Slashdot Mirror
China Sets New Rules On Internet News
auckland map writes "China set new regulations on Internet news content which ban the spreading of any news with content that is against national security and public interest. Established news media needed permission to run a news Web site, while new operators had to register themselves with government information offices. This move further widens a campaign of controls Chinese government has imposed on web sites, communication, leisure and businesses." From the article: "The state bans the spreading of any news with content that is against national security and public interest ... [internet news sites] must be directed toward serving the people and socialism and insist on correct guidance of public opinion for maintaining national and public interests."
Time and time again "national security" is shown to be the antithesis of freedom. Be it in China or the United States, putting such a focus on protecting "national security" results in severe harm to the liberties and life of the nation's citizenry.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
This is a pefect template for the the FEC to use when they decide to regulate political blogs. Free speech is guaranteed through censorship.
Software Wars
In America, we just have all news produced by a relatively small set of companies that are politically sympathetic to the ruling political power. That way, it's automatically censored. No governemnt bureaucracy to get in the way. As always, we're the leaders.
The Reuters copy is a bit spotty in its coverage...more information can be found here, here, and here.
Interesting quote from the third source listed above:
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
How can this post be redundant? It's in the first 3 posted for the story. Moderators - if you don't like someone's opinion, either say so or apply an appropriate moderation. Kindly look up the meaning of the word "redundant."
The last great communistic/socialistic/whatever government on the planet. This is akin to the Berlin Wall or the Iron Curtain. Now we have the Digital Curtain (I just made that up, heh, or maybe I read it and subconsciously made it my own -- who knows...).
Wonder how long they can stand up to the onslaught of information not controlled by the state?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
In the west you dont even know when "public opinion is being guided" in supposed national interest.
Surur
Information is the location of things. Computation is moving things around.
In China it's one party. In US it's Military Industrial Complex and it's entertiment division (washington).
Ah yes. Whe have Michael Moore, they have Jackie Chan.
China seems usually slow to use their power - they try asserting control over something carefully. Markets, freedoms, social networks - they can all be controlled, as long as you assert yourself very slowly over decades. They seem to have had some level of respect for the Internet, though it has gotten away from them in many ways, they're likely very used to that with social networks. But, like with America, the exceptions aren't so dangerous as converting the easilly convinced that the freedom of the internet is not as important as loyalty to the state.
Now, they seem to be getting more confident over their control - or else just want to send the message that they are confident. Is this confidence real, is it a false message, or could they be fooling themselves? I for one can't know - but it seems fairly conservative compared to the controls they could exert. It remains to be seen how they will enforce this, or try to make these new rules matter in the minds of their citizens.
The other source of confidence, of course, would be in the inability for outside forces to act against the growing market importance of China. China has done a great job of controlling the markets they act conservatively to control - now they get to reap the growing political benefit of that control. Perhaps eventually, their sheer political mass may allow them to finantially eliminate critics afar... I for one fear the day they begin to truly adopt intellectual property laws. Not because they are an especially malicious force compared to other governments, but because they are humans concentrating a great ammount of power, who may begin to assert ownership of ideas more powerfully than ever before.
China is NOT a "communist" country.
They have an authoritarian government with a capitalist economic system. "State capitalist" is the more correct term. (authoritarian states are not necessarily communist, although the reverse is generally true).
This may be offtopic, but usually the conversation always manages to drift towards this anyways regardless of the original topic.
The problem isn't "national security" as such, and there's nothing wrong with a community (country-sized or any other size) protecting itself.
The problem is that "national security", "patriotism", ironically even "democracy", are also the first excuses someone reaches for when they want to take your freedom away. No, let me rephrase that: the problem is that the people tend to get stuck on some _words_ instead of their _meaning_.
