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Chinese Claim Internet Censorship Modeled on West
ubermiester wrote to mention a NYT article reporting on a Chinese Press Briefing. At the event Liu Zhengrong, supervisor of Internet affairs for the Chinese State Council, stated that the state control of Internet access is based on Western models. From the article: "Mr. Liu said the major thrust of the Chinese effort to regulate content on the Web was aimed at preventing the spread of pornography or other content harmful to teenagers and children. He said that its concerns in this area differ minimally from those in developed countries. Human rights and media watchdog groups maintain that Chinese Web censorship puts greater emphasis on helping the ruling party maintain political control over its increasingly restive society. Such groups have demonstrated that many hundreds of Web sites cannot be easily accessed inside mainland China mainly because they are operated by governments, religious groups or political organizations that are critical of Chinese government policies or its political leaders."
Deflect the attention from yourselves, and pretend that you're just doing the same thing the West (read: United States) is doing: just trying to protect innocent children on the internet ("Who will think of the children?"), at the same time attempting to change the debate from your own despicable censorship of speech and thought to the alleged transgressions of Western governments.
Except that the reality is easy for anyone to see: you (attempt to) suppress sites dealing with politics, religion, dissent, and anything critical of the Chinese government or that doesn't support positions sanctioned by the Chinese government. The West and US don't do this (no matter how much our friendly, local conspiracy theorists might claim it).
Come on, China. I thought you could lie better than that.
Tienamen square and all the other attempts at revolution as pornography?
Someone better call the Whaaaaaarickshaw!
For keeping me safe from seeing a pair of breasts. Because you aren't very good at keeping me safe from much else.
Seriously, it shouldn't be the government's job to keep kids away from porn. It should be their fucking parent's job. So China's argument is still BS to me.
No sig for you!!
I wonder if it's easier to have a revolution than continuing with the up-hill battle of fighting for freedom with the current government.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
Won't someone please think of the children!?
Yup, definately modeled after Western bullshit.
I think they consider it more like that Nazi stuff that many european countries disallow on their web sites. IIRC yahoo and ebay both got in trouble in europe for content much less explicit Nazi stuff than Tianammen SQ images
Something like this: "Yahoo is committed to obey local laws, ONLY if they don't go against international treaties and human rights."
article: "If you study the main international practices in this regard you will find that China is basically in compliance with the international norm," he [the official] said. "The main purposes and methods of implementing our laws are basically the same."
purpose: to censor "harmful" parts of the Internet, no definition of "harmful"
method: firewalls and Internet minders, not necessarily censorship itself
Seems like you could come up a pretty nice comparision between the Chinese government and AOL blocking porn sites with a kid filter under such broad terms of discussion.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
It's really not that different. Both governments believe that some of their citizens need to be protected from corrupting influnces ( a position that I do not agree with, BTW ). We here in the west, who are unduly obsessed with the silly idea of the innocence of childhood, protect one kind of citizen. They try to protect another kind.
Our governments are really very similar.
What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.
If a democratic wants to censor online pornography and other "objectionable" material then it has no business telling other countries what they should or should not censor.
Remember the case a long time ago when a couple based in California were jailed for breaking pornography laws in Tennessee?
Has been around since ever... it is still present in the western world, although less 'obvious' than in China. Give China a rest about that! US principle are not universal principles. I do not believe in censorship, I think it's wrong, but the 'great firewall' in China is not something *wrong*. Now China does infringe on many human rights I care about, that's a different business. But, heck, the US is in a bad position to talk about censorship. Political correctness is a form of censorship, absurd MPAA ratings are a form of censorship. And yes, China's right, there is a huge pressure for censorship of the internet in the US by prudes.
\u262D = \u5350
Really, just try to google HORSE SEX VIDEO if you live in the US!
s e%20sex%20video
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=gmail&q=hor
All those 19 million results? Not that much horse sex, and even fewer videos!
G-d Damn fascist censors!
The latest Slashdot meme.
