Congress Mulls China's Networked Authoritarianism

eldavojohn writes "Rebecca MacKinnon tipped her hand about her congressional statements on China and how much Americans are invested in China's censorship, delivered today at a hearing on 'China's Information Control Practices and the Implications for the United States.' In an attempt to describe what China is pioneering, she coins the term 'networked authoritarianism.' Of most concern was Baidu, which has two Americans on its board of directors (out of five) as well as a lot of funding from American investors and mutual funds. From her testimony (PDF): 'As I have described in my testimony, the Chinese government has transferred much of the cost of censorship to the private sector. The American investment community has so far been willing to fund Chinese innovation in censorship technologies and systems without complaint or objection. Under such circumstances, Chinese industry leaders have little incentive and less encouragement to resist government demands that often contradict even China's own laws and constitution.' Is Congress genuinely concerned or are they just curious how they can make 'networked authoritarianism' work for them?"

Comments

Re:you don't who i am or what i am doing

[ElectricTurtle]

Still not hearing what you're doing different, which is why I 'don't [sic] who [you are] or what [you are] doing'. Kind of self-fulfilling, isn't it?

Re:there's an assumption there

[ElectricTurtle]

Actually, yes, you do need to have ground to stand on before you criticize others. If I a redneck dumbass who knows nothing about art walks into a gallery and says 'this painting is awful!' Nobody will take him seriously. If a professor of visual arts with years of study, practice, and knowledge walks in and says 'this painting is awful!' People will take notice, want to know why, etc. because that person has standing, has some educated background from which to offer useful criticism rather than a base reaction.

You say you're confident, but offer no substance, you're just dodging because you're full of shit.

I go out of my way to offer disapproval?! YOU STARTED A FUCKING THREAD TO TELL EVERYBODY WHAT LAZY GRIPERS THEY WERE! And now you're dodging any explanation of why you don't fall into your own sweeping generalization (criticizing me for not knowing you while at the same time denying to say anything about yourself when directly challenged to do so! self-fulfilling fucking prophecy), and you're trying to act like a fucking victim calling me a negative judgmental asshole over something YOU FUCKING STARTED to be FUCKING JUDGMENTAL of everybody else! You're going on my foes list you hypocrite asshole.