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A Look Into China's Web Censorship Program
kev0153 writes "MSNBC is offering a good article explaining some of the details behind China's web censorship program. 'Google's face-off with Beijing over censorship may have struck a philosophical blow for free speech and encouraged some Chinese Netizens by its sheer chutzpah, but it doesn't do a thing for Internet users in China. Its more lasting impact may lie in the global exposure it has given to the Chinese government's complex system of censorship – an ever-shifting hodgepodge of restrictions on what information users can access, which Web tools they can use and what ideas they can post.'"
I'm sure many citizens are content to accept censorship, because the impact is minimal. It isn't worth risking upheaval if they feel they don't have much to gain.
As fewer major players operate in China, the citizens will realize the effects of censorship more.
Doing so encourages the citizens of China to push for an end to censorship.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Google leaving China does do something for Chinese citizens -- it makes them wonder why Google pulled out. The Chinese govt. will have a difficult time offering a convincing explanation that isn't embarrassing. More convincing explanations will be found elsewhere on the internet, leading more people to distrust the Chinese government and start getting their news elsewhere.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
governments work when they rule by consensus. but when they need coercion to rule, they are weak, and their days are numbered. when, not if, the chinese economy takes a downturn (no economy grows forever), the people will inevitably grumble. but if they can't even grumble, it's not "harmonious", we shall begin to see an unraveling of faith in the government, like we see in tehran
why does the chinese government fear the words of its own people?
it lays bare the fact that their agenda is not the agenda of their own people
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Our site http://1place.com.au/ is blocked which on has our work or intellectual property generally (e.g. art events, design, patents, copyright, latest trade mark disputes, great marketing podcasts...) ....
However, the bare buttocks at the opera house as photographed by Spencer Tunick has no problems getting passed the great wall: http://thespencertunickexperience.org/2010-03_Sydney/Sydney_The_Base_2010.htm
I was surprised.
We were informed by a Chinese resident that: "Nudity is no probelm. It is subversive activity [of IP protection] such as your website that is blocked."
do you treat the people in your life well because... you FEAR them?!
that's not how the world works, nor basic human nature
either you're momentarily horribly wrong due to transient serious brain failure, or you're psychologically screwed up, to ever write anything like that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Do you have a sudden urge to purchase a copy of "Catcher in the Rye"?
Remember the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode where Quark is trying to get a replacement module to go in the head of Garrak (my spellings are probably atrocious), anyway: he contacts a "supplier" in the Cardasian government and asks him to look up the part number for him. The supplier does so and his computer informs him that by looking up that part number he has been automatically sentenced to 20 years or so of hard labor. Now that's efficiency. Quark hastily says good bye and cuts the connection.
Shh.
A friend has recently been to China, that is PRC. IRC worked normally, although he couldn't access facebook. So I've set up a normal HTTP proxy which was blocked immediately after the first page shown (facebook.com). IIRC it didn't even resolve facebook.com, we've had to put IPs in... but still my point is: they analyze the packets and they've seen the CONNECT in HTTP headers as it worked only on once request. After that I've set an another proxy (on an another IP), this time HTTPS. That worked, although you must route DNS requests somehow outside China or have a local nslookup table ;)
1place.com.au works here in Guangdong China just fine.
Confucius, one of the most influential philosophers in Chinese history. He has something to say about censorship and the role that the government should play in communicating with the people that I think makes what the Chinese are trying to accomplish a bit clearer:
Source
So notice how Chinese censorship not only applies to political messages but also to non-political messages that are deemed to not be representative of virtue. They shutdown people who have stock tip blogs, who are writing sex gossip columns, who become popular in signing and dancing competitions and professional sports culture. They don't want people who the government considers to be not good role models for the people to achieve any degree of fame. The government would never permit the kind of gangster/mafia glorifying culture in China which is so popular in many parts of the rest of the world no matter how non-poltiical.
BTW, I urge anyone who wants to understand China better to read Confucius. He was writing in about 200BCE, before China had any contact at all with the West so in order to fully appreciate it, one has to temporarily disregard everything one is familiar with in the western traditions and carefully digest his words.
if you live in a democracy
there's nothing to fear
it actively seeks to represent the middle ground. in this way it gains power. fear is never part of the process. its the difference between ruling by attractive force, and ruling by repulsive force
yes, as you say: it's not love, your government doesn't love you. but to even contemplate this absurdity says a lot about your thought processes. at best, you are offering a strawman. at worst you only understand simpleminded ideas of what government is. a democracy, rule by consensus, is not based on any kind of fear. really
that you believe only force, coercion and fear is the way all governments work in this world is some massive failure of perception on your part, and explains a lot of truly mindlessly cynical observations out there that i see people make about government
try to understand there's a little more nuance in your world. right now, your ability to understand what government is is stunted
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and so the people are not about to second guess it, as this has dramatically improved their lives
in the 1970s, we could have an argument about china avoiding capitalism, and you would have said: "who cares, the people still support the government"
but the government, wisely, embraced capitalism, jettisoning communism, leading them to where they are today
the same choices apply to democracy and freedom of expression
eventually, growth slows or declines, its inevitable: no economy grows forever. when that happens, the MAJORITY will grumble, and they will run headlong into their own government (no grumbling allowed!) then what? is the picture you paint of a mostly placated populace still relevant in your depictions?
now, the government, in its wisdom, could embrace freedom of expression and democracy, at some point, before the capitalist ride to prosperity peaks. and they thereby install pressure relief valves in society, and thus china is truly modern, and stable, and i would embrace such a china
but they also could wed themselves to continued absolute control of all expression and decide everything by elite class
and chinese society will begin to fall apart, and i will continue my disapproval
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So in order to be good journalism, it has to say what you want to hear ? Really ? I live in China and I wouldn't say that Chinese are willing and happy to be controlled, but most of them don't care that much to be honest. They are not very interested in politics, don't visit much Facebook or Youtube ...
I'm really sick of supercilious observers proclaiming that THEY know the one, true, reality and can therefore detect that the mainstream media are leading the masses by the nose. Those ineffably superior observers are, of course, immune to manipulation, and demonstrate their superiority by pointing out that fact. Give me a break.
The real beauty of free speech is that every point of view, distorted this way and that, to a greater or lesser degree, is available for people to compare and choose from. That is TOTALLY different from censorship, which restricts the spectrum of views available.
I suspect that the real problem these stuck-up observers have is that the masses disagree with their infallible judgement, and therefore the masses must have been manipulated and misled.