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China Tightens Rules For Educational BBSs
An anonymous reader writes "China is tightening control over online BBS run by colleges and universities. Educational institutions in China have received direct orders from the Chinese Ministry of Education requiring their BBSs to take actions including access limitation and registering users by their real identities, as well as strict content censorship. The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed."
This cannot come as a shock to any one who even casually follow the Chineese record on free speach.
But the thing that gets me, when I talk to some people from the PRC, is how strongly many believe it isn't oppressive, it's good for the whole of the country and then they have the temerity to point out all the crap the Bush family, the CIA and the State Dept have done over the years.
Each side of the argument is so familiar with the transgressions of the other and willing to turn a blind eye to their own.
Whatchagonnado?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
How can you possibly control the actions of billions of people? It just seems all so silly and 20th-century.
With the net on everything from watches to cell phones and jackets, and the myriad of procols available (especially with tunneling) it just seems like closing the door after the horses got out.
while you make a good point, what makes you think they were "merely" dismissed.
Dismissed is a fairly broad word in a PR sense.
What puzzles me, is what makes them think they had anything to gain by refusal. There are so many subtler forms of 'mutiny' when in a position of limited power.
Regardless power to them for standing up for what they believe in.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
The Communist Party should be glad that there are still people who care about politics, even if they have "wrong" ideas. Unlike many of their fellow citizens and party members, who only care about getting rich.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Just have 500,000,000 of them watch the other 500,000,000 of them. (And vice versa).
Done and done.
I'm a big tall mofo.
The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed.
Now THAT is bravery!
China is a country that will incarcerate your for not thinking what you're supposed to. China is a country that will put a bullet in the back of your head and sell your organs to the highest bidder. These people should be revered. They have true bravery.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
What will life be like with China as a superpower? Or how about a hyperpower? The Anglo axis of US/UK/Australia is certainly not perfect, but when weighed against China....seems to be pretty good.
to become an economic powerhouse (well it is one now), it has a lot of growing pains to face in this century. no doubt they are going to become a superpower, but they have a lot of issues that are going to hold them back. once the people start to get some freedoms, it is going to be hard to stop them from wanting them all.
right now they are benifiting from cheap labor, what is going to happen when the people decide they want more for what they do? add on the social issues as well and they are in for turbulent times before they are a viable threat to america.
The difference is that China's currently bad, but slowly getting better, while the USA is currently good (at least relative to China) but getting worse.
Personally, I'm just glad I don't live in either country.
really is there a difference?
in the end, nothing gets done.
in the US, Voters are morons and/or kool-aid drinkers and vote what they are told to vote.
in china you just can't vote.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Uhm, this is way different. China is enforcing these policies so they can have control over the DISCUSSION content. They also want to know who exactly is authoring content that China would deem 'radical' and dissentful, so they can lock them up in jail. You don't want to be in a Chinese jail.
Your public high school, on the other hand: It is a school funded by public money. They are just censoring you from reading certain distracting material on the internet. They cannot enforce their policies off school grounds. While you are at school, you are on THEIR time. In China, the government would track you down where ever you are. You could post on a school BBS or a public BBS that is not affiliated with a university. They WILL find you. You are actually required by law to register with the local police that you are going to have internet service, before you register with an ISP. They also monitor all traffic in the country, and if they think you are doing something, it's jail for you. A fair trial? Nope. Especially for posting political content. Universities are hotbeds for this kind of stuff. Political prisoners are promised trials, but instead are detained in deplorable conditions, and have their trials constantly delayed and pushed back, until the accused are too sick to go on, and usually just give up and confess.
The difference is that China's currently bad, but slowly getting better, while the USA is currently good (at least relative to China) but getting worse.
True... but seriously, the US and China aren't anywhere near being in the same league oppression wise. That some citizens of an undeniably oppressive state (cultural revolution anyone?) believe otherwise isn't exactly convincing.
Of course, if you want real answers you should ask recent immigrants and their kids from China about it. I'd say the same about western immigrants to china, but aside from some businessmen I doubt there are many.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there.
And if you've forgotten Abu Ghraib already, keep in mind that not all countries oppress their own people. Some do it in the comfort of foreign nations.
In order to understand why these things happen, you need to find out how people of China think. Using Western standards for benchmarking civil rights of China is not a smart idea because not everybody agrees with these standards.
I worked with an exchange student from China a while ago. She was a nice girl, but she could never get the freedom of speech (expression/religion) thing. Whenever we talked about civil rights in China, she pointed out to all the porn, violence, drug use and other negative aspects of life that Americans could see on TV and everywhere else. I could not argue with her. She was raised in a differet atmosphere and that was a big issue between the two of us. She hated many things about the United States and one of them was freedom to say whatever you wanted. Three years of schooling here did not change her one bit.
Now, I know that one person does not represent the whole country, but this experience gave me some insights on why peoeple may not like the Western way of life.
That sounds about right. Most people from most oppressive countries live pretty well most of the time. If it were not so, the governments wouldn't last very long. Honestly, even after these countries are "liberated," you're going to get a lot of whining from people about the good old days.
A great example of this is South Africa. My family is from South Africa, and I still have many relatives there. If you'd told us twenty years ago that there were hit-squads, constant uprisings, military actions against blacks, and frequent prison torture, we would have had a tough time believing you. Even people who had just visited South Africa from abroad would have probably contradicted you. It seemed like a pretty nice place! Of course, in retrospect, all these things turned out to be true, but we didn't hear about it. We just went to work and went to school and never really crossed any of the invisible lines we didn't know were there.
