
Some Indian Twitter users are leaving for Mastodon - johnx123-up
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50343054
======
r_singh
I recently signed up on Twitter with a new account for a new project I'm
working on. Like a few posts here (on HN) have highlighted, my account was
disabled for security reasons (official work email, not a single tweet, email
verified) and the only way to unlock is by adding my number.

I've been opening tickets for a week but they're all automatically closed.
This gets me thinking, does it even matter if a SaaS product has a twitter
handle for marketing and support?

~~~
inapis
Twitter reopened my service’s account after two months when I refused to hand
over my mobile number.

Pretty much every single service immediately bans me upon account creation if
I don’t hand over my mobile number. Instagram banned me for “violating terms
of service” before I had even chosen a username - before I had posted even a
single thing. Makes me wonder if signing up for a service was in their list of
violations itself? I mean, c’mon. It’s pretty much a ploy to gather mobile
numbers under the garb of security or spam.

~~~
pjc50
It's annoying, but what other accessible solutions are there to avoid mass
creation of "fake" accounts?

~~~
rgrs
Then let these companies guarantee that its one-time request and it will not
be used for pushing anything else.

~~~
RandomBacon
Just like FB promised phone numbers were only going to be used for 2FA?

[https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/03/05/facebook-
critici...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/03/05/facebook-criticised-
for-misuse-of-phone-numbers-provided-for-security/)

------
cobbzilla
Tools like [1] [2] [3] make it easy to mirror your Mastodon posts to Twitter.

This can smooth the transition for your audience that’s not ready to move yet.

[1]
[https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/](https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/)

[2] [https://github.com/renatolond/mastodon-twitter-
poster](https://github.com/renatolond/mastodon-twitter-poster)

[3] [https://github.com/bitkeks/mastodon-to-
twitter](https://github.com/bitkeks/mastodon-to-twitter)

------
jangid
The BBC article itself is biased. Twitter has banned people from all sides.
But BBC chose people only from one side.

Example handles from other side: check this tweet (this is a pro govt handle)
-
[https://twitter.com/modifiedvikas/status/1177099258534588416](https://twitter.com/modifiedvikas/status/1177099258534588416)

~~~
newyankee
Most popular banned handle from RW is probably TrueIndology, and undoubtedly
the selective reporting has its own agenda as well

~~~
devnonymous
If Twitter has banned as many right wing accounts as left leaning ones, why is
it that the majority of disgruntled responses to Twitter India's clarification
thread are blaming Twitter India's right wing bias ?

[https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744](https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744)

...or is there a claim somewhere in here that the unhappy right wing accounts
just leave twitter for Mastodon without complaining and hence all that anyone,
including the BBC, seems to highlight is the left leaning accounts making a
noise ? Where are the unhappy right wingers in that thread ?

~~~
newyankee
it is a coordinated trend which was orchestrated by the usual LW handles. This
happens every day on twitter, LW or RW, bollywood celebrities or businesses,
Baba Ram rahim singh or other godmans, every vested interest generates a
coordinated hashtag and trends it.

Also the RW twitter is not given the required exposure by media outlets in
India (forget about the Western outlets) when they have their protests as
well. This happens with many cases - e.g. Happened after killing of Kamlesh
Tiwari. Many people celebrated the murder and were rightly condemned by the RW
twitter group but Indian media did not highlight that.

~~~
devnonymous
I am not talking about hash tags. Just the replies on that specific thread. Am
I now to believe that twitter itself is working with the LW handles to show
the replies of LW criticism of twitter while suppressing RW voices?!!

Come on, use Occam's razor.

------
sbmthakur
The article talks about the Indian government requesting Twitter to ban
accounts in the context of Kashmir:

 _The report said most of the blocked content was critical of the government
's recent move to strip Indian-administered Kashmir of its semi-autonomous
status, and were made after requests by the government itself._

I believe that they've missed an important detail here. There was a massive
misinformation campaign against India on Twitter in the aftermath of
abrogating article 370. Many of these tweets originated from Pakistani
handles[1][2]. They have even started impersonating top Indian military
officials on Twitter[3]. And it seems that they are not just stopping with
Kashmir. The propaganda campaign even covers Rafale and Tamil Nadu[4][5].

