Slashdot Mirror
China Prosecuting Webmaster Over Site
hughk writes "A trial is taking place in China where a webmaster who is running a site dedicated to help finding missing people is facing trial over content provided by a third-party. Unfortunately, someone had the audacity to mention Tiananmen Square. The story is written up on the BBC website amongst others. This comes down to the old problem of how do you run a service like this when not only do you monitor the articles, you have to monitor the replies as well? From a comparison point of view, you can not be prosecuted for doing something similar in Russia, but it does help to be up to date with your taxes." There are so many of these articles we can't run them all. But it helps to run some from time to time to remind people living in the freer areas of the world that not everyone lives as they do.
Heh.. once upon a time, the URL http://slashdot.org was so frequently misquoted as http://www.slashdot.org, that the editors had an acronym for the offence - TCWWW, "the cursed WWW". Now, we get that mistake popping up on Slashdot itself. :-)
film at 11.
What did he expect? He was providing a forum for free speech in a country where people are regularly tortured for expressing their opinions. I admire his bravery, and his principles, but I can't say I'm surprised by the reaction.
Then again, if a writer puts something slanderous in a newspaper, the paper can get sued, so it is the papers responsibility to a point. But this is different. I wonder if this article has caused /. to be censored in China.
Douglas Adams
1952-2001 :(
Republicans decide to make the net safe for children by appointing an 'Internet Czar' (see To Renew America by Newt Gingrich) and decide that people can, in fact, be liable for "criminal" speech on the Internet. Congress accepts this comprimise to total Federal control of the Internet.
Democrats, in order to appeal to their large amount of ethnic minority voters, pushes Congress for Federal 'hate crime' legislation. Now, it is a crime to think, or feel, hate. Orwell called these "thought-crimes". Republicans in congress who do not want to get "Ashcrofted" when they are appointed to their future cabinet position, make sure to go on record as voting for this legislation.
These are not scenarios... these are agendas.
So now, when some nutcase posts on slashdot that he's going to kill a bunch of /blacks/whites/women/frogs/FBI Agents, Commander Taco and friends get to go to Federal Prison for running a "Hate Speech Forum" when the Ministry of Love comes down on them.
Maybe 5 years is too far into the future. These proposals are in the works now. Welcome to the fold.
Vote Libertarian
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I have not yet begun to procrastinate!
Where you can't be arrested for content on your web site, as long as Sony says it's ok.
Leaving the matter at hand aside for a moment, I must admit my kneejerk reaction is to say that freedom of speech should be a basic human right. At the same time, anyone with a website should moderate its content with regards to the national law associated with the location of the servers that host the site. To do less is to try and create martyrs(-sp?) - and to practice unsafe webmastering.
As for the whole political situation in China - there are good and bad things about the system. When it works, it works good. When it fails, it fails badly. Is that so much worse than the pseudo-grey myre that seems to envelope the Western world? I honestly don't know.
But at this stage I am a little tired of hearing about how 'evil' everything is that hasn't been rubber stamped by the US since 1950. I'm tired of the tear-jerking stories that are supposed to pull at specific heart-strings or stike a cord with certain segments of society(i.e. in this case geeks and journalists) - only to be torn to shreds quietly in a few months when the one important fact that was left out of the story emerges on a non-English speaking news site.
And while I'm ranting (and thoroughly wrecking my karma - I may have been a karma whore once, but I'm kissing that goodbye now I'm just sickened by this recurring topic) I'm tired of the media furore everytime a British or American person is convicted of a crime abroad. I'm sick of American marines and pilots coming on staged news conferences and saying things like: they felt like '...a scared little bunny-rabbit...' when trapped behind enemy lines.(Do any Americans even remember that? It was an insult to the American Armed Forces as a whole). I'm tired of American commentators coming on like part of the cast of Star Trek, quoting a prime directive of interference when something's going right and quoting a policy of non-interference when the dirt's hitting the fan. I'm tired of television assuring me I have inalienable rights under my constitution; I'm tired of being assured that my political leaders are doing their best in Washington D.C.; I'm tired of news articles filled with flotsam about American politicans or policies. I'm just plain tired of nice, neat wars that just happen to come about every four years when the polls for an American leader are sagging.
I'm tired of American xenophobia disguised as concern for the standard of living. I am tired of the tug of war between Europe and America (and you can bet that's only in its infancy). I am tired of American abuses going unreported except by the 'crackpot' press - which only serve to discredit the truth. I am tired of Americans being 'holier-than-thou' when comparitive abuses exsist within their own shores. I am tired of Americans pretending the diseases spread by their armed forces are part of history because they happened more than one political administration ago. I'm tired of in living in fear of criticising Israeli policy lest I be cast as an anti-semite. I'm tired of living in fear of criticising Islamic Albania because they are in political favour with American this month. I'm just plain tired of it all.
The man should have had more sense - it doesn't take much to host the site outside mainland China. There's someone who wanted to be a hero - the fact he had a wife and child doesn't change that fact. I'll shed no tears for him, even if his sentence is severe - which given the current situation I sincerely doubt.
Bye-bye karma, but you know how these things go when you need to say something. I was tired of living in fear of losing karma, so I just don't care. However, don't mark this as a 'Troll' or 'Offtopic'; this comment is neither. Truth may set you free but it can make you damned unpopular.
8)
Concrete analysis...
The USA commits far more damning assaults on basic human rights (as guaranteed in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which the USA signed), such as the right to housing, the right to medical care and the right to a fair trial (the cases of Hurricane Carter and Mumia show that this right is violated frequently denied in the USA).
Also the right to be free of discrimination is not guaranteed in the USA, hate groups such as the KKK and that writer of the Turner Diaries go unpunished and the USA lacks a law against Holocaust denial, such as exists in many European nations.
It's cheap labor. It's no one is around to complain about human rights. The government is in your favor. The workers have no voice. The companies can do as they like with impunity. What better place to do business??? Let the money roll in, like we have to keep our lawns green don't we? And the rest is none of our business, right?
I think I remember hearing our chimp prez wants to fight countries sponsoring terrorism. That's awfully noble until you realize the School of the Americas is known to have terrorists among its graduates. Also, look at how little attention is stirred when a NATO country censors a website. Smacks of hypocrisy, no? Oh, right, I forgot that its OK when its used against a dirty people like the chinese.
As an atheist, the only faith I have is in mankind. Correction, had faith.
If you know what actual, real communism is, you know that the current regime in China AIN'T IT!
China was once on the road to communism, but after Mao died in 1976, the revisionist headquarters of Deng Xiaoping quickly staged a coup, arrested all leading real communists in the Party (the so-called Gang of Four), and set China on the capitalist road. But they kept waving red flags around anyway so they could get away with fooling everybody while they consolidated their power. This is why it is so repressive today, and why they have sweatshops in China, which were nowhere to be found during the revolutionary years 1948-76. It is at the core of why Tiananmen Square happened, and why they are cracking down on this righteous webmaster.
So it's very ironic when people point to China today to complain about how terrible 'communism' is, because they are actually pointing the finger at capitalism operating under a veil of 'socialism' and 'people's democracy'!
Saddly this is true but it is the guys own fault. He did put a fourum on his site and people posted but he didn't monter it well. I don't adree with what happened but I think it was at least in part his own fault to. That is what you get when you you live in a communist country with such heavy regulations on free speech and press. If thiss happened in America there would probably be open revolt by most of the internet comunity and probably at least some of the general public.
UTUCDamon: The only sure thing in the future is uncertainty.