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85% of Chinese Citizens Like Internet Censorship
cynagh0st writes "A Pew Internet & American Life Project report indicates that of an overwhelming majority of Chinese people that believed the Internet should be 'managed or controlled,' 85% want the government to do this managing. This is resulting from surveys on Internet use over the last seven years in China. 'The survey findings discussed here, drawn from a broad-based sample of urban Chinese Internet users and non-users alike, indicate a degree of comfort and even approval of the notion that the government authorities should control and manage the content available on the Internet.' The report goes further into describing the divide in perspective between China and Western Nations on the matter and discusses the PRC's justifications for Internet control."
are in jail
Look, a censored survey!
85% Chinese is afraid of the government.
If I were living in China, I'd be wary (and probably afraid) of speaking out against gov't censorship and control of the Internet.
You mean people that spend all their life being managed and controlled want the internet to be managed and controlled?
I'm shocked I tells ya, shocked~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How did they perform this survey? I would have a feeling that the majority of people in China are in three or more similar categories:
1. Afraid to answer anything "anonymously" as they know better.
2. Afraid to answer anything other than what they think the State wants them to say (see #1).
3. Are so ingrained in the sheep mentality that they just don't know any better.
4. Are just like Americans and don't really care but don't lie about it.
I wonder how many no votes were censored.
For the common good.
...or another ostensible democracy, and asked the same question, I wonder what percentage would say "yes" here as well?
I think it might me much higher than most Slashdotters would believe.
So when the central government sanctioned and vetted Chinese Academy of Social Sciences comes round to ask if you like the government to censor your communications....
...how do you reply?
Don't get the answer wrong now will you.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I think we all like some censorship. I would like to avoid ever hearing about or seeing child porn and would not like my children to have access to easy recipes for explosives and drugs. (Access to scientific materials is legitimate and should be encouraged, and if they can find out how to make explosives and drugs from that, it's probably not a bad thing.)
technical writing / development
When people are raised in a certain way, they think a certain way. Often, children in abusive households become abusive themselves...
...
so... what about children raised in a red china communism 'I love the government' household?
To add to that problem, how can 85% of chinese vote for an option they've never experienced - if they are living 'well' enough, by their standards, and don't know differently, then why would they change?
I'd go as far to say that 99.99% of humanity thinks that censorship is a good thing as long as they get to pick what is censored from the rest.
Everyone wants the government to be their censorship tool. The government will happily censor stuff. It's just various groups want different things censored and want to be allowed to view their chosen content.
it's not enough to justify the infringement of a human right.
There is no majority large enough that stripping even one person of their rights against their will is justified.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
In a repressive government people will public speak party lines, most of them say it so much they start to beleave it. So the stats are not that unbeleavable. But I am sure if you can find a non-repressive government I bet you will still find a good number of people pro-censorship. Just as long as it is blocking information they don't want to hear.
Even on Liberal anti-censorship slashdot. Oposing view points are often quickly modded down just because people don't want agree with it or beleave it to be true. While it is not censorship in true sience of the word, it is a way for the moderators to say Hey I don't want people reading this, and if they do I don't want them to think it is a valad argument.
People are humans and humans feel threntoned by different ideas then their own, it doesn't matter if you have just a GED or a PHD you will feel threantoned by different ideas. When people feel threntoned they will try to move to higher powers to prevent the threat.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If there was a poll among Americans asking if they felt that terrorism needed to be "managed or controlled" and if they wanted the government to do this managing, I bet the numbers would be similarly high. People aren't magically different across the globe. As long as the average individual isn't too badly off, they tend towards maintaining the status quo. In China this apparently gets translated to "I'm happy now. An influx of radical new ideas may upset this happiness. I'd rather things stay the way they are. The government needs to protect me from this." In the US this is "I'm happy now. An influx of radical terrorists may upset this happiness. I'd rather things stay the way they are. The government needs to protect me from this." You can substitute the fear du jour from almost any point in modern history with similar results.
it also is the question your asked and who asks it.
Take voting in the DNC primary, by all accounts and polls one candidate should be getting even more votes than they are getting yet once behind the privacy of the voting booth they don't get them.
Some questions make people uncomfortable whether their freedom is in jeopardy or not. It is also instinctive in some people to give the answer that they believe the questioner wants regardless if its a true one.
While I do agree China is a special case I have seen friends answer complete strangers in what I knew wasn't what they believed but instead what they wanted the questioner to believe.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
How many people in Europe and the US want the net to be censored?
Including child pornography, illegal material, the anarchist cookbook, DeCSS, Nazi propaganda sites, etc?
The level of censorship in China is obviously leaps and bounds beyond anything else in the world, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. but I think that people overestimate the meaning of free speech to the average citizen. As long as it doesn't bother them, most people don't have any problems whatsoever when extremists, deviants, weirdos, and the like are censored, as long as it doesn't directly concern them and the stuff they're interested.
The majority of people in China are not interested in politics, both traditionally, and because it's been a bad idea to be involved in politics for the last 50 years. So if they don't read Dalai Lama's speeches, Japanese version of history, or Germany's take on political freedom in China, they don't particularly care, as they're not interested in it in the first place.