I just (seriously, like five minutes ago) finished reading Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four for the first time. Towards the beginning of the novel, I felt as though I was seeing many parallels between it and the United States. However, as I got further and further into it, all I could think about was how The Party, Big Brother, thoughtcrime, the Thought Police -- how all of them reminded me of China, and their policing of thought itself.
Think about it for a moment. The Chinese government does everything it can to all but completely re-write history on a number of topics, such as the Tiananmen Square Massacre of students who were speaking out in favour of democracy. The government suppresses freedom of speech across a number of topics they do not approve of, or embarass them politically (Ministry of Truth). (See homosexuality, drugs, democracy, the Dali Llama, free Tibet, etc.) They have "re-education camps" (Ministry of Love), where opinions are brought in line with their worldviews.
Boy, am I glad I'm a Canadian boy, and don't live in China.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/
ConsultingFair.com
FTA: Mr. Liu said that Chinese Internet users have free rein to discuss many politically sensitive topics and rejected charges that the police have arrested or prosecuted people for using the Internet to circulate views.
He... is... nuts.
"Major U.S. companies do this and it is regarded as normal," Mr. Liu said. "So why should China not be entitled to do so?"
But he has a point here.
Our congressman are editing their own bios in wikipedia...
Bush is requesting personal data from Google and the likes...
And quite some people are getting fired for blogging...
If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
In the west (except for Australia apparently, which isn't really in the west anyway) there are a lot of people who think porn is ok as long as it's contained to a place where we don't have to see it if we don't want to. As long as we know where it is, we can get it, but I don't want it shoved down my throat.
China may have a different cultural attitude towards porn, with a very large portion of the populace thinking that it must be banned, which gives the government more reasons to censor speech under the guise of getting rid of this terrible plague that everyone hates.
Don't kid yourself... the government in the US and other western nations would use this same excuse to censor your political beliefs if more of the population thought this content was objectionable. Therefore, the amount our government can censor us increases as the number of taboo subjects increase in our society.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
"Pornography", huh? So that's what you kids are calling it these days?
Back in my day, it was either "political unrest" or "down with the man"! We didn't have to make up no fancy words for it, just said it as it is, and people were alright with that, yup.
Crazy kids. I swear, there's no telling what they will come up with next!
Now get the hell off my lawn!
This should be interesting. Yes, right-wing conservatives, the Chinese say they're JUST LIKE YOU. Now what will you do?
1) Continue to side with your Chinese business interests and turn the other cheek to their remarks (and their human rights violations).
2) Continue to try and abolish pornography on the internet, despite it's leagality when view by people of the right age, while simultaneously saying you're nothing like them, but not claiming they are really doing anything wrong (see previous answer).
3) Say your fight against pornography is nothing like their human rights atrocities and disinformation network (while on your FoxNews interview).
Atheist, communist China does not want pr0n on the Internet. Religious wingnuts don't want pr0n on the Internet. Why those two who are at extremely opposed political positions don't want pr0n on the Internet???
Except last I checked the government in the West doesn't mandate what it's people can or can't view on the Internet (consipracy theorists aside).
This is not some spin-meister from a lying regime from the West; this is the government of the People's Republic of China, where freedom is a way of life, and protecting the People from harmful ideas is a sacred trust fulfilled lovinggly by a wise, caring, benevolent government. What possible motive could they have for dealing falsely with the Western media?
No, it is obvious that the whole Chinese Internet censorship furor is a coverup and smokescreen used by the American government and their allies at CNN to divert attention away from the hordes of jack-booted thugs in unmarked vans eavesdropping on wiretaps of Americans who google for news of the occupation of Iraq or the vendetta against the great hero Osama Bin Laden.
sigs, as if you care.
Why do you think this is signifcantly different than the laws which have been passed in the United States to censor content on the Internet? Or the routine arrest of peaceful protesters for expressing their views in public in the United States? It isn't. China and the United States have miles to go. As but one example of a political site that has been attempted to be censored by the lawmakers in the United States: Planned Parenthood. Go to a library in some parts of the United States and experience that filter first hand. COPPA ain't an imaginary law. It actually exists. The government of the United States of America is actively trying to suppress expressive content on the Internet today. Did you support the posting of DVD-CCA code? Well, your government did not.
