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China Says US Uses Facebook To Spread Political Unrest
crimeandpunishment writes "A Chinese government-backed think tank says the US and other western governments use Facebook and other social networking sites to spread political unrest. Their report says, 'We must pay attention to the potential risks and threats to state security as the popularity of social-networking sites continues to grow,' and calls for increased scrutiny of the sites."
Most stable governments can survive a bit of political unrest and it's good for society in general.
No government really welcomes free speech. Some may claim that they do, but actions speak louder than words. The only interest that a government has in free communication is when they have a firm grip over it's contents. It just happens that the US and other western governments have measures already in place to control or obfuscate the information on the web and in the media.
They create tools such as the Fairness Doctrine, and generally flood the people with "different viewpoints" to muddy the waters. China's issue is that it has spent so much time trying to shut down the internet that it really hasn't been able to get the control that it would like. That's where this campaign comes in. It's the Chinese who are now muddying the waters. They come up with some reports that claim that the west is actively trying to hurt them. Then, when people see something online, the Chinese government can say "It's all lies made up by west. Trust us instead."
In time, and with the rise of contentless Flash pages and product ads, the web will probably stop being useful for information to any but the hardcore nerd with time and tools to push past the fluff. Where are all the RDF search engines that we were promised? With HTML5 I hear people talking a lot about video playback functionality, but I haven't heard any buzz about the semantic web. A web that gives you only pretty pictures won't help the world, and likewise won't hurt a government.
There are 10 commandments: 01)Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God 10)Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.Matt22:34-40
I might have put it in different terms, but yeah, that's about the size of it.
As I grow into an "older perspective" on life, I begin to see that much trouble occurs when people try too hard to block "the human condition." We are all people and we think and feel as people do. It doesn't matter what spot of dirt you were born on or even what culture(s) you were born into so much. In varying degrees, we all pretty much want the same things and will act in many of the same ways to get them. (with a wide variety of personal limitations) And certainly one thing all people have in common is that we want to express ourselves and I'm not even sure that's exclusive to humans as I am sure pet lovers might agree.
The purpose of government is to serve society in a way that keeps it from destroying itself. I recognize what raw human desire, greed and ambition can drive people to do -- anything. That drive needs to be regulated for a healthy society to flourish. But without that raw human desire, there can be no healthy society and certainly no healthy individuals as our hopes and dreams are not so far removed from desire, greed and ambition. There are unquestionably good reasons why we have laws against murder and against theft. We need them to keep us from destroying one another. But going too far in the direction if controlling, limiting and containing the human spirit, which is what governments like China seek to do, and you will find people literally willing to die for the chance to express their thoughts and ideas.
In the U.S., our constitution (or what's left of it) was written specifically, to prevent government from serving itself instead of society. It has managed to slow the progress of greedy and ambitious people who seek to limit people in order to enrich themselves. The rights to free speech and to bear arms weren't written on a whim and were all about limiting what the government can do, because without limitations, government (which is a smaller group of people who regulate larger groups of people) will do what humans will do without regulation imposed upon them which includes killing and stealing and other things.
For China's government to assert that Facebook causes political unrest is nothing short of China's denial of what it means to be human. Every time I see censorship, I see one mind wishing to silence another mind. It just can't work that way... and it doesn't.