicians posted content accusing Muslims of intentionally spreading the coronavirus, plotting against the nation and waging a “love jihad” campaign by seeking to marry Hindu women"
"He has used Facebook, where his own page and those dedicated to him have more than 400,000 followers, to say that Muslims who kill cows—animals revered by Hindus—should be slaughtered like them."
"Another BJP legislator, a member of Parliament named Anantkumar Hegde, has posted essays and cartoons to his Facebook page alleging that Muslims are spreading Covid-19 in the country in a conspiracy to wage “Corona Jihad.”"
"Within hours of the videotaped message, which Mr. Mishra uploaded to Facebook, rioting broke out that left dozens of people dead. Most of the victims were Muslims, and some of their killings were organized via Facebook’s WhatsApp, according to court documents filed by police and published in Indian newspapers."
Facebook claims to follow a content moderation policy [1] for users on its platform. "Members of the government of the largest democracy in the world" is not a justification to bestow some kind of immunity from their policy. They should apply that policy to all users.
> their lives are in danger is a different story but this is - contrary to the claims of the author - not one of those
Yes, it can seem unlikely to outsiders who haven't observed the behavior of Indian outrage mobs on Twitter, Whatsapp, etc. There's a frightening arbitrariness and unpredictable lack of logic in their behavior. One never knows what triggers them. But once triggered, they go all in with doxxing, death threats, rape threats, online bullying, threat calls, and similar. So the best option is to stay silent all the time. The second best is to murmur our troubles to sympathetic audiences from anonymous accounts. If we were to criticize Indian government and it makes it to the Twitter/Whatsapp mob ecosystem, here's a small sample of the outcomes:
1. Police arrested a muslim woman after a complaint by a hindutva activist for posting this WhatsApp status on Pakistan’s Republic Day: “May God bless every nation with peace, unity and harmony”. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/mudhol-woma...
2. Police lodged complaint Against Two Minor Muslim Boys for Listening to a Pakistani Song. The FIR against the teenagers was lodged on the complaint of a local hindu, who objected to their playing the song which praised the neighbouring country. https://scroll.in/latest/1021926/two-muslim-boys-detained-fo...
3. Gujarat legislator Arrested Over Tweets Criticising Modi. The arrest was over recent tweets after communal violence in Gujarat, in which Mevani had called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a supporter of Nathuram Godse, who assassinated M.K. Gandhi. https://thewire.in/politics/gujarat-mla-jignesh-mevani-arres...
I can provide many more examples of such incidents. There are a few every week.
I hope this gives some context to our fears. They may look irrational from the outside but are very rational to us.
Whether to sacrifice our peace of mind for the good of a society that doesn't like us is an ethical dilemma many of us have not fully resolved. Zubair resolved that dilemma by dropping anonymity and paid the price with imprisonment.
I don't see it as a hitpiece. A hitpiece is when the main intention is to hurt a reputation. But any damage to reputation here is a secondary consequence of this company's actions that deviate from a moral and legal standard that a section of society wants companies to practise. It's no different from the posts that complain about Google bots blocking access to gmail accounts without redressal - we don't consider them hitpieces though they damage Google's reputation.
OP's intentions, IMO, are to bring to the IT community's attention, this situation where people may face penalties for doing a moral good (donating to a fact-checking service to fight disinformation) and for having their personal data handed to a malicious government without even token resistance.
Since social issues with data privacy and government intimidation aspects have been discussed here before, perhaps they thought this is a suitable forum. Everything OP said about the case and company's actions are factually correct
for which they provided supporting links.
The only thing I disagree in the post is the inclusion of YC. I don't think
YC could have done, can do, or even should do, ideological policing.
"YC company" can be removed from the post because it's irrelevant. But without it, this post may never have been upvoted because western audiences don't
know about Razorpay, a local Indian company.
On anonymity and cowardice, I feel you are belittling the entire philosophies of anonymity and whistleblowing that have legal backing even in western democracies.
Plus, there is no upside to revealing one's name when living in a malicious society where online mobs carry out intimidation campaigns, and law and courts don't are not seen as protectors.
If OP reveals their name, it may persuade you but what benefit do they actually get?
Nonetheless, if you are strictly against cowardice in all forms, please remember that individuals are not the only cowards here:
1) Razorpay, a well-funded organization with lawyers, handed over data without even a murmur of protest or legal resistance. There are always legal loopholes to at least stall or make the cops work a bit harder. But they tried none of that.
2) The Indian government has overwhelming voter and ideological support, and practically limitless executive powers. Yet it funds disinformation and propaganda networks hiding behind a huge network of anonymous social media accounts, and cracks down hard on individuals who dissent or protest, a minority in our society.
I hope your disdain for cowards is not selective against the least powerful.
Please rethink this criterion. Those of us who live under authoritarian regimes have to be cautious to protect us from both our governments and members of our society who support them.
On the same day Modi along with G7 countries were signing some declaration to protect democratic rights, his party in India was arresting Zubair for tweeting a scene from a 4-decade old movie. One commentator asked if G7 is trolling Indians.
Western democracies can certainly do a better job if they are principled but they aren't. They take only two extreme positions - either be chummy with dictators or sanction/bomb them to oblivion. Little acts of social control to keep all the dictos in check doesn't seem to be taught in western capitalism's textbooks.
I give zero sympathy or support to BJP and its destruction of India's democratic institutions.
Yet, I can't agree with your comment.
First, I don't think Razorpay supports BJP or its bigotry, at least openly.
One indicator of that is that they have retained critical media like AltNews and Wire as customers from years. I don't think they'd do that if they were pro-BJP or pro-bigotry.
Plus, I've noticed that rightwing companies and founders are generally very vocal about their support on social media (e.g.: PayTM, Zoho). They like boasting about their ideology. I don't see that with Razorpay or its founders. As far as I can see, Razorpay is "neutral".
Second, I don't see how YC can avoid funding such companies. You can't really expect them to include a rightwing checkbox that automatically excludes founders. YC itself seems to ignore ideology anyway. To repeat the previous point, there's nothing visibly political about Razorpay. It's not involved in any Indian government projects. It's not a Huawei or Palantir of India. I really don't see how YC can avoid funding such companies.
Third, the justice system that emerges from Indian laws, police training, and even its legal jurisprudence is anything but liberal. And that's ignoring the unethical malicious thinking that's prevalent in those people. We have sedition, UAPA, a quasi-blasphemy law, and a dozen other similar illiberal laws. Section 91 of the CrPC does seem to compel companies to hand over any information that's asked. I see this as an undesirable, but inevitable, outcome of our legal system. Whenever I donate, I do so knowing that I may come under government scrutiny some day.
Probably, Razorpay could have resisted the demand a little. But I doubt any neutral company does that. And even if they did, it wouldn't be for too long - some lower court would have forced them to disclose transactions.
A possible future outcome: The law and judiciary are increasingly turning into kangaroo courts. If Zubair or AltNews are declared terrorists under UAPA, all donors (who were just donating to upholding truth) can be labeled terror funders!