The overlapping tensions in India’s online business, policy and data protection

India wants to curb the dominance of foreign (mainly US) tech giants in India’s online consumer marketplace to facilitate the growth of homegrown counterparts. For this, it is looking at China’s success in establishing its own tech heavyweights by virtually walling off its citizens’ online access from the rest of the world. However, India also needs foreign investment, and Indians would not tolerate China-style restrictions on access to the web.

European regulations on the storage and use of user data are another approach for the Indian government to rein in foreign companies’ offerings in the country. While the European regulations are aimed at protecting the privacy of its residents, the Indian government wants to exempt itself from restrictions on access to its residents’ online data.

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The state-run news agency Xinhua justified the burqa ban by pointing out that burqas are also banned in France…

China has just banned the burqa in its biggest Muslim city – Quartz

In early 2009, a creature called the grass-mud horse appeared in an online music video which became an immediate viral hit. “Grass-mud horse” (cǎonímǎ 草泥马), which sounds nearly the same in Mandarin as “fuck your mother” (cào nǐ mā 肏你妈), was originally coined to get around, and also poke fun at, government censorship of vulgar content. The idea caught fire instantly, completely transforming its symbolic meaning. Within weeks, the grass-mud horse became the de facto mascot of Chinese netizens fighting for free expression, inspiring poetry, photos, videos, artwork, clothing, andmore. As one Chinese blogger explained, “The grass-mud horse represents information and opinions that cannot be accepted by the mainstream discourse, and the ‘Song of the Grass-Mud Horse’ has become a metaphor of the power struggle over Internet expression.”

Pun-filled subversion in China

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