If the U.S. lawmakers want to criticize China, they might learn another expression: Don't throw stones in glass houses.
...why an officially atheistic government would try to ban pornography. What thought process are they going through to determine that it's wrong, even criminal? It seems to me that they'd want to allow it and then use censorship in other countries as an example to their citizens of "how well off they are". Not that there's too much censorship of it in Western countries, but hey, it's China; they could just make it up.
If they copyrighted democracy and Tiananmen Square then they could say they're just blocking unlicensed access to copyrighted material. No censorship at all. That's the modern Western way of doing things at least according to the RIAA and MPAA.
people seem content on having the very same government provide them with many services that they used to pay for. They expect the government to teach their children, manage their retirement, manage their prescription drugs, and some even want it to take care of all their needs.
So, what do you expect? The politicians will have government protect you from what they deem is wrong as you have already giving over so much control to them so far. People are making it the government's business because they don't want the responsibility. Those same damn people are the ones who will lose us our rights unless we can find politicians who understand what a free society truly is. They come at us from the left and the right - that they come from both sides escapes some people
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Heh maybe they meant carnivore. Wonder if he was misquoted or if he was confused.
...we wouldn't have to censor if you didn't allow stuff we don't want our people to see.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Glad to know the fundies running China are up to the task of protecting us from porn, especially of that really depraved Tiennamen sort.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Government should stay as far away from the daily lives of people as possible, The government exists only to protect the INDEVIDUALITY of the person. I do not wish for the government to "help" me with medical care, or with child care, or with censoring information I find objectable, or any other choices. I want the government to keep it's nose out of my bisness all together.
Flip Side:
Govermnet should protect the citizan, giving them equal opportunity to succeed. Government should provide me with healthcare, child care, protection me from objectinal material. The government is for the people, there to protect the comunity.
So what is better, what's more important - the indevidual or comunity - this is what this all boils down to....
So...basically...China says their censorship is modeled on ours. How many people are going to have the little lightbulb go off and realize that is exactly what all these wonderful US crafted laws are about? How many are just going to scream about China trying to deflect blame? Certainly what China is doing is quite a bit worse than what is going on in the western world, but maybe people will see what IS going on in the western world as the path to what China is currently doing.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
We referred to the pics as"..gifs
I am amazed at the number of repetitive articles on slashdot regarding censorship in China. It is an important issue, but it does seem the amount of postings/headlines it receives is much larger than what it deserves. Why don't we see similar amounts of postings on some other worthwhile social agendas? Here are a few suggestions, some of which overlap and in no particular order:
1. universal health care for everyone
2. preventing loss of life in Iraq and in other conflicts around the world.
3. ending world hunger and poverty
4. learning to embrace others, even if they are different
5. affordability of quality education
6. proliferation, continued research and attempted monopolization of WMD
7. reducing death and injury from car accidents
8. improving the environment
9. reducing risk of cancer
10. encouraging healthier lifestyles, like more exercise and eating well
FREE - Java, J2EE and Ajax Audiobooks for Software Developers - www.DeveloperAdvantage.com
Is anybody else completely tired of the way whenever something comes up that the politicos think the public won't like that it instantly involves "pornography" (particularly "child porography") and (these days) terrorism?
Hell, I remember when the pornography card was played back during the PMRC hearings. Anybody remember those? One of the many memorable quotes from Mr. Zappa being:
"While the wife of the Secretary of the Treasury recites "Gonna drive my love inside you" and Senator Gore's wife talks about "Bondage!" and "oral sex at gunpoint" on the CBS Evening News, people in high places work on a tax bill that is so ridiculous, the only way to sneak it through is to keep the public's mind on something else: 'Porn rock'."
I used to think the "I like ice cream, and children like ice cream, do you like ice cream", "umm, no I really don't like ice cream", "WHAT?!?! You HATE children? Why do you hate children?" was funny. Now I just think it's ominously sad as I see the same technique used over and over and over again.
