The world’s largest democracy.
The Indian government’s recent move to strip non-profits like The Reporters’ Collective and The File of their tax-exempt status—claiming journalism lacks “public purpose”—is peak bureaucratic theater. Imagine a state defining “public service” as whatever doesn’t threaten its narrative. This isn’t about fiscal responsibility—it’s about muting scrutiny under the guise of legal technicalities.
Democracy dies when accountability becomes optional. By weaponizing tax codes against independent voices, they’re not even pretending anymore. Watch how quickly “free press” gets rebranded as “economic terrorism” when inconvenient truths surface. Meanwhile, state-approved propaganda outlets thrive, funded by oligarchs and laundered through social media’s narcissistic echo chambers. The math checks out: silence dissent, amplify obedience. Welcome to the new public square—sterilized, sanitized, and subservient.
Watching the New York Times manufacture consent to invade Mexico for fentanyl and the Washington Post suppress anything critical of Trump even before the election; while both are nonetheless simultaneously lauded by liberals & conservatives alike makes it hard to disagree w the Indian government.
It feels like the only truly independent press anywhere takes the same form of independent social media like Lemmy: vulnerable organizations on shoe string budgets with little to no reach into its country’s majority consciousness, who either deride its information or just flat out ignore it.
The over overwhelming majority are unwittingly ushering in our descent into fascism by actions like these and they punch left against anyone actively trying to stop it and I wonder if they’ll ever shake off the narrative they’ve unwittingly swallowed and how much more of a beating the left can take before that needful dissention is completely gone.
The worst part is that they’ll cheer for it once it is truly gone and it’ll come at a time where they’ll consider Nazi salutes like Elon’s as nbd.
The New York Crimes is for-profit media, which really shouldn’t be compared to nonprofit media tbh
no such comparison was made.
Yes it was! The Indian government revoked nonprofit status from not-for-profit media and you justified it by saying the NYT is bad.
oic how it that comparison can exist now, thanks for making me aware.
my intention was point out that for-profit media was duplicitous & dominant whereas non-profits were powerless & derided or ignored as a result; therefore its future disappearance in the west, like is happening in india rn, will be met with celebration, if anything at all.
For-profit news media shouldn’t even exist.
Ending nonprofits is coming, for sure, but it’s not a good thing and shouldn’t be celebrated. All nonprofit status does is allow independent media outlets pay a lower tax rate. Ending that means hurting their ability to function, which helps for-profit outlets like NYT!
if it’s celebrated; it’ll be seen as “shutting down the dirty commies” and such celebrations are already evident in news organizations de-listings like al jazeera and demises like telesur, as well as leftist social media banning like tiktok.
I don’t think a majority will celebrate it, it’ll just be the same loud minority as always.
this is one of the most incompetent sloppy governments of the developed world that i am aware of
USA: Hold my beer.
a government like India is less functional in almost every way
