Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Government Perplexed By Internet Cafes
morn writes: "BBC News is reporting, from a recent article in the Beijing Review, that debate is hotting up in China over the burgeoning Intenet cafe industry. Up to 15% of children in large cities such as Beijing,
Shanghai and Guangzhou are now said to be using the cafes. The government appears to be worried, and is overseeing the installation of 'information purifiers.'" (Read More)
"In a debate published on the Beijing Review's website, Communist Party officials warned of "online heroin", saying access to pornographic sites and "illegal games" in internet cafes pose a threat to the country's younger generation, who are becoming blighted by the "online poison". It is being said that "Some teenagers are so deeply entrapped by such internet cafes that their minds are severely distorted."
Scholars are arguing against any sort of curtailing of the cafe business, but against strong words like those, do they stand much chance?"
A collective body of knowledge like the internet is difficult (if not impossible) to control at every level. The influx of information leading to the enlightenment of the populus was the downfall of East Germany and the Soviet Union. The fall of Communism in the East will be driven by the growth of the Internet and free trade with the West. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of *when*.
Fair enough. When the next Hitler or Slobodan Milosevic shows up on the world scene, now I know enough to let them slaughter thousands of innocent people, confident that said mass murderer has a good reason. When Gov. George Wallace said "Segregation forever," people should have turned a blind eye when the hoses were turned on. I'm sure he was doing the right thing.
The ironic thing is about your argument is that the Chinese government doesn't let its own citizens make their own moral decisions. It imposes them on it's citizens. For example, the one child policy. If you want two or more, too bad. The government has made their moral choice for them. As a result, there is widespread murder of female infants as they are considered less valuable in Chinese rural societies. (I'm talking about drowning of babies, not abortion. I'm not a right-wing nut. right wingnut?).
Another further irony is that some group of people in whatever country you're from decided that repression of ideas was WRONG. They made a moral judgement against authoritarian control. They protested the government for it. Some may have died for it. And here you are, the beneficiary of someone taking a moral stand some time ago, saying taking a moral stand is wrong. You're free to do so, I guess.
An even further irony: You say making moral decisions for others is wrong. Yet you are trying to make the moral decision for me that making moral decisions for others is wrong. Plus you're trying decide for me when the right time to go to sleep is. How do you go on living in your world of circular logic?
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to catch some Z's.
It's obvious. It is all described in Kant's categorical imperative. Okay, so he dosent' say that information wants to be free, but then it wasn't an issue(of extreme revalence: Read Spanish Inqusition, and you get the gist.) in his time. Information, like people deserves to be treated with dignity. Information, in it's raw form, should not be used as a means (although, it is often than not, much as people were used in the ancient times, and still are in many places). Truth(read information) has an intrinsic qauality, indescribable, intangible. Keeping the truth down is to me, the equivalent of bashing a person's head in with a brick for no particular reason: morally unjust. What property of humans keeps the great majority for going ape-shit wild, and brutally, savagely shreading every person in sight? I know that I can't say. Something intrinsic, perhaps? What quality of the truth describes that it can be manipulated by interested parties, or hidden alltogether? Truth (information) wants to be free, else, we would know absolutely nothing about our world. The fact that we constantly learn is testament to the fact that information wants to be free; the people of China have been getting a taste of the freedom that was shielded from them for so very long, and that scares the ape-shit out of the Old Guard.
www.xxxhotmaoists.com Don't want to leave anyone out.
We want a video feed from the conferences. We want published transcripts from the conferences (like some multinational corporations allegedly get). We want our representatives to call witnesses to offer their views on these issues.
The FTAA meeting in Quebec last week flew in the face of democracy. There were representatives from businesses, and representatives from governments, but nobody was there to represent the interests of the people! The people showed up to voice their concerns, only to have the police lob tear gas at them.
The business and government officials at the FTAA know they are harming the people; that's why they hold meetings in secret -- so no one can criticize the details.
It is a demeaning statement. You are more or less accusing the Chinese of being less intelligent than us westerners.
India has almost as many people as China, and yet manages to maintain a democracy. Their country hasn't plunged into chaos. And their people can actually decide for themselves whether they should be happy "in their own little world" or should work for something more.
This is much more than many of the people in China have.
And having lived in China, I can say, many of the people there are not happy in their own little world. Mainly because, it isn't their own little world, it is the Communist Party's own little world.
Don't use pragmatism to justify brutality and oppression.
Will you please let the people hosting my website know that information is too cheap to meter?
Works for most other things.
Censorship in china is very bezare at times. It comes in waves and fashions. And the internet is the latest fad. There is a irresistible urge to control for both political and socio-cultural reasons. Perhaps that is what happens after thousands years of emperors. Yet on the other side, is the great emphasize placed on education and knowledge. Top-down control vs. bottom-up learning. bound to collide. As china try to kill its nacent internet industry through censorship, and possibly through the creation of entirely new private nets, cut off from the world. things will come to a head.
Would any (presuming this information has not yet been 'purified') care to comment?
Yes.
All your spyprane are berong to us. ^^
Statement 2: The Chinese government is extremely repressive against Falugong and Tibetan nationalists.
I don't see how statement 2 has anything to do with statement 1. One problem with Western media that the they give the impression that because the Chinese government is repressive against political dissidents (true) that the entire country is one giant prision camp and that everyone hates the government and wants to overthrow it (not true).
As much as America when it comes to repressing religions suspected of promoting Satanism (or variants thereof) among our youth, as much as the Ruby Ridge/Waco standoff, as much as our government in handling the acquisition of Hawaii and overthrowing their monarchy, and as much as our current military spending increases.
China is run by a small group of people who control power by terror
Unlike the USA which is run by a small group of people (the media and corporations), who rule by deception and propaganda.
replace "such internet cafes" with "the internet" and that describes 95% of the slashdot crowd
This sounds just like what the U.S. government is doing to public libraries - forcing them to install filter ("information purifying") software because of the threat ("poison") to kids.
Taken literally, it's obviously not true. So what the hell is it? It doesn't mean creators of information want it to be free, because there are so many that obviously don't.
Does it mean "computer geeks want information to be free"? Kind of a pointless statement if so.
This isn't a troll, though I guess it is a flame. I really do want to know what it's supposed to mean.
I suppose it just means "information should be free", only stated belligerently instead of intelligently.
Curiously, my experience has been that the Chinese who are most connected to the internet tend also to be the most nationalistic and Anti-American Number of reasons. People who are connected to the internet tend to get a stronger sense of how weak China is in comparison to the United States. They tend to be younger and more energy and less sense.
The internet might lead to the fall of the Chinese government, but not necessarily in a good way. During the recent spy plane incident, most of the government censorship was aimed at people who thought that the Chinese government was too weak and conciliatory toward the United States.
So what could happen is that the internet could cause the current Chinese government to fall and get replaced by one that is much more expansionist, nationalistic, and anti-American.
Be careful what you wish for,,,,,,
The Chinese government is a lot less clueless about the internet than people here think. They've tried to attack the network and the clients for a while, but this doesn't work very well. So their efforts are largely focused on the servers, and this tends to be quite effective.
Suppose slashdot was a site in China. The way that it would work is that the moderators of the site would take into account political factors when deciding what articles to post and how to moderate responses. Responses that went past certain lines (for example if someone posted an article supporting Tibetan independence) would simply be deleted by the moderator.
Slashdot would go along with this sort of moderation, because if they didn't moderate articles in this way, then the police would come and shut the site down. It's not enough to just move the servers overseas, because as long as the people running the servers are in China, the police can come and have a nice talk with them.
It's a rather effective system. Sure people could put together a site overseas, but think of the cost? You can't just move the servers overseas, you have to relocate all of the people involved in running the servers. There would be enough "geek news" and non-political stuff to keep the site running and interesting, and the effort needed to relocate everything overseas (including the people running the site) wouldn't be worth the effort.
Because this system has evolved in China, it makes me think that the discussion about banning internet cafes is actually because people think teenagers are spending too much time in them. The Chinese government has far more effective ways of censorship than banning internet cafes.
Also, did anyone else also find it significant that the Chinese government was *debating* this issue (i.e. you had people discussing both sides of a public policy issue.)
But in a socialist country who owns these areas? The wealthy own them, and who else can be wealthy in a Communist nation but the govorning elite. The same govorning elite who want to control the information.
Huh? Where do I start here... China is only nominally a "Socialist" country. Since Deng's reforms in the late 80's and early '90's, ("to get rich is glorious!") you could argue that the special economic areas of China are more capitalist than in the US (by which I mean there is less government intervention). There is a new class of wealthy landowners merchants in China that have nothing to do with the CCP or any kind of central authority.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
This can be seen in all levels of the culture of both countrys. Whats worse: they are both going be right or one will destroy the other so that it will prevail.
