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With Olympics Over, China Re-Censors Internet
eldavojohn writes "We last left the story of Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China when the IOC had reached a deal with the Chinese government whereby some of the press restrictions were lifted. With the 2008 Olympics now but a memory, China has began censoring foreign news sources again. Maybe the West is making too big of a deal over this, as many Chinese citizens seem to like it that way."
Somehow, I find that suspect.
Happiness in slavery.
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An hour later, and they're hungry for censorship again.
They don't like it this way, they just know better at this point. It's like hitting a dog with a stick anytime he goes to get a snack from you, eventually he won't go get the snack even if you aren't carrying a stick. The dog learns not to like snacks, because who knows if you are hiding a stick somewhere. It's just safer not to like snacks. The chinese people are tired of being hit with sticks and are afraid. It's fear, plain and simple.
Maybe the West is making too big of a deal over this, as many Chinese citizens seem to like it that way.
Many US citizens liked slavery, once. And not letting women vote. The fact that only a minority is being oppressed doesn't make it not oppression, and it doesn't make it right.
I'm sorry if it makes you feel awkward to take a stand on basic human rights, but when it comes to issues of rights and ethics, not all viewpoints are equally valid.
Then again, I rather suspect you knew all that. I suppose I've been trolled.
In America, people complain when the government starts censoring the news. In Soviet China, people complain when it stops.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
The IOC must learn that there is no long term positive effect of allowing a totalitarian government to host the olympics in exchange for agreements that are slowly implemented and quickly removed, just as the western countries have learned that when the IOC makes such a mistake it is wrong to respond by boycotting the games.
I think it can compare to when you first wake up or come out of a dark area. At first all of the light hurts your eyes and your initial reaction is to shield yourself or go back to the darkness.
It has to be a slow transition to open information flow or it will be overwhelming.
As far as most Chinese are concerned their government is great. For more than a decade the average Chinese citizen has seen there lot only improve. Naturally the government there is taking full advantage of this by giving themselves all the credit. Thus to many in China it seems that the government is doing a great job, and who are they to argue with success?
It won't last though. There's a generation of children being born who will take economic prosperity for granted. It's the nature of humanity, and by that same token they'll want more than just that. With economic power in their hands they'll want political power, and that's when the government will be in trouble.
What do the people seem to want (according to the quoted survey)? A more reliable source of information, and who should ensure the internet is "more reliable" other than the state?
"Since the only legitimate source of authority in many aspects of Chinese life is the state, when Chinese citizens are of the opinion that some aspects of the internet should be controlled, it is natural for them to assume that the state should take the lead in doing the controlling."
The censorship we're seeing is (IMO) wrong. The survey seems to be being misrepresented in this context. Or rather, the people's wishes are not being reflected in the way the censorship is being condected...
Oh arse
I have heard people complain about things like spam and porn on the internet and say "Why doesn't the government do something about it". If you frame the question properly in the US I bet you would get a surprising amount of support for government censorship.
More like:
Toe the "Party Line" or find yourself "Dissapeared" in short order.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
I was there during the Olympics and had internet access through a residential hookup. There was a lot of censoring going on: for example, URLs containing "blog" were generally not accessible. It was clearly not related to what was on the blog, but a blanket thing.
"as many Chinese citizens seem to like it that way."
Particularly those who are concerned that the masses will learn how miserable and fettered their lives are.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
And that's not meant to be an insult. It's a sad, unfortunate truth that has been manufactured by their government. I've had Chinese friends throughout my university years, and I can't count the number of times I got little other than blank stares when talking about Tiannamen Square. Then they see the pictures and the footage, and _that's_ when it really gets scary -- I would say the reactions were half and half.
Half were disgusted that their government would commit such atrocities, and it really hit them personally -- most Chinese people are tremendously patriotic, and to see what happened there really shakes their foundations. Some of them were brought to tears.
The other half? Well, their reaction was more like, "tough shit. They were out of control and they shouldn't have been protesting there, the army did the right thing."
The right thing. By running over an unarmed guy with a fucking tank, among other horrors, they did the right thing?
