Democratic Institutions
How a Journalist Was Arrested Amid India’s Worsening Press Freedom by Taniya Roy. 21/07/2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TcMBLQ79Xw&t=12s
Journalist and Alt News co-founder Mohammad Zubair was arrested on June 27 in connection with a tweet posted in 2018. A Delhi court granted him bail on July 15. Apart from this case, several other charges have also been filed against him in Uttar Pradesh. The state has topped the list of criminal cases filed against journalists. For instance, journalist Siddique Kappan was arrested in October 2018 by the UP police while on his way to cover the Hathras gangrape. He is still in prison. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on July 20 granted bail to Zubair in all cases. The arrest of Zubair and several other journalists has come at a time when India’s press freedom ranking has fallen to 150 out of 180 countries this year, the lowest ever. The ‘vicious cycle’ of arrests and harassment, as quoted by the Supreme Court, comes against the backdrop of rising fake news in India.
"Twitter Thinks Their Policy Is Superior To India's Sovereign Laws": Voyager Infosec Director https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S3LGDyeKfU Jul 6, 2022 "Twitter's message is that their policy is superior to our sovereign laws, and their institutional setups or Jack Dorsey will act as a viceroy and his decision will be final," said Jiten Jain, director of Voyager Infosec.
https://countercurrents.org/2022/07/confronting-the-medias-crisis-of-trust-some-candid-thoughts/
Lack of trust in the news media is the news these days. The reasons are; rampant misinformation, the rise of authoritarian governments, the dominance of social media, etc. are adding to the lack of trust in the news media. To discuss these issues, experts gathered in Honolulu at the recent East-West Center International Media Conference. Here I am putting up a summary of the different thoughts by the panelists to make the subject easy to grasp.
“Exposing the sources of misinformation and disinformation is one part of the battle, more than that the need is to understand the demand side because if we don’t understand why people consume misinformation there will be little appreciation for quality journalism.”
“The other fact is many people distrust journalists and this also is a factor negatively affecting media credibility. Probably this is because media has gone beyond the control of the media professionals and restoring news media trust is a daunting task. Journalists have to increase their credibility with their audience so that people do not go to other sources looking for news.
07/07/2022
read more
Statement by Altnews
https://twitter.com/AltNews/status/1544280484154265601?t=lJVoAP0PTwxg64qO-PhzBw&s=19
Other links:
Explanation by Razor Pay:
The frequency, reasons, and controversy over Internet suspensions by the government by Rishika Singh July 3, 2022 https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-the-frequency-reasons-and-controversy-over-internet-suspensions-by-the-government-8005450/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-intl-en
According to the Software Freedom Law Center, since 2012 there have been 665 Internet shutdowns in India to date
Subcategories
Fourth Estate
For Free speech and Media Rights see Fundamental Rights under Civil Liberties