As a purely Orwell-snob point, the basic premise of geopolitics within 1984 was the stasis of each (Eurasia, Eastasia or Oceania) nation's sphere of influence. The point was that since each nation could annihilate the other, no nation could conquer any other even when teaming up with a second against the third. Therefore all military action was essentially planned attrition at the fringes of the empires and within the small pockets of unconquered territory. The war was merely to drain national will and wealth away to the point where each ideology could easily hold sway over the populace.
A weak and ignorant people is easy to suppress and bamboozle when the government has wealth and knowledge. And when knowledge is malleable because 'he who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past', common ground for revolution becomes impossible.
Sorry to get all longwinded, but 1984 has formed a key part of my worldview since I first read it at age 8 or 9.. Every time I reread it I look around to see if I've lost anything.
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
Depends on your criteria. Mine are:
In the short run, Democracy is not as "efficient" as a martial-law style dictatorship. It isn't as "exciting" as a government led by a single charismatic leader. However, the 20th history shows what happens when a polis succumbs to the efficiency of martial government and the exciting governing style of popular despots.
Democracy, in other words, is in theory open-source governance, where the laws are determined not by fiat or whim, but rather by open peer review and popular vote (or, in our case, popular vote by proxy). The problems that we have, by and large, stem from the failure to live up to true democratic principles of transparency and equal opportunity in government. While we may get exasperated by the petty selfish regionalism we find in Congress (pork-barrelism, self-interest, self-aggrandisement), this is a good problem to have. It means we've gotten to the point that we can start sweating the small stuff and fixing some of the core issues we have domestically, rather than having to focus outwards.
I fear that China will provide fodder for another cold war, and that will pull our focus away from fixing domestic issues. The media age has made us impatient, but it hasn't made us any more flexible, so we still need time to change but we don't want to wait for it. Granted, some of our greatest technological and industrial achievements came because of war research and production, but military spending is ultimately a wasteful way of doing research.
Please, just read some history. Get informed. What I think you'll find is that, for all its failures, the American system is worth fixing. It's like being a sysadmin: the only time you ever hear from people is when there's something broken. You never get a 'thank you' even if your baseline is extraordinarly high. There are things that need to be fixed, and I fear that our culture is too immature, insecure, and childishly selfish to engage in the frank and honest debate that may actually lead to positive change.
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
maybe, just maybe, there are a lot of happy communists and maybe they are all smart and have willfully chosen to be restricted for the betterment of their society.
:p.
Anyone calling themselves happy communists are either deluded, corrupted, or retarded. There is no such thing, there has never been such a thing, at least in the 'real' world (where livings are earned by productive labor rather than by fellowship).
Socialism or socialist forms (such as socialized medicine, housing, transportation) might possibly be another story, when chosen freely by a democratic society. But Communism (which is Socialism the economic system applied to a Political system) has been thoroughly, comprehensively, and resoundingly repudiated as a desirable form of government, ironically consigned to the very rubbish heap of history it predicted for Capitalism.
I only wish more slashdotters could pull their eyes away from their monitors and read a bit of history now and then. Even populist histories like Paul Johnson's Modern Times, Intellectuals, or The Birth of the Modern World Society 1815-1830 (which is quite interesting, one of its main themes is the beginning of the diversion of art and science), or David Halberstam's The Fifties would improve on what is a sad absence of history
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
talked to chinese people
Yep, but then again they risked their lives and families to escape Communism to get here.
Put it this way, even in a democratic republic like the USA, there are people who hate it. There are folk on the street who can tell you horror stories.
The flaw in your logic here is that you assume silence equals consent. That is a common fallacy.
Indeed theres a whole bunch of people from the late 19th century who couldn't stand capitalism any longer that they rose up in arms.
And you've seen where that's gotten them, right? You are naive.. The only violent revolution that has worked, EVER was the American revolution. That revolution brought an escape from "tyranny" (which quite frankly wasn't nearly as bad as what many modern 'revolutions' got their populations INTO) and the form of government it spawned has survived for over 200 years. All other revolutions have failed, both practically AND ideologically (unless you believe that Marx intended Communist citizens to be obedient automatons, which I never actually saw when I read Das Kapital).
All I'm asking you to do is consider the posibility that things are not as bad as they appear.
That's like saying (and yes, I may be invoking Godwin's law, but it needs to be done) that you need to visit a Nazi death camp to know that they were "as bad as they appear". Reading the historical evidence over the course of decades is good enough for me.
The kind of pusillanimous moral relativism you post is obscene and smacks of a painfully naive lack of historical/social understanding, which is the hallmark of modern wishy-washy "higher" education. Read some P.J. O'Rourke and grow some fucking balls (metaphysically speaking)..
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
Oh, and don't sweat the kids working in factories. It may appall you (as it did me), but it's all they got until things change.
:p)
One thing that these Che Guevara t-shirt wearin charge-card college commies do not realize is that an economy (or society) needs to start SOMEWHERE, and that change takes TIME.
The child worker today will one day have children, and the won't want their children to work as hard as they did. This forms the beginning of real social change. During the Industrial Revolution, many children worked for pittances in horrible conditions in the US and UK. Their parents encouraged to do so. We (the industrial Democracies) learned that children shouldn't have to do that. So the 3rd world chooses not to learn from our lesson, or they aren't yet rich enough to do so. Sometimes, people have to learn the hard way: it's like how you value something you earn or fight for more than something you are given. We offer the world our example and our results, and let them make their own choices (or rather, we should, though we tend to meddle too much
Chinese communism is still ruled by hardline octogenarians which will, like Castro, die one day soon (hopefully). We have yet to see any new political thought from China since, what, the mid-fifties?
Socialism within a true democratic framework is possible, and even (IMHO) desirable in certain areas, but keeping the kind of consensus required to make it work is extremely difficult and IMHO possibly only possible in small, homogenous countries (until people can see through race to remember that we all came from Homo Erectus or even C. Elegans)..
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
I know that we all like to comment on foriegn governments, and how much they suck... but if China were that bad a place to live, I think all the people would move out.
Uh, they ARE trying.. Paying thousands per head to be crammed into tramp steamers run by Tongs to go to America, where they end up either in indentured servitude to pay for the passage or in some INS holding pen waiting to be deported.
If the US opened its gates wide to Chinese immigration (instead of keeping them sealed tight as hell), even having to cross thousands of miles of open ocean, you would see millions applying for citizenship within a year.
Democracy is that good. If you doubt it, try living with censorship yourself for awhile. And not just the petty bullshit "censorship" in the U$A.. Hell, just try a brief stint in Singapore and see if you don't get caned.
To mangle Churchill, "Democracy is the worst form of government ever devised by man, except for all the other ones."
The USA may not be the greatest nation on Earth, but Democracy is the greatest form of government on Earth, and the USA does have the potential to be the greatest nation.. If only social change were as easy as recompiling a tweaked source file (but then, who writes the compilers?)..
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
Chinease government folks know that if their people start longing for more and more of western culture their country will end in ruin...
Millions have already been killed by Chinese government.
China is run by a small group of people who control power by terror, their desire for China to be stable extends only to their own wellbeing, and thus they will steal, kill, or do whatever they want to.
Dictatorial control is no match for democracy.
China: ...pose a threat to the country's younger generation, who are becoming blighted by the "online poison"...
...where a child can walk in and can have their heart turned dark as a result of being on the Internet...
US (bush):
discuss amongst yourselves.
Right. And since I see that your dinner dishes are unwashed and your lawn needs mowing, you have no right to criticize me for burying bodies in my back yard.
Come on. By that logic, anyone who is even slightly less than perfect has no right whatsoever to point out injustice anywhere.
The difference is not a difference of kind, but of degree.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Gee, where would I ever get the ridiculous idea that the Chinese government would shoot their own people for excercising their right to speak freely?
Don't take us Americans for dumber than we look. Some of us don't suck the dicks of our corporations as much as the PRC would hope.
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
On the first you are more optimistic than reality.
No three signatures were needed as there were no copiers for public use.
On the second you are more pessimistic than reality. USSR and some of its successors have a long tradition of scientific and technical knowledge. Don't forget this.
On the third you make a quite pessimistic mistake. Comparing USSR or the US with China in scientific terms is the same as to compare a mamonth to two rabbits. China has a tradition in Science that goes for more than 3000 years. Yes, they are different than our "traditional Science", yes they are stucked in their regimes and traditions, yes they are now on the back train. But this does not change the fact that they are as wise as us if not more. Besides "copying" is not a measure of backwardness. Everyone copies each other. Yes USSR was a master on copying and stealing technologies but let's remember that the US have a B1 that is damnly similar to the Tu strategic bombers, whose prototypes appeared a decade before the american one.
If we keep going than we will remember that some of the main technologies in modern chips have a Russian root and it is not by coincidence that some Intel projects are lead by some former chiefs of soviet computing labs.
Yes, Russia did some sound scandal by stealing the Atomic Bomb from the US. However, one should note that without the local scientists these secrets would be useless. Note that Russians did not steal the whole bomb but where specially concerned with the detonators. In the end they came with a modified version of the american design.