It's no surprise that they enjoy being censored by their government because they're almost unwilling to accept that their government can do any wrong -- and why should they? Their government, as horrible as it is, has managed to turn China into what is perhaps the most economically sound of the Asian nation. Hell, half of what runs the Western world (e.g. computers) are _made_ in China. They feel superior, and they feel their government is superior as well. It might be hard to understand, but just as much as they believe Tiannamen Square, Tibet and the Falun Gong are all better off having had government "intervention," they also believe that the government is "right" in censoring them.
Ya, be careful what bus you get on..http://http//www.dvorak.org/blog/2006/06/16/death-on-wheels/
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
You kind of went off on a tangent there. Actually, the entire post was a tangent. As far as anyone in the USA accessing anything on the internet: What is the government censoring? Please be specific here as I'm no longer in the USA and am curious what I can get here in Europe that you can't. I know of many blacklisted sites/subjects but that has more to do with internet providers than the government deciding that a certain word is verboten to search for.
Please enlighten me as to what specifically you in America can not access or search for because of government censorship.
Well, thanks to the Internet, I'm now bored with sex.
It's not just Chinese. US citizens seem to enjoy having their rights violated as well. They reelected Bush, most of those responsible for the PATRIOT act are still in office, etc. etc. As long as the government provides bread and circuses, nobody really cares about rights. That's the same for the East and West.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Just wait until the London Olympics. We'll show the Chinese. Ha, they don't even have 5 million security cameras. Amateurs. Hadriansfirewall will kick your Greatfirewall's ass.
Comrade Gordon "the Butcher of Woolies" Brown-shirt, and Leader Jacqui "Winston" Smith will show you the way.
You seem to complain about media laying blame for whatever bad thing at the feet of Americans, but immediately you do the same thing with Muslims. If you think that 'the other side' is doing something wrong, then I hope you see that you are making the same mistake as they are: making a complex situation easy for yourself by blaming the people you do not associate with for anything that you perceive is wrong with that situation.
Care to justify your assertion that they don't like it this way? Your own beliefs regarding free speech, etc., are not valid justification for what other people may believe.
As hard as it may be to believe for jaded Americans, the majority of the Chinese actually approve of and trust their government. I say this because it seems in America, people whine and bitch about being forced to choose the lesser of two evils, whereas in China people generally tend to be content with whoever Congress deems suitable to elect.
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
You are missing one bit: the dog is convinced that the stick is good for it.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
I think it can compare to when you first wake up or come out of a dark area. At first all of the light hurts your eyes and your initial reaction is to shield yourself or go back to the darkness.
So it like that bright shiney thing in the sky. I saw it once. I hate that thing.
Also, there is no Chinese "people." There are Chinese individuals, and they are most definitely not the government. They are its victims. You might want to look into organ harvesting to see what's going on over there.
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Whine Whine Whine...
If you were in other countries you could get imprisoned or killed from saying that. While I do appreciate people keeping an eye on our rights to make sure they don't slip away quietly. However when you are a in a country that doesn't guarantee (or even respects) freedom of speech things like Open Source as free speech, or pornography etc... all seem like silly ideas. They just want to say Hey I dislike this government without getting killed.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
you must be new here.
You take it, I don't want it...
I do not blame muslims for everything. I merely state facts.
Extremists like you are exactly the same as muslim extremists.
You look for crazy, far-out interpretations of islam in order to justify hating them.
They look for the exact same crazy far-out interpretations in order to justify hating you.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of muslims don't give a damn about the batshit crazy stuff either of you come up with because (a) there is always more to the story than you guys are willing to present and (b) its obvious you guys are just grasping at straws to rationalize your own illogical beliefs.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You don't state facts, you're cherry-picking them. The claim that Mohammed had sex with Aisha at age 9 is disputed. Others have put her at 14 to 15. While this seems weird today, applying 21st-century standards to the 7th century is disingenuous at best.
You also conveniently ignore what Aisha did after Mohammed's death to advance the power of women in Beduin society at that time and that she is revered as a role model by millions of women around the world today. They probably all hate themselves in your view, right?