E.g., people are raised to rant and rave about how they have a right to free speech, but don't actually know what that right means. ("Congress shall make no law...") Most think it means the exact _opposite_: that they're allowed to troll a board or shout obscenities at the neighbour, but the government is still allowed to censor anything. I mean, duh, it's the government, of course they're supposed to tell us what to do and what not to do, right? Wrong-
E.g., people are raised on ideas like that patriotism means they must obey and do their duty, but they lose focus of: to whom. Hint: it means to the country, not to one particular party or leader. Sometimes the patriotic thing to do might actually be to disobey a bad leader.
And so on.
So you're left with whole generations which have been raised basically with a Pavlov's dog kind of reflex. You ring the bell, the dog does something by reflex, without thinking. Same here. You say "patriotism", people get a knee-jerk reaction to obey anything. There's a whole bunch of magic words that just trigger a reflex, without much thinking or questioning.
And it should come as no surprise when some people do come along and use them to their own interest. It's like having a big red button that says "push here to get an immediate advantage." Is it any surprise when some people come and push it?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
What's great about the bulk of the media in the US is that they impose these limitations and bans on themselves, without having to have the government do it for them.
Ignore Alien Orders
http://drudgereport.com/flash4.htm FLASHBACK: HILLARY CLINTON SAYS INTERNET NEWS NEEDS 'RETHINK' Sun Sep 25 2005 16:52:50 ET China on Sunday imposed new media restrictions designed to limit the news and other information available to Internet users, sharply restricting the scope of content that can be posted on Web sites. In 1998 during a meeting with reporters, Hillary Rodham Clinton said that "we are all going to have to rethink how we deal with" the Internet because of the handling of White House sex scandal stories on Web sites. Clinton was asked whether she favored curbs on the Internet, after the DRUDGE REPORT made headlines with coverage of her husband's affair with a White House intern. "We are all going to have to rethink how we deal with this, because there are all these competing values ... Without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function, what does it mean to have the right to defend your reputation?" she said.
Hillary Clinton Continued:
"I don't have any clue about what we're going to do legally, regulatorily, technologically -- I don't have a clue. But I do think we always have to keep competing interests in balance. I'm a big pro-balance person. That's why I love the founders -- checks and balances; accountable power. Anytime an individual or an institution or an invention leaps so far out ahead of that balance and throws a system, whatever it might be -- political, economic, technological --out of balance, you've got a problem, because then it can lead to the oppression people's rights, it can lead to the manipulation of information, it can lead to all kinds of bad outcomes which we have seen historically. So we're going to have to deal with that. And I hope a lot of smart people are going to --"
REPORTER: Sounds like you favor regulation.
MRS. CLINTON: Bill, I don't know what -- that's why I said I don't know what I'm in favor of. And I don't know enough to know what to be in favor of, because I think it's one of those new issues we've got to address. We've got to see whether our existing laws protect people's right of privacy, protect them against defamation. And if they can, how do you do that when you can press a button and you can't take it back. So I think we have to tread carefully.
END
Funny, I was going to say Democrats are. They're the socialist-wannabes, aren't they?
Actually, by European standards most US Democrats are pretty comfortably to the right of the center in politics. Everytime I hear you Neocons accuse liberal or moderate right wing politicians in the US of being Socialists I wonder what would happen if somebody introduced one of you US-American conservatives to a real live 24 carat way-left-of-center Socialist, never mind an acutal honest to goodness die hard Communist like we have them over here in Europe? My pet theory is that you would go red in the face, then steam would shoot out of your ears and your eyes would bulge out followed by a massive bang as your head explodes. Many US-Americans speak very belligerently about Communists, Socialsits and how they are the spawn of Satan etc... but I get the feeling most US-Americans have little or no idea what those words acutally mean.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
"They're rights online" I can't imagine too many Chinese would be able to get onto Slashdot.
Let me be the first to say [No Carrier]
My list of multiplayer
Does anyone have an example of speech being restricted that is not solely designed to prevent the dissemination of information that could result in harm to U.S. troops or citizens?