However this is nothing comparable to what we, the Europeans and ancesters of a good part of the Americans, did to China. Hey people, we STOLE the secret of powder from them... Silly? Stupid? Well, in the Middle Age that was the Atomic Bomb.
So China is only doing the usual business...
Probably paper filters; 'cause that gives a best coffee brew besides Espresso, of course...
--
Now when a citizen requests a banned page, all that will show on their screen will be:
Dear Mary,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, Chinese ArmyCensoring Officer: Washington Irving
-jdm
I suppose this is a good idea, I mean, if the people started to think for themselves.. they might start adopted different religions or different political views. Oh my! Yes, we must prevent this terrible atrocity from happening. I urge people not to defeat these simple minded by using things like proxies and other such devices.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
The problem is the difficulty in distinguishing between bandwagon on-hoppers (hey, it's as correct as "hotting up") and those of us who've taken a reasoned look at the relative freedoms available throughout the world, made a well-reasoned choice, and simply don't care to rehash our reasons every single time the issue of freedom comes up. I would say it's as easy to knee-jerk bash those anti-communist folks, as it is for people to have knee-jerk anti-communist comments in the first place.
I feel justified in pointing out human rights abuses in China because I abhor them in the U.S. as well. I'll admit that things aren't perfect in the U.S., but that's no reason not to write legitimate criticisms of a government which has a far worse record, overall, than the U.S.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Wary?! When was the last time someone got elected in USA on the promise "I will end Social Security"? We are complete suckers for pyramid schemes.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
How different is this really from our government trying to (and succeeding in) placing internet filters in our libraries and schools? The biggest difference is that the chinese government is placing a restriction on the private sector- but we do that here too. Even private internet porn sites have age restrictions as to who can view the content on the site.
So lets turn this article around. Everytime you see "Chinese" replace with "American", replace "Internet Cafe" with "Library" or "School" and honestly the story does not sound so far from what we are experiencing here.
-Lisa
Accept it? I came up with it. Others have as well of course just like most cultures came up with the wheel.
Just so you know it isn't Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha etc. that are stopping the minds of people, it is religion itself. To me religion has always been an organized system of group and self delusion. When the figures you mention came along, they actually worked to start the minds of the people they affected. Each one encouraged others to set aside the religous dogma of the past. The problem of course is that after these people had departed the scene, their followers quickly created new religous dogma. The more things change the more they stay the same.
People who choose to accept religion X choose to accept as facts not only things that haven't been or can't be proven, but as time goes by and human knowledge moves forward things that have been long disproven. Evolution vs. Creationism is a perfect example of this. There is a mountain of evidence supporting evolution. Creationists have nothing to fall back on but the bible, which in case you didn't know it isn't exactly evidence of anything outside anthropology and the study of religion itself. Believing things that are demonstrably false is a good portion of the definition of insanity.
I do think that I should revise my statement though. I've come to the conclusion that religion does not stop minds. Rather that people who are unable or unwilling to think for themselves are attracted to religion as a way of saving them from that burden. You can't stop a mind that never started. People like me who do think for ourselves are simply immune to the BS that religions are because we aren't in need of anyone or anything telling us who to be or what to think.
As for Newton and the rest, they are similar to Jesus, Buddha etc in that they were able to set aside religious dogma in the pursuit of something greater. While Jesus and the rest replaced one religious philosophy with another, Newton and the rest furthered man's knowledge or artistic wealth. Who knows, perhaps these people have done more than simply broken free of their religious brainwashing. Perhaps they have found a way to see through the dogma and BS and extract that which is good from relgion while leaving the rest to those with lower IQ and EQ scores. To me this isn't much different from extracting the venom from a snake for medical purposes.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I would LOVE to see the totalitarian regime that is China collapse. I'd pay good money to help ensure that it does. Tell me a story about oppression crumbling and freedom thriving and I'll be nothing but thrilled.
Freedom is the most precious thing anyone has. It is more valuable than life itself because it is what makes life worth living.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Misusing public computer services is probably as punishable as any other hacker/cracker act.
Internet cafes in China are privately owned, just like cafes elsewhere in the world. Also, with the foot traffic going in and out of these cafes, how can you tell which user redirected the browser to a proxy?
There have been times when I used one of these cafes, only to find that my browser had been directed to a proxy already. Whether it was set by management or a previous user will be impossible to prove.
Do all "ISPs" in China hang off of one common backbone that goes through Chinese government routers?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: Mostly. There are four main networks in China (as of 1997).
Chinanet: Main network with something like 90% of all retail customers. Government controlled, institutes filters by IP address at the main gateways to the rest of the world. The bulk of their traffic is routed through pipes (>80Mps) through Shanghai and Beijing. These pipes connect to somewhere in San Francisco. Leads to wierd situations where looking at a site in Hong Kong routes traffic Beijing->San Francisco->Hong Kong and back.
Golden Bridge or something like that: Smaller, competing network, with mostly business clientele. Controlled by another govt ministry. Bulk of their traffic is also routed through single pipe to US. Filtering type unknown.
Academic Networks: Two networks, the original physics research network and the more extensive educational network that links most of the major universities. Filtering type unknown. These network have much more varied connections, including 10Mbps to Hong Kong, 128kbps satellite links to European universities, etc.
These four networks are separate entities, run by different groups. There is some peering between them.
For all intents and purposes, when we talk about internet for the masses in China, we talk about Chinanet. All other ISPs connect to Chinanet and because of the high level router IP blocking, it is possible to block off access to well known sites (CNN, NYT, etc). Last time I checked, proxies and obscure sites were easily accessible though.
When will countries finally realize that hiding information only makes people want to find it more? Of course, if they were absolutely positive that their citizens were happy they would have nothing to fear.
Not really. It depends on how used the society is to crackpot views, rumors and plains lies. Long time users of the internet are used to this. A society that is just emerging from authoritarian rule, used to seeing only one side of things, are not used to this and are easily taken advantage of.
A non-internet example would be pyramid schemes. The average US/European/developed country person is wary of these things and rarely taken in, though the occassional sucker exists. On the other hand, it has brought down an entire country's financial system. (East European, forgot name.)
An internet example would be Malaysia, when some idiot office worker sent out an email saying there would be a riot. Thousands of forwards ensued and next thing you knew, half the office workers stayed home fearing the riot. How many millions of dollars of productivity was lost that day? If this can happen in M'sia (highly educated, 97%+ literate, etc,) can it not happen elsewhere?
We focus so much on the internet as a place of freedom that we sometimes forget that there really is a dark underbelly to it. We forget that hatred sites, anarchy sites and just plain misinformation is scattered through it. Until a population matures, there will be a lot of hiccups coming from this unchecked flow of information. Do you blame a government from trying to at least slow down this flow?
Note also that the government is trying to crack down only on cafes, not on home users, where presumably, there are parents who will exercise the requisite discipline/enlightenment.
Now it's been a while since I had that course on US/China in the Cold War, but if I recall correctly China works something like this.
Funny. I guess all the internet cafe owners I know in Beijing must be fake, since they were all private individuals trying to make a living. The only large chain I knew belonged to a guy well trained in western management philosophy. He wasn't a party member either.
China has changed a LOT since the cold war. Please don't base your assumptions on 20 year old data collected by scholars who have never set foot in the country.
Amen, brother. The number of people who immediately jump on the "Ha! Damn communists! Sure glad I live in the Land of the Free!!" bandwagon only shows how successfully the media in the West, particularly the U.S., have instilled in their population a conditioned reflex for keywords like "china" and "communism". People should learn to use their heads.
It's shocking when then Chinese do it, yet it's been happening in North American libraries and schools for years, with any kind of censorware you can name.
I was going to moderate this dicussion, but then I saw that this had no replies, and it REALLY needs one.
The "far more powerful laws" of information are observed beautifully in the Napster situation, in that there are now un-policed alternate implementations. Also, there's Gnutella, Freenet and a host of smaller projects. Each have a different spin (Gnutella is for ANY type of file, Freenet is specifically aimed at maintainin the most "interesting" content forever in order to promote free speach).
However, a much better example is software. Companies with billions of dollars in the bank have been working for decades now to prevent the advent of commercial-quality free software. What's the result? Apache has 60% of the Web server market. Linux is one of the most reliable Internet server platforms on the planet. There are implementations of just about every type of software ever written that are free. Why? Is this because one man has a personal mission to create software? Nope. It's because software is basically information, and information cannot be controled. One of the most interesting aspects of human society is our desire to share information (secret keeping is actually very hard).
Commercial enterprises like Napster can be squashed, but the "laws of information freedom" (which is a bastardization of the original poster's term, not mine) do not constrain themselves to a single company.
When one of the alternatives does catch up, like Gnutella might do, the music industry will just shift its attention to the next.
Too late, they already have. And, they pretty quickly realized just how useless that was. First, everyone they've busted has larger-than-average *purchased* CD collections (do you think any of them will ever buy another CD?) Second, they didn't put a dent in Gnutella, since it's totally de-centralized.
Saying that filters are no use because you can use a proxy is saying that law against selling licquor to minors is no use because you can have a fake ID.