I do not condone banning accounts that are critical of the Government.
However, propaganda over sensitive topics should be stopped by all means.

1\. [https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-
kashmi...](https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-
kashmir-1580061-2019-08-12)

2\. [https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-
mislea...](https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-misleading-
posts-about-kashmir-come-from-pakistan-say-indian-fact-checkers/)

3\. [https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-
news-p...](https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-plot-
busted-twitter-suspends-50-bogus-handles-for-top-army-
officials-1600194-2019-09-17)

4\. [https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-
firepowe...](https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepower-on-
iaf-day-pak-uses-bot-armies-to-make-runawayforce_iaf-trend-on-indian-
twitter-2338295.html)

5\. [https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-
gobackmodi...](https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi-
during-xi-jinpings-india-visit/)

~~~
rgrs
Exactly! If Twitter banned Russian influencers of US elections, BBC wont be
reporting it. BBC's articles are shallow and not "investigative" as it used to
be.

~~~
seanhunter
This example would seem to directly contradict your statement
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-
canada-41766991](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41766991)

"Twitter bans RT and Sputnik ads amid election interference fears"

~~~
rgrs
Your example doesn't picture Twitter in a negative way, what twitter did was
the right thing. Blocking accounts owned by another nation trying to influence
people in India.

------
throwawayvxv
I stumbled on Indian Twitter a few months ago, and discovered hate at a level
and volume, I’ve seldom encountered in the internet. It’s probably a window
into what’s happening on closed forums like WhatsApp, but it is profoundly
disturbing. If the hate does progress into real-life violence, social media
networks like Twitter and WhatsApp are going to face a grim accounting.

~~~
Freak_NL
If? No, this is already reality. People in India got lynched because of
rumours spread via WhatsApp¹.

1: [https://www.cnet.com/news/whatsapp-rumors-reportedly-led-
to-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/whatsapp-rumors-reportedly-led-to-lynchings-
in-india/)

------
bernardlunn
Clickait headline without much substance

~~~
smitty1e
I've looked briefly at Mastadon, but hadn't been motivated to used it.

However, as a Twitter user for the last decade, the platform seems to be
decaying. Either no on is really on it much any longer, or they've squelched
my account severely.

The fun seemed to depart after late 2016, as though something happened which
dismayed The Powers That Be.

~~~
reitoei
Twitter's problem is that it won't do anything about users with handles like
@magapatriot2130945785 who have turned the site into trash.

It's not that they CAN'T do anything about it, the problem is that they WON'T.

~~~
viridian
Why do think that users with usernames like that have turned the site into
trash? In my experience, Twitteer's problems seem more systematic, and related
to their attempts to maximize your time on site, and thus ads viewed.

~~~
reitoei
Have you actually used Twitter since 2016?

------
alok99
Anecdotally, it's not some. They are switching in droves to Mastodon. My local
timeline on Mastodon for the past couple days has quite literally only been
new users from India.

------
0xdead
On the bright side, it will reduce the number of most obnoxious pricks on
Twitter. Indian twitter army is one of the worst "communities" on internet.

------
fareesh
Over the past couple of days there have been trending hashtags here in India
accusing Twitter of caste and religious discrimination. I guess the irony is
lost on these conspiracy pushing folks that Twitter censored their other
hashtag but allowed this one to trend.

There have also been conspiracy theories that Twitter is purposely not
verifying some people because of their caste.

I suspect that may be playing some role in this as well.

------
abvishek
Two Twitter one for left and other for Right all issues solved. Civil debate
and agree to disagree is anyway lost

------
patrickaljord
The issue I have with Mastodon is that a pod admin can prevent me from
following people from other pods they don't like. I understand blocking whole
spamming pods, but when they start blocking whole pods because they're too
right wing or left wing, one might wonder what's the point of switching from
Twitter?

Now, you would say, I could run my own pod, but they could still block me from
following anyone on their pods just because of the people I'm following or
because they have white lists of pods allowed to follow people. This makes the
whole experience even more restricting than twitter and creates insular
bubbles of opinions where you are only allowed to follow people you already
agree with (boring).