Not to mention that if you go by the evil things done by men in the name of religion, all religions are equally guilty. Fortunately, humans are good at compartmentalizing, religious people probably more so.
Your zealous focus on Islam betrays your hate.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
If you read the report that says that 85% of those surveyed think the government should control the internet, it says, "This survey was funded by the New York-based Markle Foundation and directed by an internationally respected research team at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. As required of all public-opinion polling in China, either the survey or the surveyors must be approved by the government, and some topics that Westerners might have liked to see addressed directly, such as censorship, were not." How is any public survey useful if the respondents to the survey had to be filtered by the government?!?
Open Standards Portal
I disagree with your reasoning. You quote things, then say they are true for every Muslim. Like an individual Muslim cannot have their own opinion on any subject.
The same can be said for Americans, but that still doesn't make it correct.
The American president says that same-sex marriage is wrong, guns are an important right, privacy is not (he should be able to look at everybody he wants in great detail, without their knowledge), America brings democracy where ever it goes and if he thinks your middle eastern village has a terrorist in it, he should be able to bomb it.
You know that being American actually means something. It is not just a name. Being American means that you consider these things a virtue.
There is nothing unusual about having your internet access filtered in the workplace, which is a far cry from the great firewall of china.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
Sorry, but I'm going to have to agree with the other poster that you've simply missed out on the fact that the Chinese actually do *like* this system. If you had a time machine and took pictures of what happened at Abu Ghraib back to 2000 and asked most Americans what they thought of the events, they would've been horrified. Tell them that these were prisoners of war, and they might have been setting bombs that killed soldiers, and most Americans would have still been appalled.
Fast forward a few years until it's *our* government doing it, and patriotism / nationalism / partisanship or what-have-you has made a bunch of people wrap their brains around the notion that torture is good. Why? Because they love their country / their chosen ideology / their President or whatever, and they rationalize away any negative behavior as good. The Chinese people do the same thing. It seems to be a universal human quality that one takes pride in the group one is in and rationalizes away all bad behavior. So, I'm not surprised that the Chinese like it.
Plus, unlike us, they have been raised from birth with a values system that prioritizes social stability and harmony over individual liberty. 2500 years of Confucian thought doesn't just vanish with the modern age. China would never be the birthplace of democracy. It's just not a natural progression of their dominant social philosophies. Hopefully, they can learn, but they'll have to overcome far more inertia than the early American colonists did. FAR more inertia.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Muslims are the filthiest animals on earth (literally from the quran, 8:55, with "infidels" replaced by "muslims")
Thanks for an easy one. Anyone following along should take this as an example of "your game" - the one I referred to originally where you and other extremists deliberately misinterpret scripture in order to rationalize your mental disease.
You claim the quran says literally "Infidels are the filthiest animals on earth" - a phrase which exists in no english translation of the quran at all, not even the most extremist. A prefect example of the way extremists like you take scripture out of context.
[8:54] Such was the case with the people of Pharaoh and others before them. They first rejected the signs of their Lord. Consequently, we annihilated them for their sins. We drowned Pharaoh's people; the wicked were consistently punished.
[8:55] The worst creatures in the sight of GOD are those who disbelieved; they cannot believe.
[8:56] You reach agreements with them, but they violate their agreements every time; they are not righteous.
Surah 8 Al-Anfaal
So, here we have first an example of how the God of Moses punished the people of Pharaoh - because he broke his promise to the Israelites - and how those rules still apply, furthermore the line you tried to misquote refers to a specific battle with the Banu Qurayza in which the Qurayza were reported to have twice broken agreements of peace with mohammed's group. It clearly isn't racist, nor is it any justification for hatred the way you would have it.
And that is a typical example of why you are just a broken record of extremist hate. Go and bugger off now little hater boy.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It irks me that democracy has become such a buzzword, placed on a pedestal as some sort of basic human allowance. But it's really not the best form of government, and some would argue that it's not even a good one. Most countries that claim to be democratic don't even directly implement it.
