Slashdot Mirror
100 Million Online in China
Colin Smith writes "Rising levels of personal wealth in the nation of China means that the country now has over 100 million internet users, and the authorities are discovering just how difficult it is to place a dam against information in the digital age." From the article: "Only last week, the authorities threatened to shut down websites and blogs that failed to register with regulators in a new campaign to tighten controls on what the public can see online. The so-called Great Firewall of China is constantly being breached as citizens and the authorities play a cat and mouse game with the flow of information."
The interesting point for me is the US companies who participate in helping the Chinese government censor their internet (ie Microsoft, Cisco Systems). I understand there is heaps of money to be made, but I question the integrity of their decision. IMO ethically it is *wrong*, but does that mean these companies can be faulted?
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
I would guess slashdot is one of the sites blocked in China. Is this correct? Anyone here from China?
I think this is going to be almost identical to the "War on drugs" in the United States.
With all those millions and millions online in China swapping programs, songs and such, you'd think the RIAA would go after them, if the purpose was really to prevent damage to the intellectual property holder.
What's going to be extremely interesting is watching a closed society like China start talking one-on-one to the rest of the world. I'd give it twenty years before public opinion changes in China. I can't see them sharing information freely and being as nationalistic as they currently are. If you want to stop a future war with China, help them talk to each other all you can. My two cents.
Brains! Brains! Give me Brains!
"But the Chinese authorities are less in love with the net. The government regularly tries to block access to material it considers pornographic or politically subversive."
There goes about 80% or more of internet content.
Yeah, that sounds about right. 80% or more of the internet is pornographic material.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Also, if they can't *view* certain websites, what's keeping them from using a proxy (possibly an open proxy list) within their web browser to circumvent China's methods of blocking?
One would think that they can only block items for so long until their methods are circumvented. After all, where there's a will, there's always a way. Sounds like a huge cat and mouse game indeed.
Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."
42
Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
Now I will be getting e-mails from Mr. Lin from the Chinese government instead of Mr. Ubuntu from Nigeria.
;)
Either way, I've got my bank account ready
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
The greatest weapon the US has against oppressive regimes is our cultural, entertainment and information exports. It's hard to oppress a people when they know that there's something slightly cooler then living in China under a communist regime.
The Soviets could regulate so many aspects of their citizenry's daily life, but what they couldn't manage to get a hold on was what they thought was cool. It might be an overly simplistic view, but part of me thinks that it was Coca-Cola and Levi's jeans that brought communism to its knees in the soviet bloc. (and of course, coca-cola and levis is not much to base a government on, which is why so many countries have struggled with the concept of democracy)
I think something similar could easily happen in China.
I don't presume to think that the Chinese would try, or even want to be like the US, but I think there's a certain sense of freedom and independence embodied in American culture, and that freedom is alluring and infectious. The more the Chinese people have access to something as stupid as Slashdot or Wikipedia or...anything, the more they're going to crave more content. The more content they crave, the more content must be censored until something has to break.
:::: the insomniac's digest
With inititives like Haier (Chinese refridgerator manufacturer) building a plant in South Carolina, United States, Chinese companies are definitely expanding. An article in Time (IIRC) said that China's ecnonomy will top that of Japan by 2015, and eventually the U.S. economy. It has been said that Chinese have gotten where they are today because of discipline. Each day, Haier would gather the employees around, and have the name called of who made the most mistakes (like leaving a screw out of a refridgerator) and have them stand on designated green foot prints painted on the floor. This level of discipline will hopefully continue.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
You have to remember, with a country with a population of 1.3 Billion, with only 100million people online, that's still just over 7% penetration. While I admit it is growing by leaps and bounds, it is by no means a large percentage compared to the US, some European nations or Japan.
And half a brain is what you might have after the bomb goes off.
For those wanting to experiment you will find many delights on my site.
Omnis amans amens
If China becomes a dominant presence on the internet, I wonder when Chinese tech standards will become de facto standards for the net. Much as developers design for IE currently (regardless of the "issues" with IE), I wonder if future developers will target Chinese compatibility first, and ignore other de facto or de jure standards.
Does anyone know if China is adopting/promoting DRM (perhaps for content control), open standards (to avoid U.S.-centric Microsoft technology), IPv6, or other internet-affecting standards.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
No, no, no - they've already banned TCP/IP. In China, their internet is entirely HTML-based.
Because you can't spell "slaughter" without "laughter"
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they're always friendly, and they're ready to please.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They come from a long way overseas,
But they're cute and they're cuddly, and they're ready to please.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Wo ai zhongguo ren.
Ni hao ma; ni hao ma; ni hao ma; zaijien!
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would
deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
-- Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri
So true, so very true.
the Chinese government is trying to stop a river with pebbles. What happened to the visionary leaders that opened up their market so they won't have the Soviet Union's fate? How long do they think they can buy time before information becomes utterly loose on their "kingdom"?
Damn it folks! You can not stop progress! You can only impede it but never stop it! Get over it! You should either reform or perish! Do the Chinese Party commissars have to take history lessons anymore?
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
For the last month or so, I've been chatting with a lot of different people in China using Skype. (Nice thing about Skype, is that it's encrypted end-to-end. No JBT's listening in.)
I've found that the people I'm talking to are entirely aware that their government lies to them routinely, and they want to know about their own history.
They know that they lost some relatives in the 1960's, but they have no idea that Mao killed more Chinese than Tojo. They know that something happened in Beijing in 1989, but they don't know that thousands of unarmed protestors were slaughtered. I've been doing a lot of cutting and pasting of wikipedia pages.
I'm convinced that the internet will be the end of the Red Dynasty, and the way it will happen is that the JBT's will lose their ability to lie to the people. Once most Chinese realize that most of their countrymen are sick and tired of the Red Dynasty, then it's game over for the gerontocrats in Beijing.
I only hope that China becomes a free country with as little bloodshed as possible. Killing the Politburo would probably suffice, although justice would demand the demise of thousands of the petty thugs as well.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Soon the Chinese government will learn from modern democratic governments and sophisticated corporations that trying to control the flow of information is the wrong way to go about it.
It's far easier and more effective to control the public's interpretation and prioritization of information than to limit the information itself.
You CAN'T control what people think. You CAN'T control the urge to know. You CAN'T make people believe something is bad just because you say it is bad. You have to provide convincing evidence.
For example, over in Denmark in the 1970s they dropped most restrictions regarding pornography. After 30 years, the nation did NOT turn into a gang of rapists. They probably mentally filter out billboards featuring naked people just like they filter out any other uninteresting advertising. So, where is the evidence to support Chinese government (or any other government) claims of bad things associated with pornography? It's in the unnecessary restrictions! Forcing it underground just makes it more interesting ("I want to see what they don't want me to see, to find out why they don't want me to see it!"). Exposing it takes away that incentive, and people tend to ignore what not's immediately relevant. A curb of freedom is ALWAYS immediately relevant!
Now, you CAN influence what people do with what they know. Does the Chinese Constitution have any mechanism whereby it might be Amended, like the U.S. (and other) Constitutions? If not, then whatever curbs of freedom built into the Chinese Constitution will eventually and inevitably boil over into an ugly revolution. The leadership over there is going to find out, one way or another, just what The People can do. So, they can either plan on an England-like open system (which started with the Magna Charta), or they can keep a France-like repressive system (which ended with beheadings).
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