I guess, a truly decentralized solution would be something like a blockchain
where they will not be able to prevent anyone from following anyone when using
different clients. Haven't seen any working solution yet.

~~~
cjslep
Are you looking to break your bubble, or other people's bubble? Your first
paragraph is a complaint about the former and your second paragraph about the
latter. I read this as goalpost shifting.

Fundamentally, the freedom-of-speech argument of "everyone must read what I
have to say" is a tired one that cannot and will not ever happen: You can't
force everyone else to read your post. Not on a blockchain, not on a federated
system. Blockchain may mean they have to download your content, but their
client filter will always be available to never have to see another person's
content even if force-downloaded. Clockwork Orange type solution is the only
way to be sure a human puts their eyeballs on specific content.

In general, most admins are not proactively blocking federated single instance
users unless reports come in, in which case you probably did something to
someone on that instance. Not everyone is there to burst their bubble, but
craft it, and depending what they want, you or I might not make the cut. Oh
well.

Finally, if an anti-censorship platform where everyone must download one's
speech (under certain conditions) is truly what you want, go to FreeNet. Even
there, no one is required to read another's content.

~~~
Dylan16807
> what I have to say

The entire post is about who they are _allowed to follow_ , nothing to do with
what they say. It's not about personal bubbles either.

 _Can_ download, not _must_ download.

~~~
patrickaljord
Exactly, I want to be able to follow whoever I want and not have an admin
decide for me.

~~~
cjslep
You want a single-user instance, like was mentioned before. No one else
decides for you. By default a person spinning up a new single-user instance is
_free to follow-request anyone_ (most users have the software auto-accept
follow requests).

Once that person begins opening their mouth, is when federated admins begin
blacklisting (if required, at their discretion), preventing new follows and
undo-ing existing follows. That's how they build, curate, and maintain _their_
communities much like any other BBS, forum, or sub-reddit.

Most people appreciate a baseline standard employed by their admin so they
themselves don't have to wade through porn, gore, and hateful content.

Believe me, this debate isn't new, Gab moving to ActivityPub brought the same
cries of "we're being censored by admins, let the people decide for
themselves". The admins, of course, laughed and said "my community members can
leave or create a second account elsewhere on this open platform if they want
that content". To no one's surprise, the non-Gab part of the Fediverse did not
shrink.

Edit: And I've always explained to folks... advocate for single-user instances
if concerned about admin decisions! Then the digital literate group of self-
policing admin-users, grows! But then again, understand not everyone is on the
internet to have to wade through porn, gore, and hateful content and wants to
make that decision for themselves.

Edit2: Admin decisions are also transparent on Mastodon. The instance I am on
for example lists decisions here:
[https://mastodon.technology/about/more](https://mastodon.technology/about/more)

~~~
patrickaljord
> You want a single-user instance > Once that person begins opening their
> mouth

That's the issue here, if you can't open your mouth then you might as well
stay on twitter.

Also, your mastodon.technology rules clearly state it will not federate with
instances it politically disagrees with but it will also not federate with
instances that federate with instances it politically disagrees with. Meaning,
if your pod X blocks me from following someone from pod Y, forcing me to run
my own pod, then I won't be able to follow my friends back on your pod X.
Sounds like a broken system to me. If person A consents to person B following
them, no admin should be able to block them from doing so or forcing both of
them to run their own instance (most people are not tech savvy enough and will
have their voice muted, not super fair, specially for disadvantaged people).

I understand that only something like a truly decentralized and distributed
system such as a blockchain would allow for something like that.

~~~
cjslep
> Meaning, if your pod X blocks me from following someone from pod Y, forcing
> me to run my own pod, then I won't be able to follow my friends back on your
> pod X. Sounds like a broken system to me.

It sounds broken because that's not how it works.

When you spin up your own instance, no existing deny list anywhere on the
Fediverse has your instance listed, unless you're buying a previously-used
domain (which then has other, bigger problems, than this). So you can follow
instance X, Y, Z, A, T, B, C, G, whoever your heart pleases. They aren't
actively policing single-user instances, only larger ones, for the double-
federation rule. A new clean slate, until you open your mouth and people begin
curating their communities again. But this then moves the conversation from a
_can follow_ to _can listen_ scenario. The latter of which, my first response
to you was pretty thorough.

If I understand it right the only reason you are continuously infatuated with
blockchain is because there is a belief that everyone downloading this
"centralized" ledger of data equates to everyone having an equally
discoverable voice and then an equitable chance of readers viewing a piece of
content.