RFC2119
Oh yeah, and I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Have to stop... You got the idea.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You say you want a revolution
Well you know, we all want to change the world
Dr Winston O'Boogie
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Senior Party Leaders Join Battle Against Chinese Censorship.
This idea that the Chinese government is entirely pro-censorship is a bit untrue. There are those within China---even some who are high up the political food chain---who see this as a bad idea.
I wonder how it'll all turn out?
-Tom
"... It should be their fucking parent's job."
Yes, indeed. I can imagine that the parents spend too much time performing the act of reproduction and not teaching their kids how to score a partner, so the kids have to look for some form of immediate gratification that is, so to speak, far from a long term solution.
I once had a signature.
"I learned it by watching you!"
You want free speech, you need to buy your own. No one is stopping you.
Then we can free China through a patent infringement suit!
How ironic would that be.
Hello all:
Three years ago, I was travelling in Beijing, capital of China. While there, I found that the Chinese are living more or less Western-styled capitalistic lives. The everyday Chinese people are just like us: talking/criticizing the PLA, shopping in malls, etc. I was impressed that they even have a mall dedicated to selling products for women. Though I haven't been there yet, I suspect that growing cities like Shang-Hai would be no different than, say, New York and Tokyo.
Let's constrast this with Japan. From my experience with young Japanese, most of them have no idea about their country's involvement during WWII. Their history text books have gaps that would make most of us raise an eyebrow to the least.
My point is this: looking across the ocean, we may exagerate the Chinese government's attempt to control the internet. To understand the big picture, we should look at the situation from both sides. From the Chinese's perspective, the internet is a tool used by foreign powers to incite rebellion within the country. To understand the magnitude of this problem, try to imagine 1.3 billion hungry, jobless Chinese following a small group of ideologically charged "visionaries". What you end up with is a very bloody revout.
China is changing, it is opening up, and it is catching up to our world. Yet, for a country this big, it cannot open up in a short time. Doing so would result in chaos (the dissolution of Soviet Union and its results come to mind) and a huge loss of lives.
Cheers.
B. Pascal
The West has censorship every bit as extreme as China:
In the U.S. among others, there are all kinds of restrictions on when and how you make political speech, and how you pay for it ("Campaign Finance Reform").
In Canada charges are being filed against a newspaper who reprinted the the Mohammed cartoons, and in Sweden an online site that published the Mohammed cartoons was shut down by the government. In Canada a guy was even charged and convicted for running an ad that had nothing but references to the bible.
Most of Europe doesn't allow people to deny the houlocaust happened. And religious groups often get people charged with "hate crimes" for critizing certain religions.
There is political censorship everywhere in the Western world as extreme as China. You might not find it as extreme, but of course you are biased to think that your forms of censorship are OK, and their forms of censorship is bad. This is anti-Chinese bigotry, plain and simple.
It is probably hard for most people to admit, because there is so much propoganda and cultural conditioning for people to support their governments... but most Western governments are every bit as oppressive as the Chinese government. In fact, in some ways nowadays, Chinese people are MORE free than people in the West.
Well... that's danm right. One of the trademark features of states with political dictatorship is to be paternalistic and to treat their citizens as children, instead of grownups, who can make their own decisions.
If the Communist party in China is so eager to model not only censorship on West, they might start it with allowing multi party political system as a start.
Still OT, related to mainland .CN internet censorship and blocking of sites.
Has anyone done any research regarding China blocking Dynamic DNS providers?
You can not even get to the tzo.com website from inside mainland China. I am told the same restrictions apply to DynDNS and other providers.
I assume the theory is because it's relatively EASY to set up a website on dynamic DNS, and you will not need a static IP which is almost impossible in China (without deep pockets anyways).
There seems to be no technical contact to even query for the policy behind the ban.
China is hurting itself here, because dynamic IPs are about the only IPs it has to work with (relative to the demand for fixed IPs anyways).
If anyone has data, I would appreciate it.
technically speaking, the ideas/theories of communist also come from the west. of course the way of chinese government doing things is based on a western model.