There's a huge difference. When someone "discovers" a good place to buy alcohol, they don't send the address to 50 of their closest friends, who then download it in the span of 5 minutes before the authorities can notice what's going on. Information moves too fast to be tracked by humans, and it (so far) too complex to be unwoven and effectively censored by machines.
Makes me wonder what happened to the trolls who usually appear whenever any kind of censorship or monitoring is discussed. I can almost hear them saying "They own the pipes, it's theirs, no one has ANY right to complain." You'd think if they had any real integrity as trolls they'd say it now.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Sergeant Cho: What happen? ....
Wang Wei : Someone set up us the router!
Sergeant Cho: We get signal
Captain Zhao: What!
Sergeant Cho: IRC turn on.
>Welcome to Shanghai Red's EFNet
>No bots please
Captain Zhao: It's you!!
Vinton Cerf: How are you gentlemen!!
Vinton Cerf: All your communist regime are belong to us
Vinton Cerf: You are on the way to democracy
Captain Zhao: What you say?
Vinton Cerf: You have no chance to survive, me love you long time
Vinton Cerf: Ha ha ha
>Vinton Cerf has logged out (Network Split)
Sergeant Cho: Captain!!
Captain Zhao: Take off every filtering software!!
Captain Zhao: Move communist propaganda.
Captain Zhao: For great nationalism
that and "People's Liberation Army" I mean, who are they liberating??? are they "liberating" free thought from the general population or what?? It's not like they are a revolutionary army or something
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The one difference that I can see is that the cafes are privately owned, where as the libraries and schools are public. Instead of the government infringing on rights on their own things, they are infringing on rights of private businesses
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
indeed. But if every man has the right to choose to be fat, dumb and happy, will they then start to get a little hostile when people like me and you start demanding that they think for themselves. So when they start calling for academics (like Felton) to be silenced, are we supposed to stand by and be complacent? In a twisted form of logic (that probably a lot of uncomputer savy people agree with) Felton is threatening their movies and music and all the little buzzes and whistles (and clowns and jugglers) that make their lives bearable. Should we fear an unthinking mass? I think so.
How we know is more important than what we know.
so you have been to china, talked to chinese people or otherwise experienced the socialism in china for yourself? Or are you just sprouting what you have been told? Put it this way, even in a democratic republic like the USA, there are people who hate it. There are folk on the street who can tell you horror stories. Indeed theres a whole bunch of people from the late 19th century who couldn't stand capitalism any longer that they rose up in arms. All I'm asking you to do is consider the posibility that things are not as bad as they appear.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I've heard this argument before and it could not be further from the trueth. In his 1944 State of the Union address, Roosevelt said:
"We have come to the clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. `Necessitous men are not free men.` People who are hungry and out of jobs are the stuff of which dictatorships are made."
I think that sums it up.
How we know is more important than what we know.
So does anyone actually know anything about China? Personally I would rather hear from people who are informed than a bunch of anti-communist propoganda. Can anyone recommend some good books for us westerners to read to get the Chinese viewpoint? The comment about herion above reminds me of a passage in Fahrenheit 451, is this what they are talking about:
You cant build a house without nails and wood. If you dont want a house built, hide the nails and wood. If you dont want a man unhappy politically, dont give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, topheavy and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popluar songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they fell stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll fell they're thinking, they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Dont give them any slippery stuff like philosphy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy. Any man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back together again, and most men can, nowadays, is happier than any man who tries to slide-rule, measure and equate the universe, which just won't be measure or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely. I know, I've tried it; to hell with it. So bring on your clubs and parties, your acrobats and magicians, your daredevils, jet cards, motorcycle helicopters, your sex and herion, more of everythign to do with automatic reflix. If the drama is bad, if the film says nothing, if the play is hollow, sting me with the theremin, loudly. I'll think I'm responding to the play, when it's only a tactile raction to vibration. But I dont care. I just like solid entertainment."
whew, I think there is sooo much in there. Dont we love our surround sound (and our surround light) the audience is listening, but are they thinking? China, do they look at us, and see our lives converging as an unthinking mass? Do they fear that and choose to protect their socialist populous. Every post I have seen on here so far has this assumption that the chinese are not happy. That no-one could be happy under a communist regiem. Maybe they are not, but maybe that's the way they want it. Unhappy and awake vs happy but unconcious. Is China's fight against free information to protect their populous any worse than the US's fight against drugs? Or am I just trying to beat an intelligent conversation out of a crowd that isn't capable of it anymore?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Nicholas Negroponte points out in "Being Digital" that the next "gap" won't be a "Digital Gap" ... between Digital Haves and Have-Nots ... but a Generation Gap. Basically, the majority of Slashdot readers [people who have a clue] and those who don't [have a clue].
Personally, I think that all organisations must contend with the fundamental reality: that they operate not as an island, surrounded by water, but as organisations in a socio-economic context. This advocates a broader view, not just seeing "Customers" + "Suppliers" + "Sources of Capital" but also considering "Society as a Whole". So, if the Internet Cafe cottage industry faces extinction, it must do what it should have done a long time ago: OPEN COMMUNICATION with "Society as a Whole". A public forum, in real life and over http would do wonders for their public image.
On the flip side, if this cottage industry DOES go belly up, along goes the jobs it has created, the dreams it has brought. This is people's livelihoods we're talking about, so let's not forget them too.
The case in Brunei: [unclued] society has similar concerns of the Chinese government. Concern for morality: pornography & other insiduous materials. If I was them, I would feel the same too ... a potentially damaging technology is inviting my kids to do potentially stupid things.
But people like BMW still make [damn fine] cars that exceed the speed limit in my country. Nobody complains about them. Except maybe how expensive they are. Contrast this to people like Governments: who make painful things called guns [AK-47, M4A1 Carbine]. I think it's only a matter of time, until people in charge and society as a whole fully understand the potentials of the Internet. Or until the clued generation get old enough, whichever comes first.
Now, I'm not one to tell other people how to run their lives. [`cause I'm not going to listen to you telling me how to run MINE]. but parents should be the FIRST to encourage RESPONSIBILITY. I mean, mom & dad trust me with their car. And that's a real empowering experience, not to mention a *practical* one. I can go about my business without relying on other people. But I know the consequences of not living up to my responsibility results in: PENALTY and PENALISATION. [Read: prison for drunk driving]
Similarly, if it's such a problem with kids, who asked you to let them loose on the `net without sitting down with them and teaching them how to make efficient use of it? Dad sat me down, and told me of the ills that could happen, should I digress from the path. Mom scolded me, telling me of the reality drug addicts face in reprimand.
Granted, Counter Strike is a FSCKING cool game ... but after a while, any moderately intelligent kid with a life and healthy interests is gonna get bored of it ... come on, who's gonna spend a 3 hours in a row, sat in front of a PC playing CS ... ? Apart from me, and you who just put your hand up ... and you, you know who you are ch|cken.
Peace. Love. and Tux.
One difference. You can still reach those sites from a non-government computer. China wants to make it illegal to reach those sites from ANY computer.
As long as you are sponging off the government for your internet access, you have to accept their conditions.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
Information wants to be pure!
I've just finished Tom Clancy's latest work: "The Bear and the Dragon".
The story was, of course, biased toward the US and Russian characters and against the Chinese. Basically, The Chinese government was portrayed as having only a untenable understanding of international relations and American behaviour.
However, the rather poetic statements in the linked-to article do not dissuade me from discarding the novel's reality.
(No, I am not accusing Mr Clancy of not doing his homework. I also understand that this is but one article and not a good indication of the current views of the Chinese authorities.)
Lets not forget to mention the US government's content control that is just as "evil" as China's except Americans get a no-win chance at defending DeCSS, or other fair-use rights. I think the "good guys" are benefiting from merging business and government, this way the US can say it isn't government suppression its legal-mumbo jumbo.
Or how about the recent raid at Indymedia in Seattle for IP logs and a cold-war style gag order.
Echelon anyone?
The US acts just like any big government, but it can afford slightly better PR/propaganda.
The United States isn't a democracy. Just because we might democracy in patches doesn't make us a democracy. The US is a Constitutional Republic.
The ones who can save up some money to flee the country do try to get out. They often end up on the coast of California only to be sent back. I wonder why all the East Germans didn't try to flee communist oppression. Oh wait, they did and they often died trying even if it meant the parents died and the child lives (remind anyone of Elian)? Goly gee, I guess living in a country where once found guilty I'm executed within three days executioner style and then have the bullet charged to my family isn't heaven on earth.
Think about it. When was the last time you heard someone being all self righteous, saying that they want someone shut up because they are profane, obscene or nude? How many times out of 10 would this person not openly say that they are against freedom of speech, that they want what you can say to be limitted, that they cherish the thought of censorship.
They're called Democrats and Republicans. The Demopublicans to some. I live in an area where the local republicans are putting up stupid laws on certain "adult clubs" and the democrats are saying Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is too violent and is the cause of all violence.