I defy you to explain to me how "free speech zones" prevent harm to anybody, or are anything but a blatant exercise of power on the government's part for power's sake.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Suppose some major $SHIT happens in $COUNTRY, which was not caused by some natural factors. The public will be understandably angry and will demand some $ACTION to be taken to appease their own fears.
I mean, what else can some $GOVERNMENT do? It is only natural that they will take some actions to improve "National Security". Once whoever is in command get to that point, it becomes a slippery slope when they realise how easy it is to mobilise public opinion, congresses/parliaments around it to get whatever they want done.
I'm not blaming governments per se, but that's only human nature in full motion. It takes a very enlightened constituency and congress/parliament to avoid getting caught in that trap -- and we know that is just not the case, since congresses/parliaments (who should check over government's actions) also have their own short-term issues (staying in office, getting reelected, becoming future president/prime minister)
Some of us do realise when the bell rings; stopping oneself from salivating however is a somewhat more difficult exercise. In the UK the political agenda is re-enforced through the media on a daily/ hourly basis (I believe the US has good old fox-news). Over here, soap operas such as East Enders and Emerdale feed the masses their daily message for social betterment - today it's racial intergration; tomorrow it's stealing state benefits - the list goes on. Tune in to BBC 1/ ITV 1/ Channel 4 & 5 between 6:30 pm and 9pm and you will here yesterday's politic rhetoric neatly and succintly summarised for those of us who do not watch the offical state programming . err sorry I mean the news broadcast...
The sad thing is that this isn't a new problem, but some people seem to be unable to learn from the past. I hope most people here have read Orwell's thoughts on the matter, but for those of you who haven't: Politics and the English Language. Written almost sixty years ago, and as true today as it ever was. Quote:
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
All this crap from China and we still do business with them. Meanwhile Americans can't even travel to Cuba. What's the deal? Is it all economics?
free speech zones are a bad idea, but i think they are a response to protesters who block doors, sidewalks and generally disrupt other peoples daily routines. many protesters seem to think it is their right to stop me from doing what i want to do becuase they disagree with me. if protesters would respect the rights of others to disagree and go about their business, we probably wouldnt have them.
always mosh clockwise
It would sound like a good constitution (it even includes the Freedom of Religion) if they didn't literally throw it away with Articles 51 and 52:
In other words, the freedoms that come before those paragraphs are only suffered at the state's whim. If they feel that you are in any way working against the state (e.g. the criticism they just "allowed" in Article 41) or attempting to undermine the "unity of the state" (e.g. the freedom of religion granted by Article 36) then the state will step in and run you over with a tank or throw you in jail.
So much for the constitution of the People's Repulic of China. Be very happy if you live in a country to whom rights are more than words on a sheet of paper.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Here is a pretty good explanation. It's important to note that they are, under the current administration, almost always kept completely out of the President's sight and hearing.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
When Communism was strong (and these bodies were named) China certainly had a very strong social welfare program
You mean like the social welfare programs that starved 30 million people to death?
China's move away from Communism trough free market reforms, and its expansion of exports to the US, has lead there to be about 200 million fewer people in China living on under $1 per day now than in 1990.
I'm no apologist for China's continued lack of human and political rights, but at the same time at least the government appears to be leading economic growth, which is much more than I can say for Cuba or North Korea (or places like Zimbabwe).
The fast majority of the west doesn't give a damn about iraq. All they know is that europe is being overrun by muslims and that they are not happy with it. Oh and that gas prices are going through the roof.
It is very easy to look at the media and see a definite slant to events in the world. I seen pro-muslims claim that newspaper X was anti-muslim and anti-muslims claim the exact same newspaper was pro-muslim. A good example was todays dual story of hamas attacking israel with missles and the assasination of a hamas leader in response.
Basically both the cheap free newspapers here reported both facts, but the assasination was mentioned on the front page and the hamas attack was just 1 sentence in the main article. Also it featured a photograph that was not directly related to the story of a massive explosion.
