Chinese, U.S. Condemn Censorship

More reactions both at home and abroad to the censorship issue. picaro writes "According to the BBC, 'party elders' in China released an open letter decrying the current state of censorship in China, and suggesting that 'history demonstrates that only a totalitarian system needs news censorship, out of the delusion that it can keep the public locked in ignorance.'" LWATCDR writes "The US government is upset over restrictions of freedom of speech on the Internet. The United States, has 'very serious concerns' about the protection of privacy and data throughout the Internet globally, and in particular, some of the recent cases raised in China."

Comments

Let Me Get This Straight:

[aquatone282]

If China censors free speech, that's bad.

But if fundamentalist religious zealots threaten us with violence for exercising free speech, we're okay with that.

Seriously - WTF?

Re:Let Me Get This Straight:

[omgwtfroflbbqwasd]

Ya know, there's something that everyone born with the right to free speech seems to have forgotten lately..

Just because you can say it doesn't mean there aren't consequenses from saying it! To think that someone can stand on their soapbox and rant on about something that infuriates others and not have their ass kicked shows a severe lack of common sense.

That said, there's definitely room for tolerance of conflicting opinions, views, etc. in our world. But don't expect everyone to act that way.

Re:Let Me Get This Straight:

[lbrandy]

Just because you can say it doesn't mean there aren't consequenses from saying it!

This is such a god damm strawman argument and I am so sick and tired of it. People who say that freedom of speech and of the press are important values (like the GP) aren't saying that speech should be free from consequences. However consequences is defined in a very particular way. When people, correctly, say that there are "consequences" to speech, they aren't talking about bombings, riots, murder, and all that bullshit. Stop equating some doofus at some university for getting himself kicked out because he posts stuff on the internet (a legal consequence), with people who riot in the streets, burn buildings, cause violence, kill each other, and threaten to kill the people who said stuff they disagree with half a world away.

Muslims, including many moderates, feel that a paper should not be allowed to insult their religion. That is the very definition of a violation of free speech. Threatening to kill Danish citizens is not a "consequence" of freedom of speech. Pissing someone off doesn't give them the right to burn shit, and kill people. That is not a valid "consequence" of speech.

Stunning.

[Chris Burke]

Now "Party Elders" really means "former party officials", so this isn't indicating change from the inside. Still a stunning statement. The close ties of the people signing the letter to Mao seems significant... Though the cynical part of me notes that at least two of them were explicitly propagandists, implying this may simply be more of the same (but to what purpose, I don't know). Yet the statement "only a totalitarian system needs news censorship" is one of those things that is so true it doesn't matter who says it.

...but they'll gladly take billions from China

[Serveert]

The day those in government stop accepting Chinese money to fund our historic spending is the day we can start taking our government seriously when it makes value judgements against China.

If they're so evil, stop accepting the money, it's really simple

Re:Hypocrits

[aeoo]

Hypocritical though they may be, their remarks in this case are wholesome and worth paying attention to.

I say we should be willing to forgive some degree of hypocricy, in ourselves and in others, if we want to make progress. That doesn't make hypocricy OK, but acknowledging that we are not perfect is a step in the right direction. A hypocrite needs a way to move forward. It's simply insane to demand that all hypocricy stop at once. If you have ever tried to abandon hypocricy in your own life you will know how insanely hard (or impossible, in some cases) it is. It requires no less than Saintly/Noble wisdom. Moral improvements can come in small increments and we shouldn't set the bar so high as to make it impossible. Hypocricy is bad, but any movement in the right direction should be encouraged.

Sometimes the person screaming "Hypocrits!" is the one who is the biggest hypocrit of the bunch. I'm not saying you are like that, mind.

All of the above is just my opinion. :)

Re:Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2005

[A beautiful mind]

I wouldn't put too much faith into that list.

There is a reason why the USA slipped of course and ranks at 44th place, but abuses of press get a lot more press if it happens in the USA. The only way to know about these abuses is more or less the same mechanism that the report is criticizing.

Take for example Hungary, my home country at the 12th place. Now, around 80-90% of the media here is owned by ex-communist leaders who transferred their political power into economic one. That makes for a pretty biased press. I'm not sure if I would take the USA's press over what we have here, but I'd take the UK's press any day (especially the beeb) and they got the 24th place while Hungary is 12 places higher.

This freedom of press report should be taken with a pinch of salt. I'm no expert on press in most of the world, but based on how it represents local press I have to conclude it to be pretty inaccurate.

exactly

[circletimessquare]

many say the prophet mohammed cartoons were a direct provocation of muslim sensibilities. and they would be correct. and equally true is that many muslims are rightfully deeply insulted by the cartoons... but most of them they stew in their anger in silence, or wage peacful protests. and some say the western media only focuses on the most violent of reactions. there is some truth to this too.

however, the problem is that, even with all of these mitigations, there is still a worrisome, large segment of the muslim world that thinks their reaction, violence, is appropriate. in other words...
1. the muslims were provoked: true
2. most muslims react peacefully and appropriately: true
3. western media shows a disproportionate amount of violent reaction: true

and yet, after all of those mitigations, there still really are a lot of muslims, a disporportionately, worrying large amount, who reacted with violence. and this points to a real problem in the muslim world, that haters of the west, and apologists for the muslim world, or anyone else for that matter, would be foolish to think they can ignore as a serious issue.

Re:exactly

[Grishnakh]

First of all, there was a very small percentage of muslims who reacted violently.