That's simply not true. Whatever client can be used to view this blockchain of
"dialogue" can come with preset filters that ensures that, even if the data is
downloaded on-chain, no human will ever see it. The chain could be lengthened
with spam, burying your messages to the far past, or kilometers worth of up-
scrolling. You've got the data on the machine but no eyeballs viewing it.
There is no inherent value to content that is never viewed; if you believe
otherwise, I have ad space on my blog to sell you!

Same outcome as the Fediverse, but way more wasteful, because there's way more
unnecessary bandwidth on the network being used, as data that is never going
to be read gets passed around. The protocol could be forked where your
censorship-enemies agree up to a certain point on a chain is valid, and then
only download the preceding merkle node content they care about, ensuring your
previous content never gets propagated in the first place. In addition to the
other kinds of blockchain attacks.

This is why I will keep bringing up FreeNet. If you're concerned about
censorship and speech on the internet, blockchain is just a tool for a
specific kind of problem (and you've yet to convince me this is that kind of
problem); FreeNet is a multi-decade old network designed, and with the papers
proving, to be robust against censorship attacks at multiple levels
(adversarial content, network, node).

The Fediverse is a decentralized way to run communities like BBSs and Forums
and SubReddits and PatreonPages that all natively interact with each other as
if one data graph, but multiple different applications sharing and modifying
that data graph.

Edit:

> That's the issue here, if you can't open your mouth then you might as well
> stay on twitter.

Is it really though[0]? Why Twitter? To me, that's a really funny suggestion!
They have the sole authority to kick you off _their_ entire network. No one
can do that on the Fediverse. Rather than make a step towards a beneficial
direction you see, you'd rather stick in an ugly quagmire? No offense
intended, but after watching after some stubborn kids, this sounds exactly
like one of their "I'd rather be stubborn and punish myself than have a middle
compromise because I cannot get exactly what I want".

I do mean this sincerely: no matter where you go, I hope you feel safe to
speak your mind.

[0] I ask because that means this is a _freedom of speech_ issue, AKA what my
first reply was all about. And even more validates my concerns you have some
goalpost shifting going on. But the middling responses were trying to convince
me it _wasn 't_ this issue, but one merely about _following_ (aka receiving,
not sending, content).

~~~
patrickaljord
> Is it really though[0]? Why Twitter?

Because Twitter has a great network effect, everyone's on it and you can
follow anyone you want, make new connections, advertise your projects or
products, get your voice heard, follow people you like etc.

Nobody is on the fediverse, why would I get there? The only reason I would go
there is to get complete freedom of speech, anything else, Twitter already
does it and better thanks to network effects. If you are going to censor
political speech you don't like just like twitter, then I see no point in
switching.

With the blockchain, you could be banned from a client, but the distributed
ledger would still allow you to follow people using other clients. Big
difference. I agree that I haven't seen any working solution using a
blockchain so far, which is what I said in my initial post. Whenever they
manage to make a blockchain scale (if at all possible), then it might happen.
Forking the ledger anytime there's a user you politically disagree with sounds
very expensive not sustainable. Specially if the ledger is the main BTC or
ETH, not gonna be effective.

~~~
cjslep
I don't think everyone is on Twitter, and I'll readily admit your tone makes
me think you don't care about the people that _are_ on the Fediverse.

> The only reason I would go there is to get complete freedom of speech,
> anything else, Twitter already does it and better thanks to network effects.
> If you are going to censor political speech you don't like just like
> twitter, then I see no point in switching.

Twitter can ban a person _from the entire network /product_ versus no-one can
boot a person off the Fediverse. Plus _native_ integration with blogs and
music and videos and other forms of content produced from _other kinds of
apps_. Try leaving a facebook comment from a Twitter account, let alone trying
to view such a post cross-applications.

> With the blockchain, you could be banned from a client, but the distributed
> ledger would still allow you to follow people using other clients. Big
> difference.

You can always spin up a single-user instance that is receive-only to ensure
you get the diverse content you want.

Blockchain or Fediverse, _replying_ would still be filtered out (by the
popular blockchain client that filters your stuff, or by fediverse blocks on
your send-and-receive account).