So was this article pro-palestine? Well the hamas attack had no fatalisties, "only" 5 wounded. While the assasination killed. The purely objective thing to note here is that Israeli's are obviously better shots.
So the "real" story is that hamas is an organization that has vowed to wipe Israel from the face of the earth and that Israel has chosen to wipe out Hamas before that happens. Or is it the other way around? At this point in time it is like trying to figure out who started the northern ireland conflict.
You report that 95% of non-americans saw the whole WMD thing as a sham, I doubt that figure but you seem to link that automatically with those same people being against the invasion. Nice leap but I don't see that on the workfloor. An awfull lot of working class people here in holland have just one question if they even think about it. How come they have to pay for iraq refugees who flee their so called oppressive goverment but when that goverment is then overthrown all those so called refugees are against it? Either you are for a goverment or you are against.
But I agree most media is incredibly bad at investigating the real story. It is easier to make some sensation story. Massive headlines about how EU agriculture subsidies are causing hunger in 3rd world countries, followed by massive headlines how cuts in EU agriculture subsidies are putting farmers out of work. WTF? Take a bloody side!
I think the worst mistake Bush made was the whole WMD nonsense. Had he simply gone for "Saddam is a ticking timebomb for his own people, the minorities in his country and the rest of the world and we are no longer going to wait for sanctions wich the entire world is ignoring to work." he might have had a lot more support.
The sad thing is that I am old and I remember the same blind sheep like you complain that the world wasn't doing anything when Saddam gassed the koerds.
Hell some guy send in a letter recently to the "spits" complaining that America deserved New Orleans for invading Iraq and why wasn't the west doing anything in Dafur (muslims killing blacks and vice versa). In the same letter the guy complained that America had invaded iraq AND was complaining they hadn't invaded Dafur.
What is a goverment supposed to do with people like you. They are damned if they do and they are damned if they don't.
So how does this relate to china? Well lets face it, china needs only look at russia to see what happens to a superpower who lets the west dictate what it should do. So china will happily continue with its current policy knowing that with each passing year America and the west will be more and more dependant and less able to take a stand against it.
Mainstream media does not see this but frankly neither does the alternative media. The only way to get true unbiased news is to make your own by getting it from multiple sources. If you are only reading news stories that condemn the war in Iraq then you are not well informed. Don't then complain that other people aren't either.
At least the chinese know they are getting a 1-sided version of the news. You do not.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
China is becoming one big free speech zone, George Bush style
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
and a lot of Chinese people regard ANY news source as not entirely trustworthy - even foreign sources. From what I saw, they got almost all their information via gossip or text message.
So she hasn't strayed too far, politically. ;)
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
So are the republicans.
Just take a look at the "leadership" in both parties - their voting records, who their donors are, and how they don't actually represent the people who are just members of the parties. They feed at the same trough, and they are mostly equally corrupt. Kerry was a really lame-ass candidate, and I really don't think there would be any difference in the US policy (both domestic and foreign) if he were in the white house.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
... to this and other human rights abuses in China by, uh, giving $162 billion per year (and increasing) business to China, $55 billion dollars Foreign Direct Investment, and ship hundreds of thousands of US jobs to China.
</sarcasm>
Is China already too powerful/influental that nobody could influence them even if they wanted to? Or is it simply that nobody in the ruling class cares about human rights abuses as long as there is more money to be made?