Hey, I just saw some deskmonkey on CNBC's business news cooing over the DuPont CEO, who praised Bush's "prioritization of science and math education in his State of the Union speech". The DuNapalmPont CEO's favorite example of "public private partnership for improving education"? His recent meeting in Shanghai with Communist Party Vice Mayor for R&D, running their own government labs. Meanwhile, Bush just cut education funding, while funding any number of religious and political operations.
Fascism is the merger of business and government power, by putting a government face on the corporate body. Communism is the same merger, by ownership of property and operation of business by government. Both are run on propaganda and censorship, usually promoted as education.
--
make install -not war
While I imagine I am headed for -255 troll...People in power write laws, enact regulations, and monkey with the system to remain in power.
Consider redistricting, which should really be called the lottery for those in power. You get to redistrict to ensure you stay in power. What Tom Delay did with redistricting in Texas was not illegal, because the law was on his side. Was it right? Ask someone from each party and the answer is different. Perhaps the Democrats are just mad they did not think of it first, or glad they would not run that far outside the ethical center.
Or what happened at the State of the Union where Cindy Sheehan was arrested. I am not saying I agree or do not with her politics, but look at it from the outside. The President had a citizen arrested, who disagreed with him. That it was a Capital police officer, is a distinction made in the US.
George Washington warned about foreign entanglements, because the compromise our ability to make a stand. If we want the Chinese to change their behavior, then we need to offer them an incentive. Unfortunately, we have become seriously "entangled." China now holds sufficient US currency to bankrupt America. Not the philosophical bankrupt, but the real - worse than 1929 depression kind. Worse, we gave them full trade status because there was money to be made.
Walmart, the nation's largest employer, now imports over 80% of their goods from China and makes up 1% of the Chinese GDP. What do you think they or other industries will tell a President thinking about an embargo or a serious response to China's stand?
I am not suggesting we agree with the Chinese or even remain silent. But, we need to have something tangible or each time we speak out, we sound weaker. The Chinese know we have little affect on their future and find us more a curiosity than an threat. Until we can position ourselves to have real leverage, they have no reason to listen, or even care.
In other words, it's okay for China to block freedom and democracy because the "West" blocks child pornography? Pardon me if I don't see the moral equivalence.
A better comparison would be France and Germany blocking certain Nazi related information. It is a better comparison because the "West" (as a whole) condemns it as well.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia?
This is a beautiful example of the illogic of social relativism. It is popular to say morality is determined by what the current culture believes. Often this works- we have laws against murder because society deems murder "wrong". However, in this case, Chinese society has deemed criticising the government as wrong, while "Western" society deems it "right". Without any underlying framework to judge the two, a social relativist would be forced to accept the Chinese position here as "right".
Do they block eastern block based hackers, phishing sites and spyware? If we had a wall around the US that could do this, would we be complaining? If not where does the line lay? When do we say enough is enough, and does this make us better or worse than china because we do so little. A kid in high school can kill his class because we didn't stop the download of the anarchist cookbook...
Without passing on whether China's claim is true, isn't this yet another really good reason why governments like the USA's shouldn't be allowed to practice Net censorship "for the children"? Doing so gives everyone else an excuse for practicing Net censorship too. The only legitimate position is zero tolerance for Net censorship - not just "oh, you can censor for this but not for that" or "oh, we can censor but you can't" or "oh, private companies can censor with the force of law, but the government won't do it directly". No censorship allowed. None.
The technology is such that there will be thousands, if not millions, of workarounds to penetrate any barriers to access. Just look at the history so far of electronic transmission.
I don't think anyone here is giving credit to the intelligence of people. They are parroting the standard line that evil is all powerful and cannot be overcome.
Get real! The nerds will create gaping holes in the barriers, and as the government moves to plug them up, the nerds will create more. The game will continue indefinitely.
But my money is on the hackers to always be one step ahead. The information will flow regardless of government controls.
Bill
Internet censors you!
