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China's New Internet Plan
eldavojohn writes "The internet in China is diverging rapidly from the state that the rest of the world enjoys it. Recent news of China's leader, Hu Jintao, has revealed a strategy to distort it even further. Jintao is tackling the issue his Communist party is having with the youth of China that are too young to remember Chairman Mao and the fanaticism the populace had for him. A strategy he is proposing is 'cleaning up' China's internet & lacing it with a little propaganda like the need to 'Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere' online. The meeting notes also declared that 'Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance.'"
I mean, aside of the (probable) cutting off of non-pro-China webpages that we already have? I mean, do I care whether I get corporate or party spam?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The parallels to the Olympics of 1936 are kind of eerie -- then it was Hitler attempting to show off German might and industry, his neat and orderly Aryan society, and the superiority of the German race. Perhaps this is not as sinister, but it is certainly disturbing.
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I do not buy anything made in China. Its not easy to find out what parts of a laptop of computer are made in China, so my plan isn't foolproof, but it's what I know that I can do to stop support for the Chinese government.
What else can people do? Ideas?
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This sounds like every other government/corporate plan to me so it's governance/business as usual. When will goverments and corps realize that the internet doesn't belong to them. It belongs to the users we just allow them to use it and profit from it if we so desire. If you can't compete on your own merits as a company, ideology, or political system this is not the place for you.
FG
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Jintao is behind this?
Somebody call Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker!
I know it's not really what the TFB is about, but does anyone have any tech details about the Great Firewall of China? How does it work, is it some kind of giant NAT? Are there blacklist-based IP filtering, real-time content filtering? Are ISPs routes set up so that foreign IPs can only be reached via a few select routers that do the censoring?
Global warming is a cube.
"Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere"
"Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance"
"Internet cultural units must conscientiously take on the responsibility of encouraging development of a system of core socialist values"
Boy, does that Politburo know how to turn a phrase. I know I'm inspired.
And what, exactly, is an "Internet cultural unit"?
#!
In China the communist party wants to woo another generation with the story of how the revolution was made. Why cant they hire the guy who wrote "How StarWars was made" to write another book "How the Revolution was made".? If there is one thing Chinese communists really like it would be Force, I guess.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
US announced sweeping controls of radiowaves whereby an oligarchy of a dozen media companies will promptly fire anyone who contradicts the official culture by quoting a best selling rap singer.
Sections: The Evils of Capitalism; China Rules!!!!11one; Sweatshops; and YRO (or lack thereof).
Now that China is rapidly transforming into a market economy, what Marxism is there to speak of? Or maybe the good chairman wishes to enlighted the Chinese youth of the crimes of communism in China and atrocities committed by his predecessors? It would be a great lesson in how a fundamentally flawed ideology can retard a nation with great potential for decades and decades.
Let the bureaucrats take over the country again. The Chinese economy will tank and we'll get our jobs back.
Seriously, the reason our economy and technology developed so well was because of our basic freedom. The Soviet Union could not compete with us because of their top down economic system. The Chinese can compete because there is almost no regulation of businesses. It's kind of like the wild wild west. On the other hand, when the bureaucrats clamp down, they'll kill the goose that laid their golden egg. There's no way they can clamp down just on the stuff they want to stifle. They'll stifle everything and, if there's one thing an economy needs, it is the free flow of information.
do not fear chinese. They are no different than anybody else.
Yes they are. They know Kung Fu.
It is controlled by people who are NO different than Mao and unlike in America or nearly any other country, they can not be removed.
Right -- unlike in America...just ask Karl Rove and Wouble-You Bush.
You're talking about a country where an elected leader can be sacked for getting head, but an unelected leader can't be prised from the grip of power with a shoe-horn made of righteous indignation millions strong.
Are you sure the contrast is as stark as you're suggesting?
(NB: Note to American intelligence officials: don't take my comment the wrong way. I love America! Just the other day a crazed Muslim was all like, "Don't you hate America?" and I was like, "No sir, it's all that and don't let me hear diff'rent.)
These stories are free but worth money.
Cuz the average American wins with global libertarian free trade !!!
Doesn't the Internet route around damage?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
That communism isn't about competition. Communism is about eliminating all competing ideas and asserting absolute control over every aspect of life. The communist leaders understand perfectly well about the "competition of ideas". They also know they can't compete because communism is a failed ideology. Thusly they seek to control access to information and keep their people in the dark. It's typical totalitarianism.
(To the commie trolls: Yes, I KNOW that's not how communism and socialism is supposed to work, I've read both Marx and Mao. The problem is that in practice it cannot possibly work the way it's designers envisioned it because they didn't take human nature into account.)
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
I guess what china really needs is to hire rupert murdoch to assist them in their propaganda efforts.
he's been so successful at it he's managed to pull even other organizations to the right. before his day i never heard such hyperbole from cnn as a border fence being called "mexico's insistance on interfering with our national security".