First of all, the entire "National Security vs. Free Speech argument" far, far predates 9/11 and the Patriot Act; in the US, it goes back over two centuries, at least to the Alien and Sedition Acts. Second, the use of Free Speech Zones has expanded dramatically since 9/11. And third, what happened in Seattle (rather overblown in the reporting, I suspect) was the action of a small group of organized vandals; to abrogate the entire assembly clause of the First Amendment on that basis is absurd. The Bill of Rights is designed to make it hard for the government to control people; that may be unfortunate from some people's POV, but the alternative is much worse.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Blair is alot of things, most of all he is not a Socialist. The labor party defined it self as a 'Democratic Socialist party' (Yes, there is a big difference between Social Democrats and Socialists, the latter are usually more radical). Today New Labor has flushed most of the original Social Democratic ideals of the Labor party down the toilet. The best descritpion of him that I have yet to hear is that he is: "... a tory infiltrator in the Labor party who by some fantastic chain of events managed to become it's leader". People have even speculated about whether or not he is a Neocon. Labor may have started out as a left wing party but today they have migrated considerably further to the Right of the policial spectrum.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Seems a little misplaced to excoriate a country which has lifted more than 200 million people out of unimaginable poverty in the last 20 years. I suppose it's preferable to leave our gentle sensibilities in place and pave the streets with the corpses of those who starved.
Violating an unjust law and then accepting the consequences is Civil Disobedience.
Violating an unjust law and then whinging that you got arrested is being a lame-ass whiny emo kid.
You have to realize that, not withstanding Articles 35 and 41, any right of speech, publication, or suggestions of criticisms on state organ must be made with the premise to protect the unity of the state. As long as you establish your loyalty to the state, it doesn't mean the government can randomly throw you in jail or run you over with tanks.
This is often overlooked by the "freedom fighters." They try to fight the system itself rather than fight under the accordance of the system. Take the open source versus proprietary war for example. There may exist open source extremists who would run around erasing copies of Windows and install Linux. However, some open source developers also make their software available for Windows, so even Windows users have choice. The difference is that, when you're promoting choice using open source software, you have to recognize that those who are using proprietary software also have a choice.
The goodie bag stuff for freedom defender is that, although you promote whatever you believe, freedom of speech or what not, there are people who choose to live happily under the current system of the state and the constitution. You simply shouldn't cause disturbance to other people's lives in the name of freedom. You have to find a way to defend your rights while preserving the unity of state.
This has been necessary for China in the past century due to extreme poverty and scacity of resources. It had been too costly to tear down a system and build a new one. If you want to improve the system, you must find a way to do that without disruption. That's the historical background of this constitution.
And think about why even Linus wouldn't approve some radical changes to the Linux kernel.
I once had a signature.
*blink-blink* Are you seriously suggesting they're leftists!? Not even by the standards of the American left are they left-wing. Howard Dean was considered the most pro-business and right-wing governor Vermont had in years, and the NRA gave him a strong endorsement when he was governor.
You might want to check out actual honest-to-goodness American left-wing blogs. Most American left wingers consider the Democratic party to have become so right wing (thanks to the DLC) that they're lame copies of the Republicans. The "loony-left" were escorted from the party after 1988 and then became Greens.
This tells me all we need to know about you.
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I just want to note:
That guy didn't get run over by the tank. I'm using the very same resource you just linked.
He was ordered to be run over, but the tank driver refused to follow those orders. (The tank driver was later arrested.)
You wrote: "Be very happy if you live in a country to whom rights are more than words on a sheet of paper."
I recognize that our rights are more than words on a sheet of paper. But I'm a little more interested in what people will do.
In this case, the tank driver resisted an order to kill.
I frequently wonder: Would an American do the same? I remember WACO, and I note many places where our media is clearly subserviant to the US government.
We must take refuge in more than just our rights, we need to think about the spirit behind those rights.
In this respect, I think Americans are much weaker.
Chinese know that they resist their government. Americans do not.
No, I don't understand.
Given his odd word choice through the post, I'm thinking the author is at least native mainland chinese, probably immigrated to the US. Within that context, I think his post is an attempt to explain Chinese thought on China's system and not the way the world in general should be.
It is interesting to compare the part about some people just being happy with the way things are and not wanting to rock the boat. I read somewhere (probably here) recently that 70-80% of the colonial population were not interested in breaking with the British. It was only the 'agitators' who wanted to form a new country. That such a small proportion of the population could drag the rest along into such a huge change in direction is interesting, and probably terrifying to the chinese goverment.