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
They have two security plans
Kate Moss security - You won't remember where that site is anyway
and the
Tyra Banks security - Look out for the dolphins
Find coupons in Greeley
I think you got your verb tenses wrong.
a l_Assembly_Resolution_2758
Taiwan was recognized as a soverign nation, until they were effictively sold out by Pres. Jimmy Carter and numerous other world leaders in the name of political expediency in the 1970s. They were expelled from the UN via Resolution 2758, and were 'un-recognized' by the US via the Taiwan Relations Act.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Gener
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Relations_Act
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
They're still studying western ways.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You nearly made me ruin my keyboard.
*NEVER* drink soda and read Slashdot comments at the same time.
The Germans force Google to censor Nazi and body modification sites; the Americans forbid Tracy Lords pornography and censor librarians who want to talk about FBI investigations; the Chinese censor discussions of Falun Gong and Taiwan independence. Everybody censors what they are afraid of. Nothing to see here. It's all good.
As far as domestically, we're told TV channels controlled by Fox News are conservative (or even fair and balanced) while NBC is liberal - NBC, which is owned by the military contractor General Electric. When small groups like the Workers World Party print their newspaper, and have protests against the US sending $1 billion a year in military expenses to Colombia (the only group locally that has them that I know of), the director of the FBI goes before Congress and says "Anarchists and extremist socialist groups--many of which, such as the workers' world party, reclaim the streets, and carnival against capitalism, have an international presence--at times also represent a potential threat in the United States."
There is not much immigration from China to the US. Many Chinese people have moved back to China in the past few decades. I think that says everything there is to say about existing freedom and opportunity.
The kids responds, "From you, Dad. I learned it by watching you."
There are two issues at work here. 1) Social ills -- pornography, scams, "Western influences" which China wants to keep from influencing society in a negative way 2) Criticism of the government, official policies, and official history; pictures of police abusing protesters; support for banned organizations; discussion of political reform; and other content which undermines the current power structure. For the first category, China may have gotten some ideas from the West (banning child porn, "net nanny" software, etc.) but for the second category, this is entirely a home-grown enterprise. After 50 years of very tight control over mass media, Chinese authorities are very afraid they are losing control of the message.
They are a haven for Chinese Spammers, Scammers, Phishers, BotNets, Sweat Shops, cheap knock-off copies of western clothing and a govt thats more oppressive than Stalin was, but they want to filter Google so they aren't "infected" with Western depravities. I wish they had done this televised. I'd like to take notes on how to deliver a line of shit like this with a straight face. Truly a masterful performance...
Atheism and communism has nothing to do with social conservatism! They're all *completely* different things!
I've been to China, and I'd say that they're more conservative there than here! It's considered 'bad' if you have a girlfriend under the age of 21. Everything that has to do with sex is an extremely sensitive area and which must be kept out of the open sphere as much as possible. I told a Rodney Dangefield-joke at a dinner once ("I was so poor growing up, if I wasn't born a boy I'd have nothing to play with") and nobody thought it was funny; they thought it was disgusting.
There are even more examples than this, but I think you get the idea.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Protection of the populace from pronography? So is that how they justify blocking access to Slashdot and to CNN? And yes, they do block these sites; I know from experience. Perhaps they were referring on one of the less-used definitions of the word: "Lurid or sensational material" (source: American History Dictionary). :)
Those who questioned the validity of this claim could not be reached for comment.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
It is all right here. Revolutionary workers unite!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You've never seen goatse?
The US government lets the domestic press editorialize about our human rights violations.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Dad/Western world: "Where did you get this ? Where'd you learn to do this stuff?" Kid/China: "You, alright. I learned it from watching YOU!"
Quantity over quality also applies to the tactics of the people who are ruthlessly pushing intelligent design. If they repeat their arguments enough and get enough media attention, the general public starts thinking that there is a debate about intelligent design versus evolution in the scientific world. Anyone who knows anything about biology knows that there is no "debate"; the basic framework of evolution has withstood the test of time and challenges. But if the intelligent design nuts blabber about it enough, the scientifically challenged can be swayed. In China, same thing; blabber about porno enough and people start thinking they might be ernest.
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
Are we going to get to a stage where liberal-minded Chinese citizens will maintain proxies for US citizens to access content not sanctioned by Uncle Sam, while concerned US citizens do the same to allow the Chinese to access blacklisted content?
