The India Big Tech Battle: How the Government Can Stop a Video Game, or Can the Government Stop It? A Comment from a Veteran Journalist
This has left Banerjee, whose channel has nearly 3 million regular viewers, uncertain about where the red lines are. “I don’t know if I make a video on the BBC documentary, can the government pull that off, also citing emergency powers?” Banerjee says. For the time being, he’s self-censoring, holding off on posting anything about a drama that has gripped Indian politics for weeks.
Emergency powers can be used for a very serious security implication that threatens the sovereignty of the nation and the peace of the nation, according to a veteran journalist who runs a satire channel on the internet. Using that, the government has banned a documentary that talks about “something that happened years ago.”
The government will likely add more legislation over the next few months. Lawyers, digital rights activists, and journalists think that this is an attempt to change the internet in India so that it is less free and more pluralistic. It’s a move that could have profound consequences beyond India’s borders, they say, forcing changes at Big Tech companies and setting norms and precedents for how the internet is governed.
India’s Big Tech battle began with a dispute over farm laws. More than 100,000 farmers took to the streets of Delhi in the late 2020s to protest the proposed agricultural reforms. The movement was mirrored online as farmers and unions used social media to rally support. The account of a global music star, for example, expressed solidarity with the protesters. Then-CEO Jack Dorsey liked some celebrity posts supporting the farmers.
The BBC and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the midst of India’s Crises of the Modi-Namiokande-Born-Initio Violence
The government of India prevented a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from airing, but the British Broadcasting Corp will not stop reporting in the country.
Indian authorities have accused the BBC of tax evasion. The records of a prominent international media company have several discrepancies and inconsistencies according to India’s Income Tax Department. The BBC said last week that it would “respond appropriately to any direct formal communication received from the Income Tax Department.”
The director general of the British Broadcasting Company applauded their courage in the face of what they have been condemned as an attack on press freedom in India.
Our duty to our audiences is to pursue the facts through independent and impartial journalism and to bring the best creative content to them. We won’t be put off from that task”
The searches came as a result of the Indian government blocking clips of the Modi documentary from being seen on social media, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Modi was accused of not doing enough to stop the violence, which killed more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. Modi has denied wrongdoing, and a special investigation team appointed by India’s Supreme Court in 2012 found no evidence to suggest he was to blame.
The prime minister has faced criticism in recent months and a senior member of the Congress party was arrested on Thursday for allegedly defaming him.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/23/media/bbc-india-director-general/index.html
New Delhi, London, and Hong Kong Contributions to the Working Group on Trans-Pacific Cosmic Rays: Towards a New Standard Model for Nuclear Collisions
— Swati Gupta and Manveena Suri in New Delhi, Olesya Dmitracova and Martin Goillandeau in London, and Alex Stambaugh in Hong Kong contributed reporting.