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Whatsapp sued Indian govt

20 posts · originally from https://geek.digit.in/community/threads/whatsapp-sued-indian-govt.209695/

Nerevarine
Nerevarine Original post #1
May 27, 2021 at 3:01 PM
It's crazy to think whatsapp is fighting for user's privacy. I guess everything is relative

*www.google.com/amp/s/www.ndtv.com/...ne-users-privacy-2449263?amp=1&akamai-rum=off
Desmond
Desmond #2
May 27, 2021 at 3:11 PM
TBH I am on neither side. But I am kind of glad that Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter are getting banned. I hope by the time they come back online they get put under heavy regulations. At least I hope a large portion of the population gets denied access to these sites.

Edit: However, I will concede that at least it's better to have Twitter than Koo.
Nerevarine
May 27, 2021 at 3:18 PM
While I agree to what you mean to say, i.e. population that don't have internet etiquette with regards to privacy, fake news etc should Have restrictions when operating social media, I do not agree with banning the entire thing. We aren't north korea or china. We have to respect everyone's right to be wrong.

And whatsapp isn't saying anything wrong here, tracing contact origin of an end to end secure message completely defeats the purpose of end to end security. This is basically what the NSA did, but in our case.. it's a demand by the govt, out in the open.

This debate is the very reason why signal came into the picture. Can you imagine if signal gains as much popularity of whatsapp, the Indian govt could just say, you have to break your encryption for us, provide us a backdoor otherwise we ban you. This is beyond ridiculous
Desmond
Desmond #4
May 27, 2021 at 3:32 PM
Makes sense. Though Whatsapp is more dangerous then Signal because of Facebook. I don't really buy the "Whatsapp is E2E encrypted" argument because even if the statement is true, we do not know where it begins and ends. Whatsapp still has other metadata like who you are sending to, from which location and to which location plus they don't have to read the whole message, just identifying keywords or sentiment of the message is enough and these can be gathered before a message is encrypted and sent.

I will be glad for other messengers or social media to fill the gap that FB, Whatsapp and Twitter leave. However, I distrust the Indian social media sites even less.
RumbaMon19
May 27, 2021 at 3:43 PM
its kinda required but in a limit. ow with social media, it is easy to spread fake news. The vaccine fear is the latest example. Things need to be regulated, but it needs to be done in a proper way. Surely this will hurt the privacy of its citizen, But whatsapp's new agreement is doing that too.

The government could introduce a system to report Mass-Forwarded messages in order to prevent spreading fake news.

Also it was just done by facebook to delay it. We all know how much facebook care for privacy, cause if it did, that privacy eating thing like instagram or facebook would not exist in first place.
Nerevarine
May 27, 2021 at 3:51 PM
I am all in favour of equal treatment to all messages, but with the kind of shit our govt is capable of, do you think these "mass reports" will not be biased in their favour ? Its very easy to discern that the govt is manipulating media and anyone that doesnt bow will be terminated. The recent "manipulated media" fiasco, govt is crying out loud that the "investigation is pending", how dare twitter tag them as manipulated media.
You have to ask, if "investigation is pending", then why did all the ministers mass forward it on twitter.
Either we treat all messages as the same, or none. Banning a social media platform because it doesnt "comply" with rules that favour the ruling party will not work in India.
A Govt has to fight for it's citizen's rights, not it's own. Just imagine, if we were the EU. Will such rules be applicable then ?
If you need basic tenets of privacy, data protection, and integrity laws in our country, we need a govt that understands what these mean first.

@Desmond David Yes, I am all in favour of signal and matrix to occupy mainstream social media, but what then ? What if Govt suddenly decides these platforms do not "comply" with Indian laws, that the govt needs backdoor access to root out terrorists or white walkers or whatever. Privacy is absolute, either we have it or we dont. The fight is not which social media is better, the fight is about which social media gets to stay because they will provide root access to govt officials and be in favour of the ruling party.
Zangetsu
May 27, 2021 at 7:00 PM
I will have to Switch to Telegram now.
RumbaMon19
May 27, 2021 at 7:52 PM
I am all in favour of equal treatment to all messages, but with the kind of shit our govt is capable of, do you think these "mass reports" will not be biased in their favour ? Its very easy to discern that the govt is manipulating media and anyone that doesnt bow will be terminated. The recent "manipulated media" fiasco, govt is crying out loud that the "investigation is pending", how dare twitter tag them as manipulated media.
You have to ask, if "investigation is pending", then why did all the ministers mass forward it on twitter.
Either we treat all messages as the same, or none. Banning a social media platform because it doesnt "comply" with rules that favour the ruling party will not work in India.
A Govt has to fight for it's citizen's rights, not it's own. Just imagine, if we were the EU. Will such rules be applicable then ?
If you need basic tenets of privacy, data protection, and integrity laws in our country, we need a govt that understands what these mean first.

