Hey everyone a quick note before we start the show.

So some of our colleagues produced this amazing online presentation

about the International Refugee Crisis

and it's been nominated for a Webby Award this year. I encourage you to check it out and if you like what you see please vote for us.

Voting closes on May 7th, so go to vote. Webby Awards.com and search for it by its title, No Refuge. And thanks.

Ah, social media. Love it or hate it. We use it for almost everything. Staying in touch, buying things we need, buying things we need, buying things we don't need, following the news, even checking in during a disaster.

But entrusting these platforms with our information comes at a cost.

The boundaries of our privacy have faded, and more and more we find ourselves asking who's in charge is it legislators

Is it the platforms themselves in the US the answers to those questions are unclear.

But in India, a potentially decisive moment in digital freedom is going down right now.

India's ruling party has put forward new rules that would allow it to trace and censor private

communication. Standing in its way is WhatsApp, an American-made encrypted messaging

platform that's used by hundreds of millions of Indians and the outcome could have

ripple effects across the globe. I'm Gabriel Sierra and this is why it matters.

Today India's government versus

WhatsApp and the looming threat of digital authoritarianism.

India is the world's largest democracy. If you can imagine 900 million people voted in the last national election last year.

Out of a population of 1.3 billion people,

it's just, it's a massive exercise election.

Yeah, it's huge, it's populist,

and that's what also makes it really fun and exciting to be on the ground.

You certainly feel the energy, especially in a city like Mumbai.

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