Social media platform ‘Reddit’ has long been a cesspool of anti-India propaganda where Chinese and Pakistani moderators have seemingly assumed the role of gatekeepers in Indian subreddits to disseminate their propaganda. One such subreddit named “India: United We Stand” has become the den of misinformation and fake news being peddled.
This is a Reddit community of over 6.24 lakh members, and claims to be the “official subreddit of India”. One would think that the conversations within the 6.24 lakh strong community would be nuanced and objective.
If not, one would expect that both sides of the political spectrum will at least be significantly represented in the ‘subreddit’. However, turns out, there is no breathing space for people from the opposite end of the political spectrum to present their views in the said subreddit.
Reddit removing anti-China commentary
Recently, TFI reported on a development of Taiwan and India possibly joining forces to bring a $7.5 billion Semiconductor plant to the latter’s shores. The news story was carried by the mainstream media as well. TFI dissected the news story and how China would have been antagonized by the development as India directly dealing with Taiwan would have undermined its authoritarian One-China policy.
When the post was added to myriad social media platforms including the r/India subreddit, the moderators on Reddit instantly removed the video, while it stayed up on nearly every other social media site. The reason cited was as vague as it could have been. The moderators removed the post to supposedly keep the community safe and civil.
Dear admins at @redditindia, why was this post removed? Why does r/India remove all Pro-India content without citing any reasons? @Reddit pic.twitter.com/h0UhQoaNMA
— Atul Kumar Mishra (@TheAtulMishra) September 27, 2021
Reddit funded by Tencent in 2019; mysterious same creator for r/India & r/Pakistan
Yes, the Reddit community needed to be safeguarded from hearing and watching anti-China commentary. It doesn’t come as a surprise that the moderators of the group do not want to hear any anti-China news as two years back, in 2019, Chinese tech giant and censorship major, Tencent had pumped over $150 million into Reddit, through Series D funding.
Thus, it doesn’t come as a surprise that any article or video remotely critical of Xi Jinping is taken down by the platform. The Chinese overlords presiding in the company wield their influence and control the narrative on the platform. Moreover, it is interesting to note that Reddit India was mysteriously created by the same person who created Reddit Pakistan – u/qgyh2. (Source: r/India in 2012, r/Pakistan in 2012)
The intermediary status
As reported by TFI, India had fixed five million registered users as the threshold for defining a significant social media company as an intermediary. After the deadline to adhere to the new IT guidelines elapsed earlier this year on May 26, social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, and Twitter ran the risk of losing their status as “intermediaries” and could have become liable for criminal action if they did not comply with the revised regulations.
While other social media companies quickly fell in line, twitter played the rogue card for some time before the government took away its intermediary status and forced it to adhere to the IT laws.
There are numerous queries arising as to whether Twitter is entitled to safe harbour provision. However, the simple fact of the matter is that Twitter has failed to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines that came into effect from the 26th of May.
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (Modi ka Parivar) (@rsprasad) June 16, 2021
Grievance and redressal officers
According to reports, Reddit has 13.57 million Indian users and hence, it should be dubbed as an intermediary as well. Under the IT rules, any significant social media intermediary should have a Chief Compliance Officer, responsible for ensuring compliance with the Information Technology Act, 2000 (the IT Act), a nodal person of contact, for “24×7 coordination” with law enforcement agencies and a Resident Grievance Officer.
As per the guidelines, the officer will acknowledge the receipt of the complainant within 24 hours and will not take more than 15 days to resolve it. However, in the case of Reddit, there is no clarity regarding the IT laws. Any conversation regarding the same with the company has found no takers.
Reddit — Wikipedia 2.0?
For a company that claims to be liberal in its outlook, such censorship doesn’t bode well for its future in a country like India. Reddit is on its way to being the next Wikipedia where leftist trolls in deep collusion with Islamists have hijacked the narrative and made the free website a mess of partisan information.
However, more importantly, the fact that the r/India subreddit turns up as the topmost ‘India’ result on the platform should ring warning bells across the country. Internationally, the country is being portrayed as a totalitarian one by a convenient alliance of Islamists and leftists. The government should look into it and pull Reddit, for it has gone under the radar during the entire IT laws controversy.