@Desmond David Yes, I am all in favour of signal and matrix to occupy mainstream social media, but what then ? What if Govt suddenly decides these platforms do not "comply" with Indian laws, that the govt needs backdoor access to root out terrorists or white walkers or whatever. Privacy is absolute, either we have it or we dont. The fight is not which social media is better, the fight is about which social media gets to stay because they will provide root access to govt officials and be in favour of the ruling party.

I agree with this. Ya that mass report system will be flawed, so will be every other system as even fact checkers can be purchased, as employed by Instagram.

But a solution is still needed. Just yesterday, there was a message floating on WhatsApp which said something in the lines of "those vaccinated now, will die within 2 years" now these messages are enough for doing bad. I report these messages and delete them, but not everyone does that, and some fall into this trap.
Desmond
Desmond #9
May 27, 2021 at 10:02 PM
My, very biased, reason I think is because I am somewhat bitter about the dumbing down of social media. So banning social media is a chance for things to return to how they were before.

However, realistically speaking I don't think any of these social media sites will be banned. It's most likely the government trying to intimidate them.
Desmond
Desmond #10
May 28, 2021 at 11:50 AM
My another take on this is that the government is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
skeletor
skeletor #11
May 29, 2021 at 1:47 AM
With WhatsApp on this one.
Æsoteric Positron
May 29, 2021 at 11:50 AM
I personally think that, government should NOT be provided backdoor to any of the social media.

Like would any of you be ok with getting arrested just because you happen to make a controversial statement, to a friend in a WhatsApp chat? Even though you meant it as a joke? What if a statement you made was taken in different light after multiple forwardings, and you were traced as the actual perpetrator of the upheaval that you never meant to create?

I don't think outright banning* E2E encryption would bring us anything but a step closer to mass surveillance. Even though WhatsApp's take here might be not selfless at all, I have to say, I am all with it.
I hope by the time they come back online they get put under heavy regulations.
Hmm.... What would you say if TDF was put under heavy regulations? We won't be able to have discussions like these.
Nerevarine
May 29, 2021 at 2:16 PM
Yes if you put it like that, i.e. if a social media survives with govt surveillance on, or if it is banned altogether.. then that make sense. But the bigger q, you know the govt plans to ban the particular media is because they don't comply with their own agenda. After ban they replace twitter with koo, which suits their political viewpoint. None of us are okay with that.

You get what I'm saying right ? Outright banning is gonna create a vaccuum, which will be filled with a system that complies with the political affiliation.

So either way, ban or no ban, we suffer in the end. Only logical course of action is repeal the law, we have to demand better from our elected representatives now.
Desmond
Desmond #15
May 29, 2021 at 3:14 PM
Yeah, I know. I already said that in my previous post. Getting Koo is much worse than. That's basically China 101.
T
Tusharma #16
Jun 30, 2021 at 4:47 PM
Whatsapp talking about privacy protection is like the Sun talking about cool weather. Both have no connections whatsoever.
Extreme Gamer
Jul 4, 2021 at 10:52 AM
TBH I am on neither side. But I am kind of glad that Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter are getting banned. I hope by the time they come back online they get put under heavy regulations. At least I hope a large portion of the population gets denied access to these sites.

Edit: However, I will concede that at least it's better to have Twitter than Koo.
The current regulations mean that the government has a free hand to remove content though.
T
Tusharma #18
Jul 5, 2021 at 6:21 PM
remove content
Why remove content? Ban the platforms till they themselves do not remove false information and derogatory content. Social media is turning evil these days.
Nerevarine
Jul 5, 2021 at 8:24 PM
Why remove content? Ban the platforms till they themselves do not remove false information and derogatory content. Social media is turning evil these days.
if you remove twitter, how will the IT cell operate ? Think Mark, Think!
T
Tusharma #20
Jul 7, 2021 at 2:14 PM
if you remove twitter, how will the IT cell operate ? Think Mark, Think!
I don't think the IT cell is so active on Twitter. There are so many anti-government trends every day and they hardly care. They mainly operate with display advertisement and are still active with the traditional banner system.