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by iamshs 2846 days ago
Jio has enabled a digital revolution, just like Reliance Infocomm did by making all incoming calls free back in 2005 I think.

Jio has also made sure that my youtube homepage is filled with soft porn. It is an absolute scourge.

WhatsApp rumour mongering has increased a lot with lynchings happening based on the fact that law and order can’t keep up pace with technology.

I also see that lots of unemployed people now are just engrossed in WhatsApp videos nearly all day. It should have made job searching easier, but wages are depressed to such a degree that people just lose all hope and find solace in the mindless videos. Indirect consequences of the technology too.

3 comments

Can you back up that lynching/WhatsApp with some numbers or statistics? Riots used to happen left and right in India for before 90's. A famous politician or actor died, a politician resigned or doing protest, religious demonstrations etc. Lot of the city will be closed. This situation got a lot better after economic liberalization and what followed. Is there a reversal to this trend that you are talking about?

https://twitter.com/ShamikaRavi/status/1034116009794392066

First, regarding the tweet you posted: It ignores the recent years. There are still local maximas in that graph. Second, it only concerns riots and leaves out any other type of violence. But that will be more clear upon how the author interprets 'riots'. It is just a graph without any explanation. Third, I could not find source of the data myself, as the graph is not from a peer reviewed journal so it can be easily discarded. Fourth, tweet is from a person who serves in the current government aka it is like Sarah Sanders, a vested interest always defending the government.

Communal violence under Modi has increased, even if it is a local maxima but their rhetoric is acerbic towards minorities and it shows. Now onto the communal violence sources:-

1. http://ksr.hkspublications.org/2016/07/27/the-rising-tide-of...

2. https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/co...

3. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...

WhatsApp specific lynchings:

1. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/16/asia/india-whatsapp-lynch...

2. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-07-18/lynch-mob...

3. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/india-dont-bla...

yeah blame the good internet service for people being lazy or stupid? For every lazy person who spends time just watching videos, there's someone in the village looking at how to use some pesticide or what medicine to take for a certain illness.

The net outcome is what matters and it always is positive.

I think blame lies with Youtube team, for them not able to morderate their default homepage. I distinctly remember same crappy default youtube homepage before Jio also.
Youtube can obviously curate it, but it shows habits of a large population too. Navel videos having 5M+ views... mind boggling.