[kabirgoel]

This comment misunderstands the motivation for this ban. It isn't to avoid "being inundated with the Californian Elite's warped ideas/ideological doctrine." It seems more in line with the Modi government's attempts to clamp down on dissent in India. For instance, it's been censoring tweets critical of its handling of the pandemic.

Besides, free expression is protected by the Indian constitution, so it's hardly for the government to decide whether Indians buy into "the Californian Elite's warped ideas."

[world_peace42]

All other points aside, do you think Facebook constitutes free expression? Because, it looks like to me that it's a place where censorship is rampant and executives select regimes or political parties to back and affect sentiment on. "But, free speech..." does not at all seem to be an adequate response to me.

[kabirgoel]

I don’t think Facebook constitutes free expression. Ideally, I’d like to see a decentralized protocol which Facebook, Twitter, and even Parler can build off of.

But while Facebook does not constitute “true” free expression, it does allow a very large number of people to voice their opinions that will lose their voice in its absence.

[world_peace42]

And Facebook will choose which of those voices get to be heard more often than others. And I wonder if the people steering the algorithms are or are not overwhelmingly against Modi (they hate him). So really, this issue does not look that cut and dry to me. There are many confounding issues here that should be addressed, but countries frankly should defend themselves against Facebook.