Maybe they should move to China and see what they think of censorship. They MIGHT actually like it. Think of the people in Singapore... Don't some of their policies remind you of your mother?
The Nazi's and Soviets remind me of my mother. The Soviet used to airbrush out in photoes comrades who had "fallen" and then eliminate documents of their existence. Remind that crappy film Enemy at the Gates? What they don't tell you in that pinko film is after the war, the Soviet hero is sent to prison for 20 years for saying politically unfavorable things. Censorship is great! I like it. You say something I don't like I'll tell Big Brother and you go to a gulag for eternity.
The world is a place burgeoning with different ideas and people. Some people don't like to be around people with different ideas.
Whine whine whine. The world is also burgeoning with people like Kruschev, Pol Pot, Mao and Hitler. Nyah, lets let them continue to take away freedoms for the sake of diversity. I'm still trying to figure out who benefits because of diversity? I want quality not quantity. Try to use an ounce of logic in your reasoning.
Dissident Harry Wu on China
there is no thing
what else could you want?
There's a lot of stuff going on in China right now, a lot.
Xiagang (off of post)
Tons of people have been laid off by SOE (state owned enterprises), and don't have a viable source of income. This people are were the bulk of the current unrest is coming from (protests in small cities, usually not heard of in the western media).
Liumin (migrant workers)
Lots of people are moving from the countryside to find work in the big cities/coastal areas. They live in pretty crappy situations, and work crazy hours at construction sites or in factories.
wang ba (internet "bar"/cafe)
When I last visited (a bit more than a year ago), even relatively small cities (on the order of Portland or Omaha(?)) had a good chance of having an internet bar. Lots of college students had web access (although often just access to internal Chinese sites -- because it costs more money to access international lines). China has 1.x billion people, most are in the coutryside. Most don't use computers. Even with 15 million internet users, that's hardly more than a percent or 2. Thing will change fast, but I don't think that the average farmer is going to be surfing for a long, long time.
News sites
Voices of Chinese has China headlines from lots of newspapers both US and Chinese.
China News Digest an old volunteer run news site.
China Online mainly economic/finance news.
Inside China political news
Good book
River Town talks about a man's experiences in teaching English in rural China. Very, very insightful stuff about what the non-big city/coastal life is like.
Damn, I'll probably post more later on tonight -- I didn't get into what I think the Chinese are thinking about, etc, but I'll get to it.
Lastly: I'm really sick of china-haters on slashdot. There's a lot of problems about China, but there are really no easy solutions.
there is no thing
what else could you want?
On the first you are more optimistic than reality.
No three signatures were needed as there were no copiers for public use.
I read this in a book by Manuel Castells, perhaps I took it out of context or it was just wrong.
On the second you are more pessimistic than reality. USSR and some of its successors have a long tradition of scientific and technical knowledge. Don't forget this.
I'm well aware of their strong tradition in science, often better than the US in many areas. But that is only one step, you need engineers and businessmen to bring products to market based on what is learned in the arena of science. The USSR also had minimal links between universities and industry, so tech transfer was difficult. Here in the US that problem doesn't exist, although you might say the opposite is true (corporate interests being put first in the lab).
Yes, they are different than our "traditional Science", yes they are stucked in their regimes and traditions, yes they are now on the back train.
I still think you need a generally open society in order for new ideas to flourish and go somewhere.
I've been wondering for some time now how China plans to expand it's economy in the information age with such serious controls on information flow.
The Chinese government seems to be doing the same thing the Soviet Union did, leading up to it's demise (at least from an economic standpoint). With such controls on information (you needed three signatures in the old USSR to use a copier if I remember correctly), I'm not sure it's possible to compete in the global marketplace, at least beyond basic manufacturing. At least China didn't make the mistake of pumping all it's resources into military and heavy industries like the USSR. China does have some silicon fabs, so they do have a bit of a high tech presence.
The other tactic of stealing technology didn't really work for the USSR either. A copy is never as good as the original, and without a scientific knowledge base you'll never be able to improve on the technology you stole. This might not seem to fit in with this article, but perhaps China wouldn't have to be in the reverse engineering business quite as much as it is if they heavily funded academic institutions and allowed them to operate freely like they do in the US. Yes, I know the notion of Universities operating freely is a relative term in the US.
Does anyone have an idea how they can go beyond umbrella manufacturing with their current social setup?
I think you're right about the cycle you described. Basically the same thing that happened here in the US, during the late 19th and early 20th century.
The cost of progress was high enough here, with lives lost, opression, and all the rest, but in China, the price will be staggering. I can't even imagine the number of people that will die if opposition to their government becomes widespread at some point in time. In the US the opposition to rights of the common man was more corporate/capitalist in nature, not government based. That's an oversimplified comment, but I think it's generally true. The businesses didn't have the weapons, or a majority of them, anyway. The US government likes to keep the rabble in line, for sure, but not to the point of mass murdering the citizens, as China really wouldn't have a problem with (how the US treats citizens of other nations is a different matter, however).
In China, the government is the business, and they have the weapons. Lots of powerful, mass destruction weaponry. This clash you desribe between the government trying to open society while trying to keep it closed could lead to a wild, terrifying ride this century. If humanity shows that it is worthy of survival anytime soon, I think this proof will come out of China. I don't expect too much from our citizens living easy lives here in the first world.
Somehow I can forsee a burgeoning market for communist-themed porn
Triangle Boy is a free peer-to-peer application that bypasses firewalls and other mechanisms that attempt to block access to SafeWeb. Users who are currently blocked from directly accessing SafeWeb (or any other site) will be able to access it indirectly through any other computer running Triangle Boy.
https://triangleboy.com/
SafeWeb allows you to connect your computer to the Web through a secure, private pipe. SafeWeb encrypts all data sent and received, making it impossible for anyone to pry into your online activity. In addition, since your computer does not connect directly to any servers other than ours, no Web site you visit can obtain information about you that you do not specifically allow to pass through our SafeWeb server.
Yeah, yeah, it sounds like marketing stuff, but it's all I could find to cut-and-paste.
Its not as if "Man Power" is a difficult thing to come by in China..
This is a country that can AFFORD to employ threehundred thousand people to sit a PC all day and jot down non-china sites..
Scary ay...
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
The chinese want to build their own culture. They don't mind a bit to learn from us - they are in fact desperate to do so. But they want to do it on their own terms.
On the mainland, you have a group of old men that basically run the government, and they aren't the most forward thinking. But even they can see that they need to open up to avoid the fate of the Soviets. They just really want to make sure no one admits how bad they screwed up till after they die, essentially. Saving face.
Anyhow, they're dying off. The PRC is becoming more free every day. There is definately a correlation between economic development and interest in liberty. At a certain level of poverty, one spends most of ones energy on necessities, and hardly have time to worry about politics. When you are better off, and have things like free time and the internet... China may well be more free than we are in 20 years.
If they don't get bombed back into the stone age first...
"That old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Thank you for the nice list of public proxy servers. Their IP's will now be banned.
Sincerely,
The Chinese Government
There's not much difference...
---
Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
What type of filters would they use for the internet cafe's?
Normal filters would have to be updated extremely often with the list of blocked site, since it is so easy to create one. Or would they use reverse logic and give a list of allowed sites, with the person having to petition for each specific site. This would destroy any real use of internet.
It's EXTREMELY different as schools and libraries are paid for by the government, they regulate them. Internet cafes are not owned by the government. I would say it is more akin to new yuck state telling restaurants that they can't allow smoking unless they build an air-tight room for it (bars too I believe). And anyway, if the US did it it would be equally as wrong, and believe me, the people of slashdot would me angry.
He who knows not, and knows he knows not is a wise man
b0r1s, your link doesn't seem to work. I can't find the article by from searching the site either.
The People's Republic of China has their ways and we may disagree with them but does the rice farmer really care about free speach? Isn't he/she completely happy in their own little world?
Chinease government folks know that if their people start longing for more and more of western culture their country will end in ruin... think about 2 billion people and the energy and other resources they would need to have half of the toys you do.
One side of me says, "stop projecting western values on the rest of the world." The other side would like to see a true global economy with truly open economies and world government... not in my lifetime...
puff-puff-give...
illenium.net - ultimate sk8 shop online
Carnivore
...etc...
Filters/censorware for libraries, schools, and Universities
DMCA
CDA
before we start laughing at Chinese check all the information purifiers in United States and especially in UK. Remember that 1984 wasn't just a satire on Communism. It was rather accurate prediction to where the whole world is going, including so-called 'western democracies'.
Would any (presuming this information has not yet been 'purified') care to comment?
--
...or am I missing something?
An internet example would be Malaysia, when some idiot office worker sent out an email saying there would be a riot. Thousands of forwards ensued and next thing you knew, half the office workers stayed home fearing the riot. How many millions of dollars of productivity was lost that day? If this can happen in M'sia (highly educated,97%+ literate, etc,) can it not happen elsewhere?
Agreed.
