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.

That sucks and is quite unfortunate, would’ve been cool to have another option other than signing up with your phone number but I suppose it’s alright

About time!! Been waiting for this for so long. This will definitely make the usability of Signal better and it’ll also be more accessible to people who wanted a Telegram like way to talk to other folks. Requiring a number to still register isn’t a bad thing in my eyes though sometimes it can be frustrating so I hope that there’s an option to create an account without a number. Maybe the account will have finite time before it’s auto-deleted if you don’t input a number some time later to ensure that this option isn’t abused to all hell by bots and malicious actors alike.

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.

let’s ban phones next guys

The thing is, google will willingly hand over the data willy-nilly when asked for which proton does not so ofc they are the “bad guys” here. Hurrr, what do you mean that I cannot ask you to access any user’s data at any time?! Also here’s a funny thing, look at the comments in the article I linked lol, they do not understand how Proton operates and how the Swiss law applies to them

that’s amazing lmao

Other than Jio, idrk know of any ISP that does that