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China and Cuba, like the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, have nothing to do with socialism. They are state capitalist regimes. We support the struggles of workers in these countries against the bureaucratic ruling class.
You help them best by buying their stuff. When the chinese gets richer, they will get more power and demand more rights, freedom and democracy.
All trade blockades suck in opening up countries. Look at cuba. Look at iraq pre 2003 invasion. The only people suffering if you do not buy chinese products is the chinese labourers.
Support the people in china by buying their stuff. You get cheap stuff and they get good salaries, compared to unemployment or small-scale farming. Its a win-win situation for everyone except the chinese government in the long run.
... "how long before we see this in America?" post.
A: Who is the Chinese President?
C: Yes.
A: Who?
C: I told you.
A: When?
C: Wen is the Premier.
A: When is the Premier what?
C: The Premier of China.
A: Who is the Premier?
C: No, Hu is the President!
A: That's what I wanna know!
and so on...
And have the party cadres live like the proletarians? I am a hardline libertarian myself, but I think even Marx would be quite disturbed to see how these revolutions have gone. At least the old regimes had honesty. The ruling class was not part of the rest of society. Funny thing is that at least in Europe, you were probably in real terms freer in the 18th or 19th centuries than you are today by a pretty wide margin. "Advanced socialist society" is a nice way of saying "we think the cost of scientific advancement is that we must regulate you from cradle to grave."
Here are a few keywords that the Great Firewall will keep the sensitive citizens of China from having to think about:
- Freedom
- Human rights
- Liberty
- Representative government
- Elections
- More than one political party
- Freedom of speech
- Freedom of religion
- Freedom to assemble
- Freedom of the press
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Wow, funny the first time...retarded from here on out! Add another line to the "automatically ignore" (ie: back of my head) list, since /. doesn't freaking have one...
Jintao is tackling the issue his Communist party is having with the youth of China that are too young to remember Chairman Mao and the fanaticism the populace had for him.
Yes, well popularity does tend to fade with the restriction of basic freedoms, jailed/killed political dissidents and persecution of one's religious beliefs!
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Less so for a country. There are many factors that can influence the economy, so it's unlikely that any boycott will affect a nation's economy to a degree where the government will notice. And even if they do, they are more likely to use it as propaganda against the US rather than change their policies (ie: Cuba or Burma). I also hurts citizens who have (especially in the case of China) absolutely nothing to do with their government's policies. This is the equivalent of a Muslim country boycotting Google over the actions of the US government.
There has never been a case where economic sanctions alone have brought down a repressive regime. While many claim that this was true in South Africa, the collapse of Apartheid had more to do with the ending of the Cold War and the subsequent withdrawal of US support.
Same kind of people everywhere. Bunch of retarded morons that are relics of cold war age, struggling to FORCE the youth to live like they did.
They need to die off fast so that the new ages can have a good chance.
Read radical news here
2) Communists finally discovering that totalitarianism needs proper planning/resources to be implemented right on the internet. New age of confrontation begins, but frankly I think the commies will lose this one. When the main battlefields are lost to censorship, Chinese youth will be wondering why they can't access general information websites.
This said, I think wikipedia and other places should begin investigating serious methods of discovering government tampering (as opposed to the lone propagandist). Would it be ok to solicit the help of our intelligence agencies, me wonders?
Actually, the communists tried to outlaw kung fu.
They found out that they couldn't do so with complete effectiveness, so they tried to make it into more of a sport - competitve wu shu in which the actual martial aspects were downplayed and basically removed.
The main reason most kung fu that still exists actually still exists is because the teachers either went underground or were out of the country at the time.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
I think China, if they want to remain Communist, should shut down their internet all together. Perhaps they should also limit computer usage rights to government, science, and the commercial business zones. Then, they would have total control over the young people once again, educating them only with propaganda filled text books and nothing else. People could also be imprisoned for even hinting at something that the government does not consider patriotic. Personal websites may be banned and consolidated into one big Facebook style website with strict controls. Imagine being forced to make pro Communist remarks through out your blog. Perhaps there will even be a quota for internet users... something like - "you must say something good about the PRC or Hu every 3 days in order to keep your PatriotBook website." The result of painful restriction would also work in favor of the government, as fewer people will be inclined to use it. Both ways they win... and soon, provided they decide to stay connected with the world, they will own most of the internet and be able to force their will on everyone. FUD is fun!
What's funny is that if you take out the specific references to Marx and China, this reads almost like a press release from the Democratic National Committee.
And not only are we selling these clowns the rope they'll use to hang us with ( it's a quote ), we're building the factories for them to make it in. Does anybody else feel even slightly nervous about outsourcing all our industries to them ?