Except that you can blame the government for sowing the seeds of distrust in the minds of the population by feeding them filtered news. The irony is that the population is smart enough to see through the crap spewed out by the government, but not smart enough to see through the crap spewed out by the Internet.
Oh well. Rant over. Back to work.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Slashdot should be the first on the list for the Information Purification Filters.
Otherwise, billions of Chinese children will grow up thinking that phrases like "hotting up" are standard English.
Then when they finally invade America, we will all be forced to communicate in a language that sounds like the characters from Zero Wing.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
The PLA was formed back in the heyday when China was divided into separate "spheres of influence" by Europe, Japan, and the U.S. The "people's" refers to the Chinese, the "liberation" refers to the liberation of China from imperial forces, and you know what army stands for (if you don't, then you're really stupid.
As an atheist, the only faith I have is in mankind. Correction, had faith.
Tiananmen Square demonstrated the ruthlessness of the Chinese government. They demonstrated that absolute control over their citizens was more important than economic considerations (of course, we in the West did nothing to hold them accountable for their actions, but they must have at least known what they were risking).
Yes, China does need modern technology to survive and grow, and yes, modern technology means the Internet. They're going to do all they can to have their cake and eat it, too, but when the chips are down and they feel they have to make a choice... well, they've already demonstrated exactly where their position lies.
I, for one, would put nothing past them. Arrest and/or execute enough people and you can pretty much get away with anything. Combine police-state tactics against ISPs and Internet Cafes with heavy technological monitoring, and you can sew the place up pretty tightly...
(email addr is at acm, not mca)
We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
(email addr is at acm, not mca)
We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
--The Sphinx
On the other hand, it has brought down an entire country's financial system. (East European, forgot name.)
That country is Albania. The government and general citizenry invested heavily in pyramid schemes in the early 90's after the fall of communism. The pyramid schemes went belly-up around 96, and a general rebellion started in the north and spread south to the capital, Tirana. The old government was ousted and a new one put in place. They have not been in the headlines too much lately.
-----------------
I wonder how accurate the translation to "information purification" actually is. We can assume that the original article wasn't written in English and thus had to be translated at some point. It's very easy for a translator working for a news agency to soup up the story by translating something to make it seem much more odious that it truly is. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with what China intends to do, but the words "information purification" seem like they're a bit too contrived and Western/anti-communistic to me. I'd guess that the true meaning of what was written was closer to "regulation" which clearly has a less 1984ish ring to it. What are everyone else's thoughts?
"People's Republic of China"...is it just me, or does that name strike anyone else as a severe oxymoron? (Sort of like "Microsoft Works"... *THWACK* okay, I'll shut up now...)
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
That was my first response, years ago, when the WTO was first becoming the "Vietnam of our Generation". That there was no way to keep the world broken into provinces, so why try?
Well, the fact of the matter is that the WTO wants to brake down national borders, but only in certain ways for certain people.
I am perhaps more ignorant on this subject then I should be, but I have been told that (for example) the WTO is trying to make a law that makes it easier for business executives to cross national borders for business purposes, but it doesn't give that same protection to journalists, or political activists\observers. Now of course it could be argued that one is for business purposes and one is political, but realistically, some of those business executives are going to be spreading political influence, either directly or indirectly. So basically what the WTO is doing in this example is opening borders for some but not for others.
I don't buy the whole thing about the WTO being a human rights\free speech treaty. If people wanted a treaty to ensure human rights or free speech, why not just write a treaty ensuring those things instead of a treaty allowing corporations and goverments to sue other governments over health and safety laws? Because no one is going to sign the human rights treaty that hasn't already.
If we want a treaty that sets standards for fair exchange of information, money and people across borders, lets all get together and write that treaty, not let a few corporations and other 31337 people get together in secret and decide what these standards will be.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Two points:
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Oh, c'mon. Does the obvious need to be stated? Of course, they are concerned with people finding the truth on a some serious issue more then with kids accessing porn. Or rather, they are afraid, some youngster might find, there *are* points of view other then the right one, as hold by the regime. And they cannot state their intentions clearly. That could defeat the purpose. -m-
I would like to die like my grandfather did - sleeping. And not screaming in terror, like his passengers.
The above author apparently thinks a certain amount of repression is acceptable for societies not as advanced as the Western ones. I would assume that the average Chinese person is capable of not falling prey to low level scams and tricks. Or possibly as the parent suggests maybe they need to go some sort of third world progression to understand things on a first world scale. Yeah it's a flame! I haven't seen such shocking arrogance justifying oppression ever!!
I wonder if any non-/. readers will notice how much this sounds like the rhetoric that the pro-censorship crowd uses to get people in this country to support legislation that would attempt to censor the internet. Compare it to W.'s "hearts going dark" quote from the presidential debates.
Why is it that when China tries to control free speech, we can see it as oppression and tyranny, but when our leaders try to do the same exact thing we applaud them for trying to be moral, clean up smut, and save the children?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
At last take the population of people between 15-64 is about 853,191,410 so 15% makes about 127,978,712 people. Accounting for the capital city bit and large age spread in those numbers, I'll divide by a third to 42,232,975. [source]
That's A LOT of page impressions!
note to self: must learn Chinese and make some Chinese p0rn sites
*** I am the real stylewagon
Then again, if we were actually to talk about how to get things done, the most probable course of action would be to go through a relevant international body, as the Chinese government wouldn't give a damn about what you said they were doing.
So, let's assume we try to work with the UN to get something accomplished. Let's say we go through the UN Commision on Science and Technology. In the United Nations, and, in fact, all international multi-lateral bodies, there is a thing called National Sovreignty. The gist of it is that, because each of these International Bodies is voluntary, each country reserves the right to do whatever it wants. Usually, it is in the country's best interest to go along with the international body. However, if China does not want to accept our terms and allow Chinese citizens to access the internet, they certainly don't have to. The UN Commission on SciTech has no power to violate national sovreignty and enforce it's new regulations for China. Sorry to crush any idealistic hopes, but that's pretty much how it all works...
(By the way, Model UN was invaluable in the preparation of this topic)
"Proper censorship" usually does do a great job in blocking just about every legit site you want to go to.
The other day, I was trying to find a nice console based mail program to use at school (don't ask why I didn't just use sendmail). I fired up netscape, and headed over to freshmeat.net
At the time, I was in the computer systems lab, our fairly nice all-Linux lab full of dual celerons. Until recently, we had enjoyed unrestricted access while the rest of the (windows-driven) school network had to be filtered. However, the administration got to our dedicated line as well, and before you know it, I couldn't access freshmeat.net
Yes, the name is not really condusive to being a software site, but it's just merely another example of good sites being blocked by bad censorware.
I seriously think that Chinese governmental "information purification" wouldn't really have a great effect. Chinese citizens could just use public proxy servers or a host of other tools to circumvent any attempt the chinese government were to make.
Perhaps the only real step the Chinese government could take would be to "purify" the cafés in earnest, or, in other words, get rid of them completely.
Is there anyone out there who's aware of how the Chinese net infrastructure works? i.e. Do all "ISPs" in China hang off of one common backbone that goes through Chinese government routers? If so it seems like it'd be very simple to control the content (albeit thinking of the bandwidth used by 1.2 billion people...that would be pretty extravagant). Who peers with the Chinese connections?
"Well, enough of a rant for now. Who wants to start bombing Bejing with old 386s.... anyone?"
Yes, and don't forget to drop the Freenet setup diskettes with them...
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
As someone who would describe myself as a socialist I have to say that actions such as this sadden me. I do not disagree that there is much pro-captialist propaganda and even out-right lies that are spread by the Western media. But the best possible way to fight this is by putting across a counter-argument. Did not the writings of Marx constantly draw on the writings of capitalist writers (Adam Smith for example)?
By stopping the Chinese people from reading Western propoganda, no matter how ridiculous ('We didn't mean to bomb the Chinese embassy, it was an accident!'), you serve only to lend these stories credibility. After all, the argument goes, if the stories are untrue, why should the government be so afraid of them?
If China is to become the utopia that Marx wrote of, heavy-handed tactics like this must be abandoned. The key to winning the minds of the general public lies within education, and I would urge the Chinese government to use their efforts instead in improving the Chinese education system. If you truly belive in international soclialism you will see that there is nothing to fear from opposing arguments.
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Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
And even beyond that, it's sad how the Chinese government has copied the rationale of the US government about "protecting children from porn" when it comes to installing censorware... Maybe their leaders have more in common than they think...
Since this is by far the most fantastically stupid thing I've heard or read all day (and believe me -- I hear a lot of really stupid shit), I feel obliged to comment multiple times on it.
Response #1
Whoever you are going to ask probably does not spend all day in their office hanging out on IRC, or worse yet AIM. In fact, IRC and AIM are hardly what I (or many others) would consider educational resources and are probably blocked because if you're using them, it probably means you're fucking around (regardless of whether or not you're talking to pedophiles or your friends) when someone else could actually be doing research.