What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive...
Seriously, it shouldn't be the government's job to keep kids away from porn. It should be their fucking parent's job.
I'm not sure it needs to be anybody's job to keep kids away from porn. I had plenty of access to porn when I was growing up, and now I'm an upstanding member of my community!
(Slashdot counts as a community, right?)
That's a very articulate post on the failures of communism.
But Marx believed that communism would happen inevitably, that nobody needed to try to make it happen. Lenin was the one who belived that it had to be helped along. ( "We are more proletariat than the proletariat." )
China, you use to be cool!
If they hadn't censored it, I wouldn't have noticed Wikipedia was a harmful pornography website!
I think it is pretty clear that this statement is mainly meant for internal consumption. It is meant to make China look good to the Chinese, because the general Chinese public can't see how much of a lie it is. They can suspect it, but it's hard for them to know the extent of censorship in China.)
Marx, not Lenin, invented the idea of class logic, that proletarians could have a logic all their own which was impervious to criticism from outside their class. Once you let that meme out, Lenin, Stalin, and all the rest of the red butchers were inevitable.
...they're right. The "western culture" (spanning most of the anglophone world and the EU) does censor, and is very much a "pot calling the kettle black".
I'll also go on record as saying they're equally wrong. The only experience that "harms children" is lack of family stability and trust, and/or lack of love. All of the stuff about sex and porn and most of the stuff about watching violence is basically a cultural bee in our bonnet, comparable to Victorians covering up "scandalous" naked table legs. People in 100 years will look back and laugh.
I remember the War on Drugs slogan where marijuana was tagged as being dangerous not because of its own effects, but because it was a "gateway drug", and led to stronger recreational drug use.
Censorship to eliminate pornography makes me think of the same thing. Pornography censorship is a gateway to more severe censorship.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Placing a question mark or any sentence-terminating punctuation inside quotes if a quote is at the end of a sentence, depressingly, is actually the correct thing to do in American English.
In American English, you'd write:
Be sure to go to "http://www.apple.com/."
In British English, you'd write:
Be sure to go to "http://www.apple.com/".
Obviously, the American English convention is very unfortunate if you are doing any kind of quoting of content in which punctuation is not a metacharacter -- otherwise, the reader has no idea whether the period is part of the quotation or not. This directly impacts all kinds of tech writing.
While I'm normally a grammar stickler, I deliberately break this rule. I'm joined by many other people who need to write content in which a period is not a metacharacter. If enough people in the US deliberately use British punctuation, this usage will become official American English.
A number of have started referring to the British English rule as "logical quoting" (as opposed to the illogical quoting used in American English).
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Those are enforced because compelling a minor to strip naked and fuck a dog or whatever is illegal.
On the other hand, a seventeen-year-old sitting around in the nude is legal. Taking a picture, however, is a felony.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Well, you may be looking at this from an American standpoint.
For example, the death penalty is considered by a lot of folks to be an atrocity.
The US makes it a hell of a lot easier for civilians to kill people than most other first-world countries. For example, in Texas, if you spot a sixteen-year-old kid about to spray graffiti on your house at night, you yell "stop" and they ignore you and you feel that it would be risky to use non-lethal force to stop them, you are allowed to kill them on the spot to prevent them from spraying the paint (Texas Penal Code 9.42 allows deadly force to prevent imminent commision of criminal mischief at night). This appalls a lot of folks in other countries.
It's all a matter of what your culture gets you used to accepting.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
"Mr. Liu said the major thrust of the Chinese effort to regulate content on the Web was aimed at preventing the spread of pornography or other content harmful to teenagers and children.
fine, sites like this: http://et.21cn.com/portray/ , this: http://tu.tom.com/list/beauty.html , this: http://www.qihoo.com/site/tietu/index.html ... are totally accessible China sites for Chinese teenagers and children of any age... (yep, they're NOT pornography and harmful content, maybe I'm just too sensitive...)
dear poor blocked http://www.freebsd.org/ you're more harmful to teenagers and children in China...
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