Similarly, I can happily recommend that you go visit China sometime. It's a pretty nice place, most of the time, and you could probably even live there quite comfortably. Quite a few of my friends have been there and they enjoyed the trip. You'll have to look really hard for even the slightest signs of your being oppressed.
But that doesn't mean that everything's OK.
Acius the unfamous
rue... but seriously, the US and China aren't anywhere near being in the same league oppression wise.
Undeniably true. However, taking China as a cautionary tale and tracking the direction "oppresiveness" in the USA is taking, no one can seriously claim that the USA is getting better. Except, of course, the radical right.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
Maybe GWB should lecture the Communist China on the value of freedom of speech and religion. Oh wait!, if he does that, they might not finance our collossal deficit. Better let them be as brutal as they want to their own, as long as they keep loaning the U.S. money.
If I had my way the U.S. would only recognize ONE China. The one whose government is in Taipei.
you should ask recent immigrants and their kids from China
Just like we asked Iraqi expats about WMDs? Just like we asked Cuban immigrants how strongly Cuba would resist if we invaded (Bay of Pigs)? Etc? Depending on the reasons for them leaving their parent country, expats can be among the most biased parties in anywhere.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
To compare the abuse of a few people, most of which aren't even citizens, to that of the oppressive nature of the Chinese government is simply absurd. I'm not defending US actions, but is hyperbole to the point of flagrant dishonesty to compare the two. The very thing typed up above could very well, in China, lead to the maintainers of this website getting into at least some trouble. Ponder that.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"certian", "OLNY", "arent", "eventhough", "prometer", "nueclear", "encylopedias", "exect", and "acces"
Maybe you should be paying a little bit more attention in English class, and leaving other activities for after school.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable [inalienable] Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
ALL men. (and women, too, we've grown up a bit.) Not people who happen to have been born within the borders of the United States. ALL people.
What part of "all" do we fail to grasp, I wonder?
The lack of freedoms experienced by over a billion people compared to the few hundreds of detainees. Oh yeah, that's equal. Those crimes are totally comparable.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The sad part is that over 200 years ago, thousands of people died to create a country here where they hoped to live without the government keeping them from speaking their mind or arresting them and holding them indefinitely.
And 4 years ago thousands of people died to make it a place where citizens can be held indefinitely without a trial. Where "suspicion of terrorism" (without any proof) is enough to have searches of your house without notifying you. Where the books you check out from your library can be used against you.
"most of which aren't even citizens"... do you think the non-citizens being held somehow cancel out the citizens?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
China already had two revolutions in the last century- first to overthrow the last imperial dynasty, and second, the communist revolution. The communist were able to seize control in 1949 largely because Mao was able to harness the discontent with Chiang Kai Shek's dictatorial government.
Another thing many westerners do not understand is the politcal apathy of many of china's intelligentsia. The people know they do not have control, so they put it out of their minds. Concerning censorship- that is a legacy of china's conservative, confucian culture. They have been conservative for a very long time, and traditions like that die hard. The majority of people there have no desire to view what they censor, like porn or what have you.
Just to qualify what I've said, I've lived in china, and I speak mandarin.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
You don't really get it, do you? Just because other people are worse doesn't make us good. We are TORTURING people. The United States of America, Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, is TORTURING people. By policy. With the full knowledge of the government AND THE CITIZENRY.
What China does is *immaterial*. What Hitler did is immaterial. What Pol Pot did is immaterial. The United States is doing these things NOW. That is ALL that matters. Any noise to the contrary is just to try to distract you.
And, from a practical standpoint, the Chinese that you (rightly) detest can point to the fact that we're invading other countries and torturing anyone we choose. At least the Chinese torturers mostly stay home.
We can't preach from the moral high ground if we're not ON the moral high ground. How can we expect other countries to live up to ethical rules that we're willing to ignore whenever we find them inconvenient?
Because of Bush's actions, we have lost most of our ability to influence behavior in the world. The terrorists didn't just win, they hit the f*cking jackpot.
sed 's/[Ee]ducational\ [Ii]nstitution/peer-to-peer\ network/g; s/China/America/g; s/Chinese\ Ministry\ of\ Education/RIAA/g; s/BBS/administrator/g; s/Nanjing/Louisiana\ State/g'
... and suddenly this is a very familiar story...
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
If YOU are the one being detained, then yes, they are indeed equal. Why this fascination with big numbers exists, I'll never understand. At what point will you become concerned?
What?
Which is why I am glad that the people who orchastrated those events have been punished.
You mean to tell me that they locked up Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz??
What?
And no, I'm not passing on the idiot slashdot meme. The Soviet Union had one of the largest standing armies in the world AND a disarmed citizenry. When the population became completely fed up, none of that mattered any more; the government fell like a house of cards regardless. The same thing will happen in China and/or the US when the dissention reaches critical mass. As long as enough people have bread and circuses, however, they're willing to overlook little things like other people's rights.
And if you've forgotten Abu Ghraib already, keep in mind that not all countries oppress their own people.
Brilliant! Except the Iraq prisoners there weren't America's own people.
Isn't that exactly what the first guy said: NOT their own people?
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I really hope you also see how it works as critisism of the US system.
War outside, blind eye inside
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images