[HN Gopher] Part of India Is on the Verge of Becoming a Complete...
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       Part of India Is on the Verge of Becoming a Complete Surveillance
       State
        
       Author : computator
       Score  : 10 points
       Date   : 2022-07-16 21:17 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (slate.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (slate.com)
        
       | reactspa wrote:
       | This article is a good example of how to take innuendo and
       | declare it as fact to bolster a narrative. It's a journalistic
       | strategy, and it's taught in journalism school.
       | 
       | E.g.:
       | 
       | > In 2021, the Pegasus Project, an investigation by a consortium
       | of international journalists, revealed that the Indian government
       | had been spying on more than 300 people, including journalists,
       | activists, and politicians.
       | 
       | The word: "revealed". It's all innuendo. Nothing was indisputably
       | "revealed". A true example of "revealed" would be the video
       | Hunter Biden filmed, of himself taking a shower with multiple
       | prostitutes while smoking crack. But don't expect to hear about
       | it because it doesn't suit the narrative. This, on the other
       | hand, is innuendo being trotted out as fact.
       | 
       | Last word on this topic: the narrative sketched in this article
       | is "Modi bad." But the evidence is from a state run by a staunch
       | Modi opponent, belonging to a party that is in opposition to
       | Modi's party.
       | 
       | (I think we're allowed to mock super-privileged people of the
       | Left on HN. PG seems pretty libertarian to me. But if my comment
       | crossed a line, I apologize in advance and will remove the
       | offensive portions.)
        
         | pkd wrote:
         | Why is the Pegasus reveal an innuendo? The reporting on Pegasus
         | clearly listed the names of hundreds of Indian citizens -
         | mostly investigative journalists and opposition leaders. Since
         | Pegasus could only be sold to national governments, it's a
         | logical conclusion that the Indian state was at the very least
         | intending to spy on those individuals. [1]
         | 
         | The article also never even mentions Modi, and like you said,
         | mostly talks about Telangana. I read through it and got no
         | sense of it implying anything about him individually.
         | 
         | It seems you are inferring things that simply aren't there.
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Project_revelations_...
        
         | dane-pgp wrote:
         | > It's all innuendo. Nothing was indisputably "revealed".
         | 
         | I don't know what sort of evidence it would take to convince
         | you that Modi's team was illegally spying on his political
         | opponents, but I think I'll trust the journalists on this
         | one.[0]
         | 
         | > Last word on this topic: the narrative sketched in this
         | article is "Modi bad." But the evidence is from a state run by
         | a staunch Modi opponent
         | 
         | The article doesn't even mention Modi by name, so I think
         | you're being over-protective of him. It does say:
         | 
         | "The Indian government plans to implement an Automated Facial
         | Recognition System across the country"
         | 
         | although it doesn't provide a source for that claim. Then
         | there's this claim:
         | 
         | "The police in New Delhi used facial recognition technology to
         | identify farmer protesters who held demonstrations against the
         | government's contentious agricultural laws."
         | 
         | which suggests that these practices are already in use
         | elsewhere (with the current Police Commissioner of Delhi being
         | appointed by the Modi government, if I'm not mistaken).
         | 
         | [0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/dec/17/pegasus-
         | spyware...
        
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       (page generated 2022-07-16 23:02 UTC)