Many banned posts were made by opposition politicians and appear to be criticism of the government
Laura Dobberstein Mon 26 Apr 2021 // 05:34 UTC Share
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As India battles a surging second wave of COVID-19 cases and severe shortages of medical supplies to fight it, the nation s government has told Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to remove social media posts it says may panic its populace with misinformation.
The takedown requests were lodged on Friday, a day before India for the first time recorded over 300,000 new COVID-19 cases. India s previous peak came in September 2020, when cases reached nearly 100,000 cases a day before settling to around 10,000 a day in early 2021.
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Open source developers in India are challenging its new Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code.
These rules target social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp with moderation regulations and more.
But developers say these new rules can also put unreasonable compliance burdens on open source projects.
Developers in India are fighting back against a new set of rules that they say will hinder the country s fast-growing open source industry.
The government launched the new regulations in February to target major social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp, but critics say that their broadness will add an undue burden that could threaten the very existence of some open source projects.
Backstory | A Question the Media Seldom Asks: Does the PM Care?
A fortnightly column by The Wire s public editor.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo: pmindia.gov.in
Rights5 hours ago
In March last year, as the COVID-19 clouds gathered, the acronym loving political establishment came up with a new relief fund which bypassed the existing Prime Ministerâs Relief Fund that had been functioning since 1948. The new fund had a lengthy title â Prime Ministerâs Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund â which conveniently folded into the acronym âPM CARESâ. It was meant to suggest that not just any prime minister, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi specifically cares for you, me and every Indian. By implication, anything adverse that happens to us will pain the prime minister directly. You could call it part of the old compact inherent in a line that inevitably emerges in Modiâs election speeches: âevery vote you cast will reach me
Assessing the proposed amendments to the ICT Act to regulate social media in democratic Mauritius lemauricien.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lemauricien.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
India’s consistency in performing dismally on a number of key indices pertaining to freedom and democracy is remarkable. It has ranked at an appalling 142nd spot out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2021 compiled by Reporters Without Borders. This is the second year in a row that India has ranked 142nd, the implications of which are troubling. For one, the lack of improvement on an index widely seen as a dependable record of how the fourth estate is faring globally indicates that there has been no change in the conditions under which journalists in India have to operate. The muscular attempts by the Bharatiya Janata Party government to compel the media to be compliant or derail robust investigative reporting are no secret; the index makes the picture clearer. Four journalists in India were killed in 2020 for their work; an increasing number of journalists are being imprisoned and charged with sedition punishable by life imprisonment for questioning the Narendra