This story I found particularly interesting as it follows a pattern I am seeing more and more in recent years. Government crackdowns against social media usage.
"Indian police have charged a 22-year-old climate activist with sedition over accusations she edited and circulated a document tweeted by climate activist Greta Thunberg relating to India’s ongoing farmer protests.
Swedish climate activist Thunberg tweeted her backing this month for the farmers, who have been demonstrating since December against agricultural reforms they say will harm their livelihood but benefit large corporations. She shared a document which she said was a toolkit to create and spread awareness about the farmers’ complaints."
As we have talked about in class, social media is in many ways replacing or altering the media landscape. This applies to the political sphere as well, if not more so. Rather than organizing in newsletters, people do it on message boards. Rather than meeting up with Fred from the bar, organizing is happening with people from across the world who have never met. Governments are having a hard time keeping up with all this new technology, and new methods of private communications. So increasingly, governments are just making the price of dissent so steep as to act as a deterrent.
“Delhi police’s actions are all the more sinister because Disha was taken to Delhi with no disclosure about her whereabouts, not even to her parents, an action that can be termed extrajudicial abduction,” read a statement by the Coalition for Environmental Justice in India.
Delhi chief minister Arwind Kejriwal, who has backed the farmers’ protests, called Ravi’s arrest “an unprecedented attack on Democracy. Supporting our farmers is not a crime.”
"police said the campaign material was aimed at waging a cultural war against the government and creating divisions among various groups in Indian society."
Hey Steven,
ReplyDeleteI had heard about this story this week and was glad to see that you blogged it. I think your connections to the class materials are spot on, and it's very interesting to see how differently some countries handle things posted on social media like this. Obviously this case and like Hong Kong have been on the extreme end, and it just makes me crazy to see people upset about some of the deplatforming happening in the US as censorship, when in reality, cases like this are really what are concerning.
Reply #6: Steven Moore: “Indian woman's political toolkit outted on twitter: faces sedition charges.”
ReplyDeleteSteven, this is a very interesting story; I had not heard of it yet, so I am glad you brought it to my attention. This provides a great example of how what would generally be considered a “democratic” country can turn in only a few months from peaceful to record setting protest and crackdowns by the government on political speech by its citizens. The mistake here would be to believe that this type of activity by the government is isolated to other places and could never happen in the United States. I would completely disagree with Mr. Mills’ comment on how it makes him “crazy to see people upset about some of the de-platforming happening in the US as censorship, when in reality, cases like this are really what are concerning.” Censorship and the loss of freedom of speech and expression does not happen all of the sudden; it is a slow, creeping process of incremental changes in laws and cultural attitudes. I begins with the censorship of less popular, less powerful individuals, until one day the government officials shows up on your doorstep and no one is left to defend your freedom to speak. It is a grave mistake to think that something like this story could not happen in America or that the censorship we see happening on social media and other platforms should not be of concern.