I'm going to step away from this conversation, I've pretty much said all I can
on the matter, and have been talking in circles.

~~~
patrickaljord
I used to be an ostatus user and enjoyed the concept, can't remember pods
being banned at this rate back then, or at all. I care about the fediverse
more than you think.

> Try leaving a facebook comment from a Twitter account

That's a feature no one really want, I hated when people mirrored their tweets
to facebook for example. Different apps, different crowds, don't mix it.

> You can always spin up a single-user instance that is receive-only to ensure
> you get the diverse content you want.

Well no, did you read your own mastodon.technology rules? I can get banned
from following from one pod if I follow people from another pod it doesn't
like. Even if I don't say anything. Even twitter isn't that extreme.

------
pknerd
I'd say it's more of Twitter India issue than main Twitter. Twitter banned
many Pakistani and Indians accounts without any notice who were raising voice
against 3 months+ Kashmir lockdown against Modi govt.

~~~
sbmthakur
What do you expect Twitter when most of them were spreading fake news?

[https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-
kashmi...](https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-
kashmir-1580061-2019-08-12)

[https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-
mislea...](https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-misleading-
posts-about-kashmir-come-from-pakistan-say-indian-fact-checkers/)

~~~
pknerd
Calm down, dude. You are doing over efforts to defend Modi regime on this
forum. They are not going to pay more. And do not cite me Propaganda Indian
media here. It does not matter to any other than Sanghis.

~~~
dang
We've asked you before to stop doing nationalistic flamewar on HN. If you keep
doing it we're going to have to ban you.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
pknerd
Apologies. I should not have responded to him on this forum in first place.

------
alecco
An article with only anecdotes on a country of 1bn people... BBC is a shadow
of it's former glory.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love people moving from Twitter to Mastodon, but this
article doesn't have any substance.

------
whywhywhywhy
Unless you actually delete your Twitter account you're still complicit in
Twitter.

Twitter only has clout because of the people who hold accounts there that make
it appear like it's more than a glorified internet forum.

------
chris_wot
I made a parody account of Trump (everyone was doing it, it's passe now) and
then I had my main account suspended. I was willing to give us the Trump
account, but it turns out there is no way of telling Twitter this and when I
asked for a review, they did absolutely nothing.

Turns out, it was one of the best things Twitter every did for me. My life is
way better without it. It's not actually sour grapes, after seeing what
Twitter is doing and what people are using Twitter for - any good is
definitely _way_ outweighed by the bad of the platform.

------
lonelappde
Headline is trivial/weasely.

Some metrics would be interesting.

------
devnonymous
For context, some high profile activist / journalist accounts have been
suspended of late. There's been a noticeable right-wing leaning enforcement of
twitter policies in India.

I think the trigger point was when Jay Shah's account[1] got a blue tick
despite being a dormant account with a just 19 followers (at the time of being
verified).

Twitter India then issued a statement, which further had the Streisand effect:

[https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744](https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744)
(heh, just noticed the ratio on that ! :))

[1] [https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/with-zero-
tweet19-...](https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/with-zero-
tweet19-followers-jay-shah-gets-blue-tick-verification-netizens-cries-foul-
twitter-goes-silent)

~~~
sbmthakur
It's a bit more complicated than that. Twitter has been also banning right-
wing leaning accounts as this comment mentioned.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21482041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21482041)

Also, there's the fact that Twitter was summoned by a Parliamentary panel when
someone accused them of curbing _non-left leaning_ voices.

[https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-india-
summoned...](https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-india-summoned-by-
parliament-panel-over-citizens-social-media-rights-1448893-2019-02-05)

~~~
devnonymous
> It's a bit more complicated than that.

I really don't think it is. The replies on that twitter thread I posted there,
from a couple of days ago clearly indicates (or at least implies) that the
people leaving the platform are most likely the people unhappy with Twitter
India's right wing bias.

------
kburman
BBC always there to pick up any anti-India topic. It amazes me every time.

Source: I read the news on daily basis from various sources to avoid bias
media.

EDIT: I'm not on any political party side. Actually have voted for NOTA.

~~~
brnt
What's anti-India about switching to an open platform? If anything, I'd
consider it forward thinking on Indians part.

~~~
kburman
I have my profile in Mastodon and use it. Nothing backward about it. I suspect
the timing of it with the recent allegation against the Indian government for
suppressing anit-bjp solgan.