True. China/Cuba and other countries that call themself communist, aren't really communist, they are actually blasphemies, not communist. Communism doesn't exist.
But nowaday in China, no ordinary people pay any attention to these kind of useless propaganda any more. (Students may have to memorize this thing so they can pass the exams, but I can ensure you it has zero impact on their mental state otherwise, as it hasn't had any on mine when I was a student there in 1980's.)
I don't think I'm a commie troll, but I think that at least part of your objection applies to capitalist systems as well.
If I were playing devil's advocate I might say "capitalism cannot possibly work the way its designers envisioned because they didn't take corporate nature into account." For example, there is a tendency in corporocracy to treat *everything as a transaction and *everything as property (see for example "intellectual property", the privatization of drinking water, etc).
I think the fact that corporations have co-opted our ostensibly democratic government so thoroughly is almost as serious an indictment of capitalism as the corrupted Party's betrayal of basic democratic principles in the Reddish parts of the world.
Just thinking aloud, really.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Yeah? We have Chuck Norris!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
and now they have a repressive regime that stamps on anything that flowers within their people's minds.
oh but thats allright !!! - they had a civilization when others had not, we can let the fact that current geezers running the country stamping on youth there. it is totally acceptable.
if you know a LITTLE bit of history, and the "civilization" you are talking about, youd know that chinese are being MADE live approximately in the SAME condition that they were being made to live in 3000 years ago. only change there is now, more technology. Otherwise everything's the same.
Read radical news here
How about all of you mind your own business, let the Chinese handle their own affairs, and shut the Fuck up!
Request denied.
The Chinese would love to "handle their own affairs", as you put it, but they happen to be living under a dictatorship that murdered about 70 million of them in the 1950's and 60's, and still tosses dissidents into jail. If the Chinese were free to choose their leaders, you'd have a point, but they don't, so you're full of shit.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Communism doesn't exist.
Yet.
US announced sweeping controls of radiowaves whereby an oligarchy of a dozen media companies will promptly fire anyone who contradicts the official culture by quoting a best selling rap singer.
If you really can't see the difference, then I'm not sure what to say to you.
P.J. O'Rourke is a bit harsh (I would choose a different last word for the quote) but he's pithy:
"Life is full of ironies for the stupid".
You should get your facts straight on what happened during the Great Leap Forward instead of portraying the Chinese government as a regime of mass murderers. First thing you should do is not clump the Cultural Revolution and the GLF into one single event. Second thing you should do is realize is that the Cultural Revolution wasn't entirely government led, and that without the support from the populace, it wouldn't have been nearly so bad. Third thing that you should realize is that the government didn't exactly kill most of these people because they wanted to, it was a result of a poorly managed beauracracy that didn't have the capability or the insight to handle the famine.
It's fine if you want to criticize the government for their draconian laws and treatment of political dissidents. And it's fine if you want to criticize the government for it's poor execution. But please don't clump all the faults of a mismanaged government with the faults of a misguided government philosophy.
I mean, aside of the (probable) cutting off of non-pro-China webpages that we already have? I mean, do I care whether I get corporate or party spam?
You can filter corporate spam.
If you try and filter Party spam, you get a trip to the pokey where mean men with big blunt objects remind you why you love to read the Party emails so much.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Suddenly Net Neutrality feels like small potatoes...
I see lots of Chinese in Second Life these days and they're in world to talk, exchange ideas, and get information about the rest of the world because the SL grid is outside of censor controls. Short of blocking SL right out, or co-oping Linden Labs to parse every chat/IM/and image I don't see this changing anytime soon. This isn't just special to SL, I'm sure many of the international MMO's and Metaverses that Chinese access by pass censorship as well.
I also think the common person there is about fed up with this crap. Did anyone see the news today about the huge wave of forced abortions in one of the provinces that they government mandated in order to preserve birth quotas? Pretty much anyone that was pregnant and had any kind of discrepancy in what's allowed with a pregnancy was hauled in and give shots that aborted the fetus (even in some cases 9 months along!). ref, NPR story the morning of April 23, 2007.
Pretty screwed up if you ask me.
By censoring the internet, China is censoring innovation. The only reason the West has exploded with innovation in the last decade or so is solely because of the absolute freedom to exchange ideas on the internet: both on a cultural level and a technical level.
Communist China will find out the hard way that stifling communication will only stifle their economic growth. They've bended over the past few decades to nascent capitalism because they couldn't deny its effectiveness. They will soon find out that they need to open up the internet too in order to let their society grow.
China is moving forward, even though it seems like a snail's pace to the West. However, they're getting it, just very slowly.
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Yeah, but when we Europeans got around to catching up, boy did we catch up.
And stay there. Refer to the past 600 years of European history. Where was their great civilization then? In chronic decline.
Past glory is no justification for present infamy.
