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Reporters Without Borders Internet Annual Report
kratei writes "The BBC is running a report discussing the Reporters Without Borders internet annual report 2006. The RWB study details and decries the rising tide of net censorship and lays the blame squarely on the west as the source for the technology that allows repressive regimes to stifle freedom on the web." From the article: "China's success at censorship means it has effectively produced a "sanitised" version of the internet for its 130 million citizens that regularly go online. The wide-ranging scrutiny also means that it is the biggest jailer of so-called cyber dissidents. RSF estimates that 62 people in China have been jailed for what they said online. "
Western tech may help to censor internet jounalism in some countries, but didn't western tech allow for that medium in the first place? I would hope that they would qualify their blame of western countries with a thank-you to the technology that allows millions/billions of people in repressive regimes to at least access some information, certainly more than they had before hand. thats not to say that the west should strive to censor other coutnries, but it shouldn't be forgotten that far more censorship was possible without the internet exisiting at all than is possible with western censoring-technology and the internet.
China doesn't need the West's help to censor their internet; they build most of the world's computer equipment, they've shipped a person into orbit, and they have nuclear power. They're a big science and technology power and have been for some years. To say that Cisco or Yahoo are helping China to keep tabs on dissidents is true in the narrow sense but in reality the Chinese government is perfectly capable of doing it all themselves.
That said, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to know that American companies are complicit in locking down the Chinese network, but of course we in the U.S. long since traded any moral high ground for profit, when it comes to China; there's just too much money to be made from outsourcing there. Maybe when India gets its manufacturing act together, we can go back to being moralistic about China's repression of dissidents.
What's probably more important than moralizing is to allow more of their students into our universities so that they can experience a more unfettered system. Not that the U.S. is perfect but it is way more open than China's system and the educated elite need to appreciate the value of openness.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Yeah, I forgot. We must first spend years studying the socio-economics of china before we can say it's wrong to throw people in jail for their opinions. How silly of me to forget that.
Isn't a restriction on censorship sofware, censorship in itself?
Can you access the YRO section of /. in China?
I'm not sure if 62 is anywhere near correct when it comes to China jailing internet dissent. Who's to know? China is very secretive and evasive when it comes to releasing numbers, even numbers that most governments take pretty seriously.
And who cares about whether the "jailable offense" is on the internet, or in a newspaper, or in a diary? If the Chinese government thinks a citizen has the word "democracy" (for example) in their head, there is a good chance they can just lock them up, throw away the key, and nobody will ever know.
Or not. It's impossible for anyone outside of the "Inner Party" to know what's really going on. And even Western governments have a tendency to say things that are a little... off... of the real truth...
While as a Westerner I may be rather disturbed by the "sacrifices for the greater good" tone of the parent post, I think it's good to hear the other side of the story. Mod parent up.
While I may strongly disagree with asking people to give up freedom so that a government structure can maintain "stability", the parent also has a point that while there are large numbers of citizens living long, happy lives, the situation isn't black and white (there is no "great evil", as the parent put it. Things are more complicated than that, despite what certain American politicians might have you believe.)
That said, I myself believe that humans, on the whole, need and desire the freedom to live without someone else having power over their lives. I'm not saying that current Western ideals are all that great, but they're definitely a step in the right direction, and I strongly disagree with the power the Chinese government has and exerts.
Yes, math is difficult. China has a population of 1.3 billion people.
Nevertheless, the total number of incarcerated people in the US ("the land of the free") is still higher, in absolute terms, than in China. That is also a measure of freedom.