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Chinese Internet Censorship Proves Difficult
An anonymous reader writes "BBC reports that despite incredible efforts by the Chinese government, online dissent and distribution of censored information continues and even influences government policies."
It is true, to a certain extent, but the use of strategic "choke points" on the network infrastructure can put a serious dent in the ideal...
It's only really true when you have high connectivity across all nodes - even in the US/Europe this is rarely significantly true...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Does anybody know how much involvement the Chinese Government has with Red Flag? It seems to me that the principles of open source software sit uneasily with censorship.
well the best thing you could do is to not buy items made in china... of course thats just a good idea anyways
Yeah, don't buy their products, deny them benefits of global trade, nothing like condemning a nation to poverty and sustaining a disceptive self-sustaining government (rather than rewarding the transition China is in).
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FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
I think it would be interesting to employ some form moderation system that is currently in use on /.
The citizens could vote on which sites are offensive and the appropriate sites would be blocked.
Although a conflict of opinion would surely surface as it seems to be already
But this would essentially take control of the internet out of the hands of the government and put it in the hands of the citizens which is an oxymoron for communism.
Those who trade in their freedom for security, deserve neither.
If it becomes increasingly hard to block "objectionable" messages, (which by the way the Cubans have effectively done - Cuban Government Toughens Internet Restrictions) would it come to a stage the Authoritarian Governments try to drown the messages.
The Govt could itself start sending out so much propoganda messages that they will drown the "rebel" messages, and most people will be unable to develop personalized filters to get to the "rebel" information. (A conspi-racist may think that the real purpose of the CAN-SPAM legilation was to pre-emptively acquire these capabilities.)
After all, if this is supposed to be the attention economy, all the govt has to do to prevent mischief is to keep your attention - almost like in Clockwork Orange. Does it really matter if the attention is directed to something worthwhile, or towards just delusion and deception - I mean from the Governments point-of-view.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
Depends. Is your name Andrew Gilligan?
Interesting read on the Chinese Revolution, The Soong Dynasty, but Sterling Seagrave. Paints a pretty hideous picture of Chiang kai-Shek. I'm half-way through it, but I'm getting an understanding of why China closed itself off from the world, screwed even by Stalin, and cautiously invites in the international community 50 years later. The PRC seems oppressive, but China has always been repressed. Doesn't make censorship right, but it's worth understanding how far back the memory goes to the great humiliations. A bit insightful the writings of Ching-ling Soong (Madam Sun yat-Sen) on revolution and how it's inevitable. Seems the current regime is trying to hold back another revolution, which is futile.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
They're a Fascist Dictatorship with Communist Rhetoric. Communism makes for great posters and propaganda when you're nearly starving and working 16 hrs/day. But given that people at large in China seem to have very little say in how "their" resources are spent (if they did, would they allow sweat shops to exist?), I don't see how you can call them Communist.
That said, I don't think Communism is a viable system. You can never get past that whole "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" thing. China didn't, Russia didn't and neither did Cuba. I'm a Socialist myself. Violent or at least forceful revolutions like Communism is usually associated with almost always end with a brutal, Fascist government. I better solution is for the poor and disenfranchised to control their population so that the value of their labor increases (kinda like what happened with the Black Plague but minus the Plague). As funny as it sounds, I think birth control is the best hope for mankind. Now if we can only get those pesky religious and cultural factors to go away so the poor will use it...
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No, wait...
And the brethren went away edified.
communism was a big flop.
Have you visited a monastary or a state sponsored public school lately?
Communism is alive and well and living amongst us.
You'll find very little Marxism though, as Marxism is an industrial theory, not a social one.
KFG
screw up some people's lives by taking nude pictures of themselves with a webcam in the privacy of their own bedroom, and then emailing said pictures to people they don't like and reporting the recipients to the police. Pretty f'ing scary scenerio if you ask me.
You don't need to go that far. Baseless allegations, if properly worded, can cause a serious detriment to a person's life and leave the accusing party completely off the hook. All you have to do is send a nice letter to the FBI saying such and such person MAY have been viewing and/or sharing child pornography or they said something that LEADS YOU TO BELIEVE that they MAY be involved with it in some way.
No evidence necessary, and 9 times out of 10 a search warrant will be issued due entirely to the nature of the allegations, no matter how baseless they are. Then, the cops'll come down on you even harder for your "suspicious" activity of demanding they show some justification for searching / siezing property.
Got an axe to grind? I'm almost willing to guarantee that scenario would work well for you. If you're REALLY careful, a few covert "leaks" about the bogus investigation to friends, family, and co-workers could leave a totally innocent person premanently labeled without a shred of evidence.
Welcome to the American Justice system, where hearsay and public opinion court more power than most people would ever dare dream. We hope you have a nice stay.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Not to be too harsh since your heart seems to be in the right place but.....
I think here GTE has helped free speech in China more than you have. A fiber system in and out of China which the government tries to censor is *far* better than no system at all. One reason that China is finding much harder to censor the internet than Cuba or North Korea is that there is so much traffic going back and forth that its impossible to monitor it all. Putting in fiber helps increase internet usage and makes it much harder for the government to censor it.
Something to keep in mind is that on the same weekend that Tiananmen happened, the Burmese government also shot a whole bunch of students. No one remembers or even knows about it, because there weren't a million television cameras in Burma that weekend.