There is no good form of government. As Churchill said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried." Democracy in its purest form is actually pretty terrible. The whole "two wolves and one sheep deciding what to have for dinner." But democracy as it's commonly implemented today actually has several, common anti-democratic features, like a prohibition on the right of a majority to decide what speech is acceptable or what race gets to ride on the bus or what religions one is allowed to believe in.
It's mostly those anti-democratic elements of modern democracies that most people praise when they talk about democracy being a fundamental human rights -- the right to dissent, to be different, and to still have equality of opportunities. The right to vote for your leaders is only half of the equation. (It is still important, though, as we have no system to reliably produce enlightened despots instead of the standard god-awful variety.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Here's a thought experiment. Suppose you're a Chinese entrepreneur given cash by a bunch of gullible Americans. You're an approved organisation which means you give results that won't annoy the Chinese government and cause them to pull your approval. Polling people is expensive. Do you 1) Poll lots more randomly selected people than the survey requires and cherry pick to the the politically correct results or 2) Make shit up, or poll a bunch of people who are politically reliable.
The survey is worthless.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Does islam encourage the rape of children ? Well here's the description of what the paedophile prophet did to a 9 year old he had bought :
islam encourages child rape as much as christianity encourages smashing babies heads against rocks.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones Against the rock.
hehehehe. Let me see. Who had control of the white house AND congress in 2002? Oh yeah; THE PUBS. ANd when was Obama in Office? 2005. And when was USPATRIOT ACT? 2002.
But I find it interesting that you pubs are working SO HARD to blast, FUD, and outright LIE about Obama before he has even started. Says a lot about pubs and patriotism.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I lived in Taiwan and Asia for 5 years. I know and interact with a fair number of Mainland Chinese now that I'm back. Many (most) have Masters degrees or higher and have lived in the US for 10+ years.
The thing I've discovered is they are extremely Nationalist. Because I spent most of my time in Asia in Taiwan and married there I get plenty of earful of how Taiwan (and Tibet) are part of China and how ANYONE who disagrees needs to be beaten up (literally, financially or otherwise) because China is a bigger more powerful entity than anyone else. (might makes right is the prevailing Political theory among the educated)
Nationalism in China is running at levels not seen since August 1914.
So it is not "Slavery = Happiness," But "Nationalism = Happiness."
The communists are really riding a tiger here. They are constantly stoking the flames of Nationalism and desperately dependent on Economic growth to give them legitimacy and allow them continued rule. So long as they can continue to step on the throats of smaller people (Tibet) and have money in their pockets it makes the people feel happy.
Anyways, there are whole volumes of books out there for those that are interested (Look up Tyranny of History (0140146776) to get started). Also ask the next Mainland Chinese person you meet outside of China what he thought of the French President meeting with the Dali Lama recently. You will get some very interesting answers.
Not the same thing. This is the fallacy of moral relativism at work again on two grounds
1. Bush never committed active genocide. Muslims have, several times, in the 20th century (Armenia, Pontic Greeks, Bangladesh)
Moral relativism my ass. You think America hasn't committed genocide? Furthermore, that is completely irrelevant to my point which was that nit-picking specific characteristics of a small minority and using them to define an entire group is typical innumerate racist idiocy.
No such demographic exists in the Muslim world that actively undermines Islamic terror. All we hear are hollow condemnations of Wahabbism and Deobandi militancy. Nobody (and I mean nobody) in the entire Muslim world actively undermines their proliferation. Witness the recent terror attacks in Mumbai, and the active collusion of the Pakistani government in as well as the widespread approval of the Pakistani people (second-most Muslim population) of the attacks. Clearly, most of the Muslim world is on board with the terrorists.
Get a grip. You confuse territorial conflict with an idealogical conflict. Mumbai and almost all "terrorism" in India is about Kashmir separatism. You might as well complain that muslims aren't doing enough to stop the LTTE. While at the same time ignoring that Indonesia - the largest population of muslims in the world - has been very successful at stopping the proliferation of terrorism.
capable of critical thinking.
Critical thinking can only get you so far when you are innumerate.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.