After Quora

A couple of weeks ago I was permanently banned from Quora, the result, I assume of multiple violations of their BNBR (Be Nice Be Respectful) policy. I have no regrets about the violations. I think a site dedicated to questions and answers should not have a policy which prevents uncomfortable thoughts from being aired. Posting obviously fake information does not result in a ban but posting objectively correct or at least justifiable ideas which large numbers of subscribers find uncomfortable leads to a ban. This leave the site to become an echo chamber for politically correct views.
I think there were three categories of my answers which annoyed a large number of people. My answers about religion, my answers about 'alternative medicine' and my answers about the BJP government and Mr Modi.
Let me cite a few examples.

Vinay Kumaran

Perambulating: Delhi- New York- Pittsburgh- Delhi-Mumbai
Unpatriotic: Since the metric for patriotism became ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ and ‘Cows’ and ‘Killing Enemies’.
Anti-national: Since it became anti-national to speak for freedom of speech, for expression of dissenting opinions, cheering for the Pakistani cricket team, watching a movie with a Pakistani actor.

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Vinay Kumaran
I've read several versions of the Gita including Gandhi's, the Gita as it is by Bhaktivedanta Swami and The Difficulty of Being Good by Gurcharan Das. It is a good philosophical tome but there is much that I do not agree with. It did not do anything to convince me about the existence of souls or Gods. Merely making an assertion is not convincing.
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Vinay Kumaran
My earlier answers to this question were collapsed. Let me reproduce them. Read it before it gets collapsed again.
  1. Mr Modi has emerged from the BJP and the RSS before that. The party is a right wing party with a Hindutva plank. India is a country of the Hindus for the Hindus. Other religions, and particularly Muslims are either invaders or descendants of forcibly converted Hindus. I find this concept of basing a political philosophy on religion repugnant.
  2. Mr Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat when riots broke out. Many Muslims were killed by Hindu mobs. The evidence, while not amounting to culpability, does suggest that he did not do much to try and control the mobs. There are many reports of the police standing by and allowing or even encouraging the massacre. I find this very disturbing.
  3. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 followed by riots all over the country in which thousands died was orchestrated by the BJP and the VHP with LK Advani playing a major role in whipping up religious hysteria with his Rath Yatra. The Ramayana is a mythological tale. To suppose that the site of the Masjid was the actual birthplace of Ram strikes me as stupid. Modi’s role in that was probably minor but he does share the blame for his party.
  4. The present government under Mr Modi actively promotes unproven and potentially harmful systems of alternative medicine like Ayurveda and Homoeopathy. This harms many patients who (at best) receive treatment which does not work and (at worst) face fatal delays in receiving effective treatment or suffer harm due to the toxic effects of these medicines. Proponents of these things such as Ramdev and Ravi Shankar have become rich as a result of favoured treatment by the government.
I could go on for a long time but it would a standard liberal vs conservative rant.
And another one.
Why has BJP become the most hated party in India?
  1. By using religion to win the election and again to make decisions after being elected.
  2. By empowering jokers who would not have had a voice in a less enabling government. This includes people like the Gau Rakshaks, Sadhvi Prachi and their recent Chief Minister of UP. Like in Trump’s America, it has become okay to be racist (or religist or casteist or sexist) because the head of the state is so and if we elected him then it must be okay to think, speak and act like like him.
  3. By transitioning to the American model of corruption which was always orders of magnitude ahead of the Indian method. Indians find ways to break the law and get away with it. Americans buy the government and change the law. This is what has been done with the BJP as well. The laws regarding funding of political parties without accountability is an obvious example. Letting the big industrialists (who helped you win the elections) off the hook has uncanny similarities with what the US did with the financial institutions which crashed the economy with irresponsible behaviour. Setting up a ‘Bad Bank’ to take over ‘Bad Loans’ to leave the banks which made the bad or coerced decisions free to make more such is one such example.
  4. By ignoring the key populist promises made. There has been little actual development. Trains continue to crash with monotonous regularity and instead of working on railway infrastructure they blame Pakistan for the crashes.
I confidently expect this answer to be collapsed by the end of the day..

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Comments

  1. motteeMay 26, 2017 at 5:33 AM

    Just wondering if you had done a "Report a Bug" or "Contact Us" to email Quora about these issues? Quora's BNBR policy is basically enforced using AI & machine learning algorithms which are still a work in progress even in the research community. Also, since you are not tagged as a Top Writer by Quora (although I think Quora should have more tags for interesting people like you), whatever decisions the algorithms make and send messages would probably not flag for manual checks by people at Quora for exceptions. I am just wondering if you had brought to notice your quora ban to any person alive and working at the company Quora? It seems unnatural that people working at Quora would think that you did not follow the BNBR policy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VinayMay 30, 2017 at 7:29 PM

      That's not really the point. The point is that a forum like Quora should not be using a policy of BNBR. Instead they should be penalising people who post false or misleading information. One should not be nice or respectful when people say things that can be harmful. I'm not claiming that I did not violate BNBR. I was disrespectful of religion, Ayurveda, Homoeopathy, right wing religious organisations and so on. I also think humour is an essential way of making people think or of driving home a point.

      Delete
  2. patrickMay 2, 2018 at 7:42 PM

    Amazing how much crap QUORA will tolerate under their BNBR policy. It is OK to call the US President a "FUCKING MORON, A NAZI, A PUTIN BUTT PAL, PUTIN;S BITCH, A MODERN HITLER, ETC., ETC.). But God forbid you criticize the person who write such trash. I think I'm just going to fond another, more intelligent outlet.

    ReplyDelete
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