I would say, this is nice news, just don't distort this. Let's take a look and see what comes out of that. I think it is unprecedented attempt.
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What are you even talking about? Is it something special about the land? Does the countryside get insta-worse when you cross the border into Canada? Did Hawaii get prettier when it was granted statehood? Or do you just love the political geography? The shape of the coastline?
You say you love the people... you do realize that they're responsible for their government, right? So is that a general "I love all people", or is that more of a jingoistic and/or arbitrary "I love Americans"?
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
hey wasnt jintao the name of the villian in that movie with jackie chan and the black dude...
Now here's one iPoddy site! iPod Range
I wish I could put a <blink> tag in there.
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
That's NOT for you to say! Typical arrogant attitude - YOU know best and everyone else is too stupid - even if it's their own country!
really, fuck china. who cares what their new internet plan is? what, a better way to make sure no one in your country learns what a bunch of government fucktards are controlling your lives? what a bunch of slimy freaks. they *really* torture their people, not the pansy torture we do here in the US.
the poor, oppressed minority from the embattled capitalist society....
oh wait, china makes all the @#$ that capitalist societies sell...
the paralells are only 'eerie' if you never studied history (too busy studying algorithms to bother with that 'fluff' right?)
New Google ads for China:
Cheap Car Insurance
Remember our Communist Utopia
And save 100's!
20% off Nike Shoes
Buy direct from the factory
Uncle Mao is watching
Chinese Singles
See hundreds of photos
No capitalists dogs
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Your quest to avoid Chinese-made goods is pointless, unless you plan on going off-grid and not buying any manufactured goods at all. Even if you try to buy stuff "Made in the USA" or anywhere else, it is likely to contain some material made in China. When it comes to electronics, your quest is completely quixodic - there are probably hundreds of parts and materials contained in your device that were made in China.
I laughed, but please note - it's spelled "Turing", not "Touring"
'Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere' online. The meeting notes also declared that 'Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance.'
The guiding status of Marxism and Chairman Mao? The very same Chairman Mao who said:
[...]
Yeah. That's still a guiding a principle. Communism is dead in China. It died with Deng Xiaopeng, when he declared "To be rich is glorious." Mao is a t-shirt. Mao is an cigarette lighter. Mao is a brand. Chairman Mao's visage now competes with the visage of another old man with a title that was fond of red, Colonel Sanders. The Chinese Communisty Party's name is an anachornism. They're no longer communist. They're no longer socialist. They're just another the run of a mill totalitarian regime.
I'm sure Hu's plans will meet with smashing success. The prolitariate will get right on it, right after they finish paying for their gucci bag.
Which is why correct propaganda guidance is important, without correct propaganda guidance, it would be easy for the wrong facts to be reported and the wrong things to be said. Even worse than incorrect propaganda is marginally correct propaganda, where it is not clear who we should punish - or how much to punish. It is very hard here in the communications office...
....it evolved.
Our understanding of capitalism is akin to our understanding of psychology or sociology, both of which are disciplines which study pre-existing facets of the human experience.
This is why a Nobel prize is given for economics, because the process of discovery is every bit as real for it as it is for chemistry, medicine or physics.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Seriously, there is nothing new with this talk. Those are just political talks. Such talks are regularly given in China.
...whoah...
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
You should get your facts straight
I've got my facts straight, sunshine. Mao killed tens of millions more Chinese than Tojo ever did.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That's NOT for you to say!
It's for ANYONE to say. The government of China is a corrupt, murderous kleptocracy, and the Chinese people deserve to bring the Red Dynasty to justice.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The present internet policy of Chinese leader Hu Jintao is anti-business, anti-progressive and will retard the gigantic technological progress which the Chinese have made during the past couple of decades because it will stifle creativity and innovation. Information, communication and networking are the engines which power creativity and innovation and Jintao's meddling in search engines and internet usage of its citizen will effectively run these engines to the ground and possibly cause the Chinese to fail like the Soviets did. Ikey http://www.ezymoneyinfo.com/fast
The creator of $100,000 monthly for life system. http://www.secret33.com/home-based-business-progr
"The internet in China is diverging rapidly from the state that the rest of the world enjoys it."
How about: The Chinese "internet" becomes less and less like the rest of the world's internet every day.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
What we need is some sort of method to bombard china with wireless access points. Or surround the country with wireless towers so the people can get around having to use China ISP's to access the internet. I just can't believe that the US and other govt's don't protest their restrictions on freedom more.
memes from http://dis.4chan.org/prog/
yeah, it's full of shit.
First the "Gang of Four" now the "Gang of Crookes" http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?threshold=-1&m ode=thread&commentsort=0
Maybe the characters in BC suing the whole Internet intend only to get some IP numbers out of google, yahoo, Wikipedia, to prove that they can do the same to Chinese dissidents. That would give them plenty of business. And make this plan a reality.