Even here, people clap happily as the FBI and similar agencies in Europe freely read our emails, search our computers, confiscate hardware, all in the name of counter-terrorism. Make a Pew poll in Europe and let's see how many average people have a problem with this?
The situation in China is obviously far worse, but instead of patting ourselves on the back and going on about evil Chinese and how much better we are, it would be wise to draw some parallels.
I live in a post-communist country and I remember the communism very well. Most people in the Czech Republic, before the fall of communism, would probably answer "yes, we agree with the goverment" in any poll, regardless of the question, if they just weren't absolutely sure that the authorities wouldn't know their answer. Because free expression of opinion, in such a country, may mean anything from financial loss to death.
SHE does throw dice.
Question 1. Do you believe that there should be a way for Law Enforcement officials to identify those on the internet who engage in illegal activities, for the sake of protecting the naive or easily prayed upon?
Question 2. Do you want us to have the power to know what you buy online, what your daughter looks like in a bikini, and read the email you sent to your working-away-from-home husband (Paul) with that photo of you(?) in the black and scarlet red corset (and not much else)?
If you answered differently to both of those questions, your opinion is not valid for this survey.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Crest reports that 4 out of 5 dentists agree...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
What semi-literate posted that?
Anyway, the summary is misleading as well as poorly drafted. If you read TFA, it's not a simple survey about "Censorship: good or bad?", it was about the perils of the Internet, and whether the government should protect users from porn, stalkers, malware, fraud. Put in those terms, you'd get similar answers anywhere. And of course, Chinese are not stupid. Those that DO have misgivings about government controls are exactly the people who suspect that every word they write is monitored.
Guo said that the explanation for this increase probably lies in the spate of widely publicized incidents of fraud, blackmail, sensationalism, and other abuse of Chinese citizens via the internet. The Chinese word used for "politics" in this survey, zhengzhi, is not confined simply to political rights or competition for political control but may be understood to include larger questions of public morality and social values. While I love bashing Communists, the report simply doesn't allow it. It appears to be more of a cultural, rather than political, difference.
Pretty damn interesting, actually.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
You know, its easy to paint everyone in China as a victim of internet persecution, but maybe the Chinese really do want a regulated and censored internet. I mean, think about it. China is a very conservative society. If the Chinese government really could block all porn, criminal sites, spyware sites, or even plain disruptive content, and everything like it, then, a lot of people who actually like where their country is headed wouldn't think too much of giving up the right to criticize their government in order to get their "safer" internet. I mean, if George Bush had won Iraq, and USA GDP was growing by 10% a year, real US wages were doubling, everyone was building like crazy, new skyscrapers were popping up everywhere, then, who would really be complaining?
This is my sig.
Unless the Chinese asked were older than 65, they are unlikely to even know what it's like without government "control". It's akin to asking a wild mustang if he likes horseshoes.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Oh please. Stop this. Seriously. This gets regularly trotted out by people who have no concept of what censorship actually is. Do you know who actually does the "censoring" in Slashdot? You do. You, by setting your preferences to filter out comments under a certain threshold, you remove someone's ability to be read. As a result, you're the censor on slashdot. Not CowboyNeal, not the moderators, but you - and you alone. So stop blaming others for your actions.
Not to mention that telling others that an opinion is worthless is not the same as censoring. Sometimes, I wish people would spend some time in a country that actually does censor speech, so that they understand the difference. Censoring speech: someone breaks your fingers or throws you in the slammer for propagating illegal/unwanted opinions. Moderating: a mark that tells others "Warning - stupid person talking."
Normally, confusing the two is a sign that the person is 13 and hasn't gotten to political science in high school yet, but that'd make your UID too low. I can only assume you're just confused.
I also have no idea how you managed to misspell "threatened" like that.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
85% thought the government was conducting the poll.
If you live in a totalitarian dictatorship and your phone rings and someone says, "I'm conducting a poll for the blah blah blah organization that you've never hear of before, do you think our glorious leader is a really great guy or do you want needles under your fingernails?" How do you answer?
In a place where people legitimately fear speaking the truth, all polls are biased.
-- QED
True. Just look at how many of the DailyKOS posters have been jailed or executed for speaking out against the government. FYI that number is 0 (ZERO)
They are being sent there because they were allegedly captured as illegal combatants and/or provided support to a terrorist orginization
FTFY. Everyone in Gitmo is an innocent man according to our laws.
Like I said, we can debate the wisdom and legality of Gitmo all day long. Personally I want to see it closed down ASAP and those within given every bit of due process that I'm entitled to as an American citizen.
None of that changes the fact that the GP was a blatant troll designed to stir up a flamefest though.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If Jim calls Bob's dog out of control because it pissed on his shoes, it is not logical for Bob to respond by saying that his dog clearly is not out of control because it has not yet mauled Jim to death.
Cow Cube
100% of americans like corporate internet censorship because they think it's only censorship when the government is behind it.