Fancy seeing 'Straya here!

Indian politics basically works on cult of personality atp and considering the trend of the last 20-30 years regarding which party formed the government, it feels like it’s a dual party system in all but name to be honest.

Really ironic but also sad cause it shows the dysfunction of the Indian legal system, laws are there but proper enforcement is not and the distrust people have in the police is for a good reason. Laws are subject to the ruling party’s will, it can be legal when it benefits them and illegal when it does not and the loopholes some of them have is another story unto itself lmao

Oh yeah I knew that, I thought another ban was enforced which made it nation-wide. My bad!

Strangely enough I can access Element’s website just fine. I’ve heard it being blocked by some ISPs but my ISP hasn’t blocked it (yet). I’m glad that the privacy conscious and open source crowd in India are aware of and use F-Droid so this stupid and illogical ban (which I’ve known about since December of 2023) is easily circumvented. Funnily enough, BJP’s hold over the Indian people seems to be loosening because of some really poor decisions taken by the government after they won last year in the elections, especially with taxes. Satisfying to watch them slowly crumble.

Oh trust me, so many Indians blindly follow what the government says. Remember when ProtonMail was under the threat of being banned because some dumbfuck used PM to send bomb threats to schools in Chennai? Yeah I remember when that happened, I went through so many news articles covering this and so many comments on those articles were in favour of the ban with the most stupidest reasons possible and logic that exceeds human comprehension. It’s scary.

That is very concerning. I always chuckle to myself whenever I hear this “terrorist” pov thrown around. Like, okay? So many things are used by terrorists, let’s just ban them all! It’s like when a bill shows up in the US with the aim of “protecting children” (read: increasing surveillance and taking away your privacy)

Btw if you don’t mind me asking, which state are you from? I’m from the North and I’ve not heard of this till now. Would love to know. Stay safe out there man, India is going through a lot of shit right now.

Wait wait wait when did Element get banned? I did not know this. Also you’re right, these politicians are faaaar from understanding how Open-Source works or even how software works lol, this is just pathetic at this point. Also the traffic stops point, when did this start happening? and in which states? This is scary and extremely concerning.

Indeed! We had these IRS vans visit semi-regularly and it helps a lot in reducing the number of mosquitoes roaming around. Hell one IRS van visited just last week haha. Love to see news like this! Especially when I saw this happen in front of my eyes :p

Indian censorship is comically bad and living in this country, seeing day-to-day examples of this is a lot of fun. How shit of a direction this country is taking. Talk about a judge being completely out of touch with how Wikipedia works and functions. Dangerous tool my ass, useful tool to keep people in check. They tried blocking Proton now it’s Wikipedia… what’s next, google??? Since disinformation and misinformation can be found on it too? I swear nothing appeases them except blatant false information pandering to assholes like these.

India is become a censorship haven in all aspects slowly and slowly. It’s scary.

You’re welcome

Hey there! Thank you so much for all the work you guys do, it’s great to have an organization you can actually rely on to bring some amount of change <3

bs for sure

You’re welcome!

Here’s their toot mentioning the situation with Proton Mail: https://mastodon.world/@internetfreedom@mas.to/111935324571240375

Btw Internet Freedom Foundation (or the IFF) filed several RTI requests (RTI = Request to information) regarding this situation. If anyone wants to follow their progress then here’s their Mastodon account: https://mastodon.world/@internetfreedom@mas.to

The IFF is a highly trustworthy and well respected organization that fights for Indians digital rights and democratic freedoms. They’ve done a lot of good work over the years, they even helped VLC to get unblocked when it was banned in India.

Yep, that’s sadly true

Wait till they ban staring cause it’s intimidating!

If it gets blocked then no but you can continue using it either through a VPN, a proxy server or through Tor. You could also use a different DNS to unblock the website for yourself (Incase it gets blocked)

Wish our government officials had a basic understanding of tech so they could see this and go “the fuck are we doing?”

They will target anyone they can get sadly, Indians are not exempted from this and are often times, the primary targets