Response #2
Ever hear of E-mail? If you're going to get in contact with professor, either this or taking a class taught by him is the way to do it (though certainly in my experience neither is a sure bet:)). In fact, short of calling a professor at home, E-mail is probably the best way to contact him and certainly will annoy him the least. They most certainly are not all hanging out in some IRC channel or AIM room. That is simply ridiculous.
Everthing2 has some nasty shit on it. There are a lot of unbelievably uninhibited and irresponsible individuals with some very militantly conservative parents (connection?) in high school in America today, the thoughts of that combined with the liability of unrestricted access probably gives some administrators nightmares -- it's not their fault they're idiots who can't come up with a better solution and don't want to lose their jobs. (Frankly, a better solution would be no internet access, as it's pretty worthless, but that's not the "in" thing. "Internet" = "education" is the in thing, unfortunately coexisting with "internet" = "porn" and "porn" = "bad". But hey, that's life.)
....the chinese government is now installing survailence equipment to intercept communications and traffic originating from all internet cafes in the greater beijing area.
when questioned about the ability of the chinese government to do this, a US military spokesman said "well, it is very easy for them to do this - provided they have the right equipment - it would require equipment similar to what we have been using in our spy aircraft to intercept communications of foreign governments for some years now."
They really should have known that sending one dollar to each of the countries on the list wouldn't make them a profit. Hell, there are only a few hundred countries, so how much could they have possibly made anyway?
Wait, how did this quote from Congress get in this story? I thought this was about China, not Washington?
________________
________________
Private Essayist
Saudi Arabia is trying to filter out porn and anything else the government deems offensive (like criticism of the royal family), as detailed in this New York Times story (free registration required). They're having as little luck as China is going to.
Somehow i'm not buying that the Chinese government is really concerned with kids playing casino games and more concerned that they may become educated by non-government censored new sources. I know all governments sugar-coat their actions, but it'd be nice if they were honest when it's so obvious what they really mean.
I'll take the bait, I guess...
How is this different than the US government mandating that "censorware" be used in all schools and libraries? For many kids, these are the only places that they can access the Internet. In China, they're taking it only one "small" step beyond that (in this particular instance, anyways) by putting censorware in place for other "public" venues such as Internet Cafe's.
Now, seeing as these are similar issues, what's your view on schools and libraries right here at home? Personally, I'm dead-set against it... censorware is too susceptible to the personal biases of whoever sets up the "forbidden" databases. With there being thousands upon thousands of "banned" sites, who says that a few "good" sites don't get banned at the same time? I'd rather invest the money and time teaching values to our kids so that they don't get sucked in by the porn and crap you find on the 'net.
I don't know what censorware China is using, but I'm sure there's stuff other than porn being blocked (cnn.com maybe? Slashdot? Other "western" news sources?), but even companies here have a horrible track record of providing "proper" censorship (if there is such a thing). Many of them also block competitor's sites, and sites of those that oppose censorware. To me it's like the death penalty: is it worth the risk of possibly executing a single "innocent" man? To me: nope.
Just blathering, MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
If China firewalls itself off from the rest of the world, it will be repeating a serious mistake. They've been through this before; closing their borders to foreigners bit them in the ass later when the rest of the world passed them by, technologically ans socially.
All forms of media, news, and entertainment (in China) are controlled by the Gov't of China, or subject to Chinese Gov't Censors. That way they have a good power base from which to control thier people. They only let them know what they want them to know, that way it makes it easier to lead them.
I'm not trying to down on the Chinese as a people, just the Gov't. If you are never given the chance to learn about something, how do you even know it exists. Also, it promotes isolationism and fear of other cultures. Both are propaigated by the Chinese Gov't
Know with the advent of these cyber-cafes, the Chinese Gov't stands to lose control of the flow Information to thier young people. I think this has alot less to do with Porn, and more to do with subversion. I think the Chinese Gov't is afraid that if there people find out just how jacked up thier political system is over there, they might have a revolt on thier hands.
That is why it is so important to fight for our freedoms in this country (USA), and everywhere else to for that matter. Even if those freedoms seem insignificant at the time, everyone we lose is one less that our grandchildren may have. If we don't fight for what we have here, one day all of our information will be coming from one source, who filters out the 'bad' stuff so we arnt allowed to make our own decisions. This already to some degree here.
RA7
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"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
Chaucer Wells
http://www.justonevoice.net
You might want to check on my article on why Proxy Servers are not useful against content regulation.
Lok's policy: "When in doubt, do the right thing."
you mean those powers that Napster gave us, and those same powers the music industry would have no chance in controlling? last time i heard, they are putting layers and layers on the original Napster to control it and doing a pretty good job at that.
i think you have no idea what you are talking about.
cheers, lok
Lok's policy: "When in doubt, do the right thing."
The chinese government certainly is not the only government practising Censorship. Almost every other wired country does, they only don't call it censorship but call it 'regulation' instead.
Tell me, what is the difference between the chinese government installing a filter in the internet cafes 'to protect kids' and the u.s. government installing filters in the libraries 'to protect children'.??
Lok's policy: "When in doubt, do the right thing."
And do tell....who owns the government? Whos money is used for the government to put filtering onto the schools and libraries?
Just because it's owned by everyone instead of one person doesn't make it any less wrong.
Making knowledge forbidden just makes it more attractive.
Making people fully informed and aware of such 'forbidden' things (and consequences thereof) would do wonders. Graphics depictions of the consequences of drink driving seems to have worked.
Why not let the kids watch porn in controlled situations so that the teacher is there to explain why the situations depicted therein are unrealistic, demeaning to the people taking part, and ultimately boring and repetitive.
Per that article, the Chinese government has two overriding needs: to keep their tight control over China and to embrace the Internet for economic gain. IMHO, these goals are mutually exclusive.
I was in China two years ago, and I can certainly see the Chinese government taking this stance. They have done a similar thing in regards to capitalism (which is plainly against communist ideals). Allowing people to run businesses which are independent from the government reduces their power and revenue, but is necessary for China to have a competitive economy. The Chinese government allow it (in many cases openly), but every few years they have a "crackdown" where they try to regain lost control.
My point is, it is entirely possible that China will do the same sort of thing with Internet usage. They will "regulate" it in a haphazard manner, and then when they see it posing a threat to their power, they stage a crackdown on people who run Internet cafes and don't filter sites properly. In any case, it may hasten the downfall of the government, but situations like this have existed in China for some time now (i.e. allowing private businesses and allowing tourists in).
In any case, most people in China don't seem to know or care about opinions outside of China. The government has indoctrinated them to believe that all the evils in this world originate from western society, and that China is working hard to do the best for its people. Example: the Chinese tour guides thought that westerners all knew about Tianamen Square because it was the largest square in Beijing.
Censorship is nothing new to the Chinese government. As for what we can do? Little. It is because of the Chinese government's willingness to go to extreme measures, even deadly force, to keep social disidents in line that mainland China is still the PRC.
Information may want to be free, but so do several hundred million chinese. Since they several hundred million don't seem to have a chance in hell I wouldn't bet on the information as of yet.
This has been another useless post from....
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
I belive the Chinese will blame all moral and social corruption of its young on the west. This will only exacerbate the deep distrust that the two already have of each other. This is especially disturbing when you consider that both the Chinese and the west have nuclear weapons and are continuing to arm themselves to the teeth.
Not that censership is bad, it is just
[content removed for purification]
[content removed for purification]
[content removed for purification]
Well, enough said about that. I guess I should go and finish taking my medications before I wind up naked in the park fountain again.
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"Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
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"Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
for they are subtle and quick to anger."
When will countries finally realize that hiding information only makes people want to find it more? Of course, if they were absolutely positive that their citizens were happy they would have nothing to fear. I think this just shows that they know they are giving their citizens the shaft -- and they want to hide it as long as possible.
Well, enough of a rant for now. Who wants to start bombing Bejing with old 386s.... anyone?
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"Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
---
"Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins,
for they are subtle and quick to anger."
I'd suggest that perhaps the boat-loads of immigrants who arrive by the thousands each year in Canada and the USA, after putting up with horrendous conditions during their journey, and spending every last dime they had to do it, would point out the basic flaw in your thinking. Many of these people come from China.
And yes, that young gentleman in Tianneman(sp) square was ever so thrilled to meet the nice Army tank driver, because deep down he just KNEW that the pro-democracy movement was wrong.
Honestly though, the rest of your comments make sense to a degree, but never forget: you'll never know if a man disagrees with something unless he's allowed to tell you. And in China's case, that's often not possible.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
This article on a number of levels troubles me. One, the Beijing Review, as alluded to earlier by mgarraha is not a "Review" by any means. It is magazine only published, to my knowledge, in English for foreign consumption and is little more than a propaganda rag for the Communist Party. The articles in it are the English equivalent to The People's Daily on the mainland, which is the generally regarded as good for reading what the Party's stance is, and for using, not reading in the loo. Lead article currently, how China's students are practicing democracy in their classrooms.
Secondly, why is the BBC using this as a "legitimate" source of news? What's next, taking an IRA newspaper and use it to show a changing cultural historical perspective on a free Ireland?