Small percentage? There's thousands of Muslims rioting and attacking embassies. If it were a few small groups of extremists, that'd be one thing. But popularly-supported riots with thousands of people is another thing entirely. It's pretty obvious that the behavior of these violent Muslims is fairly representative of the feelings of the majority.

You can't call them "a few extremists" any more when there's thousands of them crowding the streets.

Second, You are leaving out the political/cultural context. The muslims have been experienced a lot of suffering under colonial occupation.

Tough shit. Honestly, I really don't care any more. The Europeans haven't had control of the middle eastern countries for almost a century now; no one in those violent crowds was alive when there were any colonies. This is like the excuse that some black people in the US give for having atrocious behavior, that their distant ancestors were slaves. Sorry, it's not 1850 any more; it's time to join the rest of society and stop playing the oppression card. Even worse, the US has never had any colonies, so that argument really doesn't apply to the country they all hate the most.

I've been rabidly anti-Republican since the Bush/Gore election, but any sympathy I ever had for Muslims is gone now. We should pull out of these backwards, hellhole countries and leave them to their own devices.

Re:exactly

[kbahey]

First of all, there was a very small percentage of muslims who reacted violently.

Small percentage? There's thousands of Muslims rioting and attacking embassies. If it were a few small groups of extremists, that'd be one thing. But popularly-supported riots with thousands of people is another thing entirely. It's pretty obvious that the behavior of these violent Muslims is fairly representative of the feelings of the majority.

You can't call them "a few extremists" any more when there's thousands of them crowding the streets.

Let us do some math.

Assuming that there were demonstrations in 10 countries, and there were 2,000 people in each demonstration, this makes up for 20,000 Muslims involved.

I am in a generous mood, so let us say 5,000 in each demonstration, in 20 countries. Total is 100,000 Muslims then. Mind you not all of these were violent, nor involved property damage. The most notable torching of embassies was in Lebanon and Syria, perhaps a couple of others.

Now, how much is 100,000 in the total population of Muslims worldwide which is estimated at 1.2 billion or more? This is 0.008% of the total.

Even if we assume that there are 1,200,000 Muslims involved, this is still 0.01%.

Negligible for sure.

You can read an alternative view in some thoughts on the prophet Muhammad cartoons controversy.

Second, You are leaving out the political/cultural context. The muslims have been experienced a lot of suffering under colonial occupation.

Tough shit. Honestly, I really don't care any more. The Europeans haven't had control of the middle eastern countries for almost a century now; no one in those violent crowds was alive when there were any colonies. This is like the excuse that some black people in the US give for having atrocious behavior, that their distant ancestors were slaves. Sorry, it's not 1850 any more; it's time to join the rest of society and stop playing the oppression card. Even worse, the US has never had any colonies, so that argument really doesn't apply to the country they all hate the most.

You have a point here about the victimization complex, and I agree with it.

On the other hand, if it not have been for the two recent invasions of Muslim countries, this argument would have been stronger.

I've been rabidly anti-Republican since the Bush/Gore election, but any sympathy I ever had for Muslims is gone now.

Too bad that you sympathy is gone because of some choice footage in the media that leaves a lot of background and context.

By the same token, the rest of the world solely judges the USA from what they see from Hollywood and TV shows, as well as its actions (foreign policy and military). This is unfair, but it is the sore thumb sticking out. Judging should be based on a deeper multi-facted analysis.

We should pull out of these backwards, hellhole countries and leave them to their own devices.

Good idea. Intervention was wrong in the first place. But it is not going to happen, since there is so much at stake (oil, geo-politics, ...etc.)

Re:Hypocrits

[amliebsch]

Oh wait. It is.

No, it is not. "Censorship" would be actually preventing or punishing display and distribution of said cartoon. Expressing disapproval of someone else's speech is itself a subset of free speech (not that the Government technically has First Amendment rights, but the principal applies.)

Re:Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2005

[etymxris]

Freedom of speech is not the same as a right to hide sources. I don't think "freedom from divulging sources engaged in illegal activities" really counts as freedom of speech. Sure you can say anything you want, but that doesn't necessarily give you the right to hide illegal activities.

The people making this report have a different idea of what free press is than here. Many of those countries at the top would jail anyone who ran a Nazi or otherwise racist publication. In the US, you have the right to free speech not just when it's popular, but even if it's not.

Strange

[Arwing]

It's strange for you guys to think that China(or Chinese) has a single mind. Or even the Chinese government is somehow unified under the same ideology and the whole nation is being ruled by one central government.
What you don't hear about is the riots in the countryside and local government officials (mostly even more corrupted than the central officials) gathering warlord-like power and basically dickslap the orders/directives from the central government.
Chinese central government is not as strong as most people think and they really don't have the ability to control the nation as a whole anymore. Most of the resources have been focused on developing certain areas (major cities, and costal trading zones), and most people outside of those area are not recieving any benefit from the development. If you know Chinese history, you can say that history is repeating itself(separation to unity to separation again). When the difference between country and the city reaches a critical point, there will either be 1)major riot that effects the whole nation (making the Tiananmen Crisis looking like a child's play) or 2)China in a desperate move trying to shift the nations attention by starting something big (Military action against Taiwan/Pick a fight against someone like Japan) and use the nationalism it has been developing as a tool to save its own ass.

Re:Crock O' Shite

[jcr]

The U.S. is as concerned about "privacy rights" as casinos are in letting you win.

I believe you're confusing the government with the country.

-jcr