The responses in this thread all state that a lot of Chinese are desparate to leave.
This is a fact.
The real question is, however, whether they are fleeing from oppression or whether they want a materialistically better life.
I submit to you that it's the latter.
I realise you're trolling, but even trolls usually keep their facts straight. Likely, you're kidding, but maybe you aren't aware that the United States was in military alliance with China throughout WW2. China's defence was for all intents and purposes, under American command and control and vast quantities of supplies, vehicles and armaments were transferred there (first, for the fight against the Japanese and, subsequent to the war, for the fight against the Communists).
So my question is, by responding to you, am I advancing the irony by responding to a troll once again?
Chinese kids did not suddenly wake up one day and wonder if there was a thing called "the Internet"...it was handled to them on a silver platter by we Capitalistic Pigs (TM). Good for us.
Without starting a brou-ha-ha on "Worldwide Governments", let us consider the benefits of open markets: Open Ideas. China cannot enter the mainstream and continually shut their own people out of it.
I've lived in certain Asian third-world, communist societies and was pleased at how many openly thumb their noses at the system. It's in the little things -- like negotiating state-controlled currency for USD or sneaking into "clubs" where people get a chance to explore ideas and exchange information with foreigners. The down side: when Brother Mao wants you back in line, you'd better move fast.
The more we work with the people of China, the more the people will work on their government. Overall, US factories in Asia provide a significant influx of democratic principles -- we only hear about the abuse of some companies. We don't hear about the effects one man I know has had on a small city in Asia that is learning about progression through hard work (what we call raises and bonuses).
Next come the unions, then comes the crackdowns. It's a sad cycle, but each time it happens the government loses a little more.
Oh, and don't sweat the kids working in factories. It may appall you (as it did me), but it's all they got until things change. Large economics require them to work; productive people want to do better for themselves and their families. These are the same kids who grow up to build Internet Cafes.
In the end each of their labors adds to a collective conscience that wants better. The governments would do better keeping them on the farms and teaching them "Remedial Mao" than grouping them together and letting them think aloud.
tools to circumvent any attempt the chinese government were to make
Its a public place, I'm sure any monkey business like this would be really easy to conceal. I don't think people will trade 'free news' for 'being shot', personally. Misusing public computer services is probably as punishable as any other hacker/cracker act.
We have similar problems of our own in this country called the united states of america. Yesterday I was at the library and when I tried to get to www.everything2.com, it was blocked by their censorship program. Yay. At the public school I attend we are not allowed to use chatrooms on the internet. If I have a question and search engines(and not to mention my teachers) aren't answering it for me, I am not allowed to ask the professors around the world that the internet is supposed to give me access to, for fear of pedaphiles raping me or some bullshit. Thanks america.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
In between the spin of the spy plane incident and the weekly condemnation of Falun Gong, I found a Beijing Review editorial, followed by 1 opinion for and 3 against banning the cafes altogether. For those already baffled by the front page, it's under "Free Forum" in the top navigation bar.
It's true they have a lot of people they can hire, but that also means they have a lot of people they have to watch. A double-edged sword, if you will.
"This is a country that can AFFORD to employ threehundred thousand people to sit a PC all day and jot down non-china sites.."
Google says there are about 1.3 billion web sites out there. Even if the average time it takes to read those sites and scan for verboten material is only one minute, it will still take those 300,000 about 7 10-hour shifts to do a complete scan of the web, assuming that no pages change during that time. If, for example, the Free Nepal people figure out their weekly cycle, they can mirror the People's Daily six days of the week, post the good word from the Dalai Lama every Sunday, and still have only a 1 in 7 chance of ever being caught. And, if they are, they change IPs and do it again.
Also, 300,000 is only a drop in the bucket of their population, leaving 1.1997 billion people left to watch, to make sure they're not circumventing filters. That's 3,999 people to watch per employee. If they work 10-hour shifts, they can only devote 9 seconds to each censoree per day. Even if they had super-advanced AI to help them out, I don't see it working.
And besides, their per capita GDP is still only about $3800 US, about 1/10 of ours. Those 300,000 jobs means more deaths due to starvation out in the western provinces. Dead people tend to have pissed off families.
They're chasing their own tail by trying to implement censorship in general. They'll need to employ half their population to keep tabs on what the other half is reading.
Besides, there's also the whole "forbidden fruit" school of thought...
What makes me incredibly outraged is that everytime China perpetrates these violations of individual rights, we mull over each one, purporting its good and bad sides. No one ever has the balls to say "Wait a minute, never mind if internet censorship is good or bad. that's not the issue. the issue is : Does the Chinese gov't, or any gov't, have the right to limit human freedom, regardless of it's results?"
the answer is no. Governments, at least ones of a just nature, are there not to control, but to protect. That we will continue to argue over an extreme number of issues like this from China, because a basic premise has been accepted: That the chinese people are a means to an end, namely the government's end. Only when China is released from the stranglehold of communism, will we never see these articles again.
When and if the Chinese people do rise up amd say, "Wait a minute, I am a person, not a tool of the state", it will be bloody, I guaruntee it. but rarely are there peaceful ways out of years and years of repression. And us at slashdot sanction every action by giving it fair debate, as if slavery (to the state) deserves any fair debate. It doesn't. It's the first thing that has to go if debate is possible. Otherwise the government can simply outlaw the ideas of a certain debate.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
With the opening (for a brief period, actually, hardliners slammed the vaults shut in the last few years) of the records in the former Soviet Union, what was found is that those 'darn Communists' were just as nasty as the worst 'red baiters' suspected.
We do live in relative freedom in the West. No amount of sneering from an intellectual elite that still has a fondness for 'dictatorship by an intellectual minority' (basically what happened in the USSR) can cover up the history of the past century of Communism.
What the fuck do you know about communism ?
Tell me, please .
Let me tell you, having spent 20 years of my life inside one of these "people's republic" I can assure you that the media here in the West reports only a fraction of all this shit that was going on here.
It was ( and in some cases still is ) much worse than you think.
The only way liberals win national elections is by pretending they're not liberals.
Per that article, the Chinese government has two overriding needs: to keep their tight control over China and to embrace the Internet for economic gain. IMHO, these goals are mutually exclusive.
Sometimes, you can walk a fine line between two opposing needs. There is a happy medium where each need is satisfied. I believe that there is an "unhappy medium" where neither need is satisfied, and the government is actually at risk of losing the Internet opportunity as well as their own control over their people.
The Internet is not about technology. It's been around since the sixties, and the Web could have been invented in the seventies. The Web is about community; the technology only gives us an opportunity to meet, and that's where the magic starts. Strict control over a portion of the Internet immediately renders that portion useless.
I think that the only chance for the Chinese government to survive in its present form (and, frankly, I'd rather it didn't) would be for it to close off the Internet entirely to its people, and to ignore it as an economic opportunity. I feel that anything less would destablize the Chinese government. The nation would not collapse, China would still exist, but it would have a new form of government.
If the Chinese government allows access but try to control it, they will destroy their own power structure and lose an economic opportunity simultaneously.
Sure sounds familiar...
Oh, wait, that's what they talk about _HERE_ in the good ol' USA, where they want to install filters on all computers in schools and libraries to protect the children from the Internet. Terrible sites abound, like porn, violence, growing up gay, etc. Can't have _American_ children seeing that.
I know, I know... you're saying "It's okay, we're the _good_ guys!"
It seems to me that China's just trying to propagandize the public into a position where the gov't could, if ever it feels it's necessary for political reasons, shut down the cafes, blaming it on the "poison of pornography."
Otherwise, some simple porn filters in public internet cafes is really nothing to get all up in arms about; The real censorship on the internet in China comes through the main Chinanet portals through which the vast majority of Chinese users access the internet, and this censorship has been going on for several years.
Having lived in China: Yes, China does have a huge black market; however, the people involved are generally very mobile (selling things out of suitcases) as they are constantly searched out by the police. Black market internet cafes don't exactly have that mobility on their side.
Captain Zhao: < Sir, is it perhaps the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee? >
Sergeant Cho:< Wait a second... that isn't coffee! That's the smell of freedom! >
Captain Zhao:< You hear him, men! Get the cattle prods! Go! Go! Go! >
Kathleen
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Graphic designer and Mac lover.
Kathleen
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Graphic designer and Mac lover.
Yes.
Goverments everywhere and always have looked for
excuses to limit communication and dissemination
of information.
The "Federalist Papers" were printed and distributed
clandestinely! Why do you think the 1st Amendment to
the US Constitution is so important.
And has everyone here forgotten the abortive
"Communications Decency Act"?
Perhaps the Chinese Government is just a bit perplexed there may be a people's revolt away from the commonly consumed Chinese Tea to a Coffee variant? If worst came to worst, China would of course take the approach of meticulously filtering content as required. Here in Australia, we would probably just go, stuff it, there is too much stuff to filter, lets presume most of it is